Verses one to five. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Remember the narrowing and the focusing that takes place here in Genesis 1 as you move from verse 1 to verse 2. And we talked about this at length last week, and so this is just a reminder as we begin. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then immediately in verse two, our focus is drawn in particularly to the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Why this immediate focusing of our attention upon earth? Because, brothers and sisters and friends, the Bible is a book of redemption for mankind. We are not told of the drama of the heavenly realm. Now, elsewhere in Scripture, there are little hints and little glimpses of that heavenly realm. But we are not given here in Genesis 1 an elaborate narration, for example, of the creation of the angels, or of the fall of the angels. We know that these things took place from later revelation, but we might wonder to ourselves, why not any more particular information about these things right here, where we would most expect it to occur here in Genesis chapter one? Well, many reasons we could perhaps think about, but the one that I want to draw our attention to is that this is a book of redemption for man. And we are to remember also the great watchword of Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." In Genesis 1, God gives us right from the beginning a revelation about his work of creation that is suited to us in the context of our desperate need for redemption. What do we know about the highest heavens? We know that God is there, that he is enthroned on high, that he is sovereign over everything, that he is surrounded by his angels. We know that he has prepared heaven to be the perfect habitation of those angels that are confirmed in righteousness, and that heaven is ready to receive the souls of glorified saints. But we move now to verse 2, and what do we know about earth? We know that it's not yet ready, right? It's not ready yet for its final purpose, which is as a habitation for God's image bearers. And we could again remember Psalm 115, verse 16. The heavens are the Lord's heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man. And what follows in verse two and beyond is this dramatic and dynamic unfolding of God's preparation of the earth for human habitation. And we might ask, well, what is God doing in all of this? This purposeful preparation of the earth, what is his goal? Well, he means to dwell with mankind. He means to create man in his image and to place him upon this earth that he might dwell with his image bearers. And you might say, well, how do we know that to be the case? And we know that to be the case because of how all of this ends. And it's a beautiful thing. We haven't done a whole lot of this, although we have done some of it. We can go to the end of the story and wonderfully and beautifully see what God has purposed. for the works of his hands. Revelation chapter 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, The dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. Now, to get us from Genesis 1 to Revelation 21, obviously a lot takes place, but we can go to the end of the story and see wonderfully that this is God's purpose. He is preparing earth for man's dwelling, his image bearers, that he might dwell with them. He means for the earth to be as a temple wherein he dwells with his glorified image bearers. We thought last week a little bit of a potential dilemma in verse one, what I called at the time the watchmaker dilemma. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Well, did he create them the way someone winds up a watch? And this is sort of a classic picture of philosophical thought about God. Did he create the heavens and the earth like a watchmaker creates a watch and winds it up and then just lets it go? Well, as we make it further and further into Genesis 1, we see that this is not at all how God has made the heavens and most certainly the earth. Far, far from it, far from just winding things up and letting them go, God is intimately present and involved, that he might dwell with mankind. Well, there's another dilemma that's introduced in verse two that is addressed now in verses three through five. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. Now, we talked much about verse two last week, but notice how in verses three through five, A dilemma is addressed that is present there in verse two. Well, there's darkness, right? And we know that that darkness is not something evil that God has created, far from any thought of that. It's simply that there is darkness that has not yet been addressed to make the earth a suitable place for God's image bearers to live and to dwell and to worship him and to serve him. And he deals with this in verses three through five. And brothers and sisters, it's a simple dilemma with a simple solution, isn't it? If there's darkness that we must deal with, what must we do? We must turn on the light. And so, on the first day of creation, verse three, God says, let there be light. What's the first thing God does to prepare the earth for the creation of the divine image bearer? He brings light. And as we think about these verses this morning, we're going to do so very simply. But for as simple as the outline will be this morning, it will bring us into utterly profound territory. I think I've mentioned this both in Genesis and in John, when you open up to the beginning of both of these glorious books, you find language that takes you into the depths of God's goodness and to the depths of God's eternal being. And each word cries out for us to hang upon it and meditate upon its richness. And so we have a simple outline but one that takes us into the profound depths of our God. We're simply going to look at the four verbs here in verses three through five. There are four actions that we are told that God does, and we will think some about the significance of each this morning. God said. God saw. God separated, and God called. These verbs come together, there are four verbs. My mind couldn't help but think of a great symphony of four movements, each one of these verbs coming together as this glorious symphony of the majesty and power of our God in this first day of creation. God said, God saw, God separated, and God called. And so first, God said, let there be light, and there was light. What do we learn immediately upon the beginning of verse three of Genesis chapter one? He is the God who speaks. And this simple fact is shattering, or ought to be shattering for us as we think about the character of our God, about the heart of God's being as he has revealed himself in his word. He is personal, he is communicative, he is relational, he speaks. He has a will and a plan, and by His speaking, He brings it about. It also speaks to us about His character, that He is good, for what is the first thing that God speaks into existence? It is the source of life. I think it was last afternoon we thought about this. What gives life to the earth, right? If we could imagine for a moment that the sun just poofed out of existence and was no more, it would take a little bit of time, but life on earth would end. The first thing that God speaks into existence is the source of life, and we're going to talk more about that light later, but for now, it speaks to us about the goodness of our God. He is good, he gives light, which is life. Now, there are ways in which God's speaking is like our speaking. But there are important ways that we must recognize that His speaking is also not like our speaking at all, utterly different than and other than our speaking. Because what do we see? God speaks and reality is formed. God speaks and light is. God's Word creates, God's Word shapes, God's Word defines created reality. In other words, this is no creaturely speaking. And we need to be careful here. when we read the opening verses of Genesis chapter one and the narration of the first day and also the speaking that God does through the rest of the chapter, we can be tempted perhaps to imagine this giant old man with a thick white beard and a deep thundering voice, and we are not to do so. God doesn't have a word that is like ours. We speak and our word is external to ourselves. As soon as we make the sounds, they are already, those words are already fading away. They sound, they echo, and then they're gone. Not so the speaking of our God. And the rest of the Bible will be absolutely enamored by this reality. And slowly but surely, throughout the whole of God's revelation, the profound depths of what it means that God has a word will be unfolded. And slowly but surely, in the outworking of God's plan of redemption, the unfolding of his revelation, We will learn more and more about the fact that God doesn't just have a word, but that God is his word. That God's word isn't something created, as though you have God, he speaks, and then there's something outside of himself. God's word is God. And it's almost like there's another book we're looking at, maybe in the afternoon, that unfolds the great depths and richness of what this means for us. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not made anything that was made. the glorious reality that God has revealed to us of the Holy Trinity. God doesn't just have a Word, He is His Word. God's Word is God, and that eternal Word is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And through Him, all things were made. And without Him was not made anything that was made. Our Maker, brothers and sisters, is our Redeemer. And is this not the strength and courage of our faith, that when we believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, we're not simply believing upon A man with many gifts, eloquent words, but who returns to the dust, as do all men. When we believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe that in the person of Messiah, God himself, has come down. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." That the Savior of men is the maker of men. The one about whom the Apostle Paul says, all things were made through him and for him. And we will talk more about this, but one of the glorious things that it means is that we haven't even finished three verses of the first book of the Bible. and we have been introduced to all three persons of the Holy Trinity. Now granted, we will need the rest of the Bible to fully work out the whole counsel of God as to the depth of that revelation. But verse one, in the beginning God, and verse two, the Spirit of God was hovering, and verse three, God said. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we'll return to this thought, but for now, as we have to move on to our second verb here very quickly, think with me of how stale and commonplace and cheap words have become. And I'm sure this is true in every generation, but we might say particularly in our own generation. all around us in this world, Monday through Saturday, right? Our minds are filled with an endless stream of meaningless words, right? Our whole society is a bartering and a clamoring after your attention and people will say anything and use however many words they think will be necessary to lay hold of that attention and to dominate it. All the sound and fury of men's words signifying nothing. May the cheapness of words in this present evil age never affect the wonder and the awe with which we come to behold God's word. And the effect that that then has upon how we think about our own words, God has a Word that is not made and is no creature, a Word that is Himself God, a Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. Our God is the God who speaks, and by His Word creates all things, and who reveals that that Word is the only begotten Son of the Father. Verse 3, God said, and verse 4, God saw. He is not only the God who speaks, he is the God who sees. And immediately, Moses draws us into the reality of God's omniscience, his knowledge, his awareness, his judgment, his sovereign rule over all things, his blessing upon the works of his hands. God not only speaks, but God sees. And this reality, you know, it's easy to read the beginning of verse four. and just pass over it. Because here's the problem. We read these verbs, again, sort of like a big version of ourselves speaking, or seeing, or separating. But brothers and sisters, in reliance on the illumination of the Spirit, we must see in each one of these verbs a revelation of the power of our God and the goodness of our God that far exceeds anything that we know from this creation. And God saw speaks to us of a profound and glorious reality of God's omniscience, that he is everywhere and at all times immediately present Now, this can be a reality that is a great comfort. It can also be a reality that it is a great discomfort to us, depending on our spiritual need and condition. We see frequently throughout the Bible men and women thinking that they can hide from God, that in their sin they can evade Him, And here we read the fourth verse of the first book of the Bible, God Sees. We cannot hide from him. He is ever present to all the works of his hands. And scripture meditates on this profoundly from beginning to end. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall your hand lead me. Now again, in our sin, that reality should not exist. break us, right? We cannot, how foolish of us to think that we can hide our sins from His gaze. But it is also an extraordinary comfort to us in our suffering. It's been a wonderful thing in the Children's Sunday School. We've been working through Exodus, the beginning chapters of Exodus, and the kids can all tell you this. It's a wonderful thing when God's people are suffering in Egypt as slaves, and their tormentors are making life miserable, and they cry out to God for rescue, what does the Bible say? God sees. God sees their suffering and hears their cries, and he rises up to rescue them. It's the same beautiful verb, God sees. He sees us in our sin, and we are fools when we think we can hide our hearts from him. But he also sees us in our suffering, and there is no suffering so deep that God is not with us and that God does not see and sustain. And that's the, we just read from Psalm 139, that is the joy of the psalmist's heart, that there is nowhere he can go, that there is no trial that he can undergo where God is not near, that God does not see and that God does not sustain. He is the God who speaks, the God who sees, And he is also the God who separates. And God separated the light from the darkness. So verse two, the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. Verse 3, God speaks light into existence, and then verse 4, He separates the light from the darkness. And this continues to speak to us about God's power and God's providence. He doesn't just speak, He doesn't just see, He also separates. He acts upon his creation. He is involved. He is near. He is shepherding the works of his hands. He is doing all of his holy will. He does not create except that he then shepherds those works toward his intended end. He separates. This is God's power over reality as we know it. We do not define reality for ourselves. He defines it for he has made it. He separates light from darkness. He separates clean from unclean. He separates holy from unholy. Righteous from unrighteous. goats from sheep, and no one can thwart his purposes. He is the one shepherding creation, shepherding all of life and existence according to his plan and his purpose. He speaks, he sees, he separates. And verse five, he calls. He is the God who speaks, the God who sees, the God who separates, and he is the God who names. He is the God who names. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And this speaks to us yet more about his power and his sovereignty. We don't have to make it very far into the book of Genesis to see that the act of naming is a display of sovereignty. And it's a display of sovereignty that God will show forth again and again. When he calls Abraham and Sarah, well, that's not what they're first called, right? He calls Abram and he calls Sarai, but as he works his gracious purposes into their lives, he gives them new names. He makes Jacob to be Israel. Now this is in the earthly sphere, but you could think about the book of Daniel. When we think about naming as an act of sovereignty, when Nebuchadnezzar takes God's people into exile, what does he do with the young men whom he wants to serve in his court? He gives them new names as a display of his sovereignty. They are citizens of a new kingdom, they are under a new authority, and now they have new names. Now that's a little king, right, who does that in the lives of a handful of people, and whose power is but temporary and fleeting. But that power and that authority, ultimately we see, where does it come from? Where is its most preeminent, glorious exposition? It is in the God who calls the light day. as a display of His sovereignty over the universe itself, He names. Now, taking shape in these three verses, in the power and beauty of these four verbs, these four actions, what do we see taking place? Is it not the coming of God's kingdom? Remember the goal of all of this. that God would create earth as a habitation for man with whom he might dwell. Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. These verses teach us that all truth, all purpose, It is defined and given by the God who has spoken all things into existence. And again, we are fools if we believe we can thwart His speaking and seeing and separating and naming power and sovereignty. Now, two things with which we will close this morning. I want us to speak a little more about light. and a little more about name. What is this light that God creates on the first day? Because we have, if we're reading Genesis 1 carefully, we've got a little bit of a problem, right? How do we know light? We know light because of our sun, and at night, the way that the light of the sun reflects off the moon, right? That's how we know light here on earth. But the problem is when we read Genesis 1, the sun and the moon aren't created until day four, later on in the process. So what is this business of light being created on the first day? Well, anytime we see a light, what do we do? Unless we're hiding from someone, we go towards it, right? Because if we see a light, what does that mean? There's a source, and we are drawn to that source, that we might come out of the darkness and into the light. And on day one, what is God telling us? Well, it's something that In 1 John, the Apostle John will say with absolute clarity, 1 John 1, if we say that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. God creates light on the first day that we might be drawn to its source. because God is himself light. Now, we have to be careful here again, because when scripture says that God is light, it does not mean to say that God is simply a collection of photons, whatever that might mean. God creates the physical phenomena of light as a testimony to the spiritual and eternal realities of his being. He creates physical light that we might be drawn toward Him as eternal light and as the source of all life and all goodness. And Scripture will continue to speak of God as light. The Apostle Paul to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, that God dwells in unapproachable light, And of course, returning to our verses from the beginning of the Gospel of John, what do we continue to learn about the Word? Yes, the Word is there in the beginning with God, and the Word was God, and what else? In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. From the very first day of creation, we are being taught about the eternal being of God, about the glory of his Son, who is the light of the world. And we see in the very narration of creation on the first day, a picture of new creation. a picture of the glory that God is bringing to a broken and fallen earth through his Son, the one through whom all things were made, and the one in whom things are being reconciled, even things in heaven and on earth. And we've looked to this verse a couple times, and we'll probably look to it a couple times more, but 2 Corinthians 4, where Paul puts in direct parallel the glory of the first creation and the glory of the new creation. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When Jesus stands before Israel and says, I am the light of the world, that is no small claim. That's no just mere poetical flourish. He means to take people back to Genesis chapter one, to proclaim himself as the maker of heaven and earth, the one who is there with his father, the one through whom all things were made, the word by which all things were spoken into existence, and the very light by which life is sustained on earth and in all the universe. The light that draws all men to God, Jesus says, I am that light. And no one comes to the Father except through me. Now we might wonder that darkness is left. Verse five, God called the light day, but he does not here in Genesis chapter one, completely eradicate the darkness. And the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning the first day. Why leave darkness? Well, again, the beauty of the light is set against the backdrop of the darkness. And with evening and with morning, God institutes a rhythm that is designed to remind mankind of His beauty and of His glory. That every new morning, every new dawn, it is a testimony and it is a promise of the goodness of our Creator. If we trust in Him, if we follow that light to its source, we will find that His mercies are new every morning. Day number one, God creates light because He is light. and he means to display the source of life to all the created universe. Now, very briefly, I do want to talk about this business of naming. God called the light day because this has powerful meaning and purpose to us. God names, it is a display of his power and his sovereignty. He has given you life and he has given you existence. And each one of you at your birth received a name from your parents, right? What's one of the first things we ask one another when we meet somebody new? Well, we want to know their name. We tell them our name and they tell us theirs. At your birth, your parents named you. and I want to think about something in conclusion that may actually, in fact, be something very hard to do. Think about your name. What have you done with that name? How have you stewarded the name given to you at your birth? Now, each one of us will meditate on this in a very different way. But I don't think that any of us can think about that question for any real length without some amount of pain and grief. What have we done with our names? Because which one of us has stewarded our name with perfect faithfulness and righteousness? And for some of us, it may be a little more than pain and grief to think about that question. Perhaps we have destroyed our name. What hope is there? Revelation 2, verse 17. To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. Revelation chapter three and verse five. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. Revelation chapter three and verse 12. To the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it. And I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven and my own new name. Which one of us has preserved our name, you see, in faithfulness? We have not. But that is the very promise of Christ in the gospel of our salvation, that he would give us a new name. That he would give us a new name, brothers and sisters, that yes, weeping may tarry for the night, but joy will come in the morning. that His mercies are new every morning, and His promise is nothing less than a new name, a new name by which we are incorporated into the people of God, united to the Lord Jesus Christ, a new name that Jesus Himself says that He will confess before His Father and before His angels. And so right here at the beginning of the Bible, I hope we're tasting, brothers and sisters, the glory of the redemption that is ours in Christ, and the way in which meditating on the first creation we see and we are led to the glory and the beauty and the salvation of the new creation that God has provided through Christ, who is the Word become flesh and dwelt among us. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, We praise you for these things. We are weighed down by the sludge and the muck of this world, the thousands of meaningless words, and the pain and the grief, knowing, Father, we have not preserved our names. But in you, we have the promise of a new name. And so let us not be slack in confessing our sins and clinging to Christ. Running to him, for today is the day of salvation. As we meditate upon the first creation, Lord, let us rejoice. For the God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown into our hearts to shine the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Newness, Father, light, life, glory, this is your promise to those who love you. Let us lay hold of Jesus Christ and never let go of him as we trust in your strength and rely on your spirit. We pray these things in his name. Amen.