We've been in Genesis the last couple of weeks, just starting the book. Today we'll actually start in verse one. We're gonna look at verses one through five in the first day of creation. And we're starting at the very beginning here, and we're gonna see the Lord begin his wondrous work to start all things as we know them. On the first day, God begins three things. He begins time and matter and light. In this first verse, we move from an eternity to a present. We move from just God to something else. Time begins, matter begins, light begins. And we should think often on the act of creation because in it, we see God's glory expressed as we do nowhere else. One day we might see this again, right? We don't know what the creation of the new heavens and the new earth is gonna look like, but that's as close as we can hope, if you know Christ, to seeing what happened here in creation. but no one else is able to do this. No one else can speak and from nothing make everything. And as we go through this today, we're gonna admit some stuff. We're gonna admit that we don't know absolutely everything here. We don't know what all it looks like. And there's some debate even as to verses one and two, and do these just describe the whole of creation? And then we get more information further on. I'll share my position with you there. But there's never been anything like this. And the only one here to witness this part, I believe, or at some point in this, we have the angels occur somewhere in the six days of creation. I don't know where they come. But somewhere in these six days, I believe we have the angels created and Job speaks of their witness to creation. But we don't know exactly what this looks like. So where it's unsure, I'm going to tell you that I'm not sure. And I don't think we know because God was there to witness this and no one else. But this is still a text that gives us great joy and peace and comfort and hope. So let's think well on our Lord today as we approach this text. If you're able, I'm gonna ask that you stand with me out of reverence to the reading of God's word. We're gonna read Genesis 1, verses one through 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. Father, we thank you so much for your work. We thank you, Lord, that you are the one who has power to speak and create from nothing. We praise you, Lord, for we stand in all of you in your creation. Help us today as we consider this text, be glorified in it, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Please be seated. We've spoken the last two weeks of the definitiveness of God, that he spoke and created, and this happened once. We believe that God created in six literal 24-hour days, and that in this time, everything in heaven and on earth was made. They were made by God in the beginning. And we see that in verse one, that there's a summary here. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And we don't know exactly what this consists of, but we do know that somehow here earth is in its form, that there's nothing and then God speaks and this begins. As you spoke about in the last two weeks, the fact that God made all these things in the beginning means that he existed before the beginning. And again, in this first day, we see time and matter and light come into being. We're going to deal with each of these three in order today, though time and matter, I believe, were essentially created at once. John MacArthur said, in that first instant of creation, the space-mass-time universe began to exist. So God made time. We see in the beginning, Before anything else was, when it was just God, He creates. And while this is a general statement of creation, we get this idea that there's more besides just light coming on day one. Time does not exist when there's no matter that is subject to time. we see everything in existence as subject to time. You might be further along in years than others that are here today. And maybe you would say, oh, I have a coat or a tie or a shirt or something that's older than many of the people in this room. Well, one day that article of clothing is going to disintegrate. It's going to go away. Everything, your vehicles, the rocks beneath your feet will one day go away because everything is subject to time. Our entire world is wrapped up in it. You only get so many minutes in a day and you've got to use those minutes to the glory of God. The Bible tells us to redeem the time because the days are evil. Even our distance to the stars above are measured in light years. And as we think about creation, just in case you're wondering, just because a star is billions of light years away doesn't mean that the universe is billions of years old. God created the star and at the same time created the light from that star. But even Arendelle, which is the furthest star that we know of, is 12.9 billion light years away. This doesn't tell us that the universe is billions of years old. It tells us that God made the light at the same time. But even Arendelle is subject to time. And if you're wondering why that word sounds like it came from Tolkien's Elvish, it's because it did. It means morning star or dawn in the language that Tolkien invented. He invented two languages and essential parts of a number of others in the writing of the Lord of the Rings. Really in 30 years of work, the man put into those books. But everything we know is subject to time, but God is not. So before he began to create, there is no time because it's just him for all of eternity. And we can't imagine what this is like because we're so subject to it. The fact that he made in the beginning, sorry, tells us that he is apart from the beginning. He is not subject to time and before he made all things, there was no time. There's no sunrise or sunset, which we'll see time is actually separated from those things that we govern them by. There were no stars to number the days or the seasons. Time began when God created all things. Romans 4.8 declares, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come, because he exists apart from time. Revelation 1.8, he says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. Hebrews 13.8 says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And 2 Peter 3.8 says, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord made time because he exists apart from it. Our ability to measure time began when God said, let there be light. The second thing that we see God make on this first day of creation is matter. Verse two says, 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. This is another point where we're not sure exactly what this looked like, but the earth is here in some form and entirely covered by water. We see later in creation that God made the dry land appear. But here we have the earth in place. It's without form and void. There's no inhabitants of the earth. This is the idea of the word void. It's without form, it's nebulous. There's just water that's covering everything. The earth is present on day one, but we don't know exactly what it looked like past that. There's no sun, moon, or stars yet. He said he made the heavens. This may be the heavenly realm where we think God to dwell, where our Savior now dwells at the right hand of God, though the Father is omnipresent. He's in all places at all times. But the sun, moon, and stars aren't there yet. Those come on day four. And this raises the issue as to whether or not humans should believe that the earth is the center of the universe. The modern secular view would be that that's arrogant. To think that everything would be centered here. And there's two specific reasons that you should think that the earth is the center of the universe. And I'm not talking a spatial centering, right? I'm not talking its exact location in the cosmos. But the fact that everything is about the earth. Well, the first is that God created the earth first. Sun, moon and stars don't come till later. In fact, for those gap theorists, right? You get vegetation before you get sunlight. You can't have millions, billions of years, long periods of time between days of creation when vegetation comes before sunlight. But you see that God speaks and the earth and whatever these heavens look like, they are created. It was the first thing that he makes of all of his handiwork. The second reason is that God sent his one and only son here. God himself came here and took on human flesh and died to redeem those made in his image. Now God is omnipresent. So he is in Arendelle right now, 12.9 billion light years away, and he is here now. But the one time that God has taken bodily form, The one time the incarnation occurred was when God came to earth to redeem his people. And God's creation on the first day, he made something that was then shaped into the earth. Verse two, again, tells us that it's without form and void, and there's no light yet. This happens later on the first day. The entire surface of the earth is covered by water. We see this, the idea here says, darkness was over the face of the deep. The Bible uses the deep to refer to oceans. And Isaiah 51 in verse 10 says, was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? Psalm 104 verses five and six also describes the water covered state of the earth. He set the earth on its foundation so that it should never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment. The water stood above the mountains." In the beginning, God creates the earth and it's covered with water. But then there's something that seems kind of confusing and maybe a statement that you would just pass over. It says, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Have you thought deeply on this before? You think about what it means? The word hovered here is used two other times in the Bible, in the Old Testament. It's translated often as shake in Jeremiah 23.9 or flutter or fluttering in Deuteronomy 32.11. And the idea seems to be a quick vibration over the waters. And many commentators postulate that this is God in doing a life energy to creation out of which he makes everything that's gonna come from these waters. The dry land appears, the firmament separates. You have men that are created from the dust of the ground. Henry Morris in his book on Genesis says, in modern scientific terminology, The theist translation or the translation of someone who believes in the Lord would probably be vibrated. If the universe is to be energized, there must be an energizer. If it is to be set in motion, there must be a prime mover. It seems that the spirit hovered over the face of the waters and endued energy into the creation. Now this stands apart from a deistic worldview that would say there is a God, but he made everything and then just left it. This was the view of many of the founding fathers, including like Thomas Jefferson in particular. that Jeffersonian Bible was handed out to every member of Congress until, I think, 1952. And you would say, oh, how far we've departed when so many of our leaders are secular today. Well, Jefferson actually took scissors and cut out everything divine about Jesus from the Bible, or tried to. He went to the Gospels and cut out all the miracles because he was a deist. He believed that God created, but he didn't believe that Jesus was God. So the position of the deists is that God made everything and they call it like the watchmaker's theory, where the watchmaker assembles the watch and puts all the cogs in place and then winds it up and lets it go. Well, we see even here in Genesis, that's not what the Lord did. He made everything and he endued it with power and he stays there. There's a reason that he breathes into man's nostrils the breath of life and then man becomes a living soul because God was intimately involved with men. There's a reason that he would walk without him even in the garden. You see him come and spend time with Abraham and make a covenant with Abraham. He puts Abraham to sleep and walks through the midst of the torn animals to make his covenant with him. He appears to Moses in a burning bush. He's there and present when Elijah calls down fire from heaven. He's there when Jesus comes, God in human flesh, and dies on the cross for our sins. He's there with every author of the Bible. as the Holy Spirit works through them to bring exactly the words that God intended to be written down for us. God is intimately involved with his creation. And it begins here, as he's making. He didn't just start things and let them go. Your life isn't subject to random events or chance. Did you know that when the wind blows through a tree outside, that every leaf turns exactly as God has intended? Every blade of grass bends as he chooses. Every drop of rain is navigated from where it coalesces around a speck of dust to where it splashes on the earth when it's done. Everyone is guided by the hand of God. Every circumstance in your life, What you're going through right now, how you're feeling right now, it's all under God's hand. And it all begins here. He's not a hands off God. He's an intimately involved God. And sometimes he feels really far away. But I think we can look at a passage like this and say, he's hovering over the face of the waters. He's in doing energy unto his creation. He's bringing his energy, his power, the life force that scientists can't explain. He brings it then and he brings it now. Hebrews and Colossians tells us that Jesus upholds the universe by the word of his power. What makes electrons move? What makes cells hold together? What makes, we're gonna get to light, light? Scientists can't explain it. There's an energy in this world that comes from the Lord because He is so involved in His creation. Douglas Kelley speaks to this. He says, This is the direct antithesis of any sort of philosophical deism or theological dualism, both of which assume a vast gap between the living God and the space-time cosmos. Deism pictures a remote deity, unable or unwilling to intervene immediately in the natural realm. That assumption explains much of the traditional and contemporary resistance to the biblical teaching of creation, as well as to the reality of many miracles. Christ's incarnation and intercessory prayer. It must be remembered that the deistic gap between God and the world is merely a philosophical assumption, an axiom of naturalistic religion, as it were, not a scientific fact. God is not far off. He is here now. And he has been ever since he spoke creation into existence. God makes time as he begins all things and he makes matter, the earth is here. It's without form, it's void, but there's a darkness over the face of the deep and the spirit hovers over the face of the deep. And he sees this darkness and our God is God of everything But he's a God of light in particular. And he makes light. God said, let there be light. And there was light and God saw that the light was good. And he 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. He spoke light into existence. The world has no explanation of light. You can like go online and try and research. I was reading some NASA articles and they're talking about, well, it acts like a particle, but we know that it acts like a wave too. And there's photons, which they'd say, oh, light is made of photons. And that's just what they call what they think makes up light. There's no real conclusion here. It mystifies us. Why is it that when you shine light through a prism, you get a rainbow of colors? Why is it that light just continues? Why is it that light just wipes out darkness? There's no sun or stars yet. We don't have a reference for what this light was. Because all light that we know requires fuel to burn. Or it reflects off something else. They predict that in so many billions of years, the sun is going to extinguish. It'll extinguish exactly when God intends it to. It will, but not till God says so. And he makes a new heaven and a new earth. One commentator said, of all God's creation, the thing that most clearly reveals and most closely approximates his glory is light. We see light as glorious. and it's the first thing God makes. Throughout the scripture, God's identified with light. James 1.17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights from whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 1 John 1.5 says, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Daniel 2.22, he reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him. 1 Timothy 6.6 describes God as one alone who has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. Our God is a God of light. We see light as bright and radiant and pure. We see light as bringing comfort and safety. We fear darkness because wickedness loves darkness. John 3, 19, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Isaiah 9.2, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwell in a land of deep darkness on them light has shown. Ephesians 5.11 says, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. And we're not talking good and evil light here and darkness on day one. But we can let God as the creator of light, point us to his goodness, his love, his holiness, to know that there is no darkness in him. He separates day from night, light from dark, here even before the sun exists. But while God created actual light, The light separating from the darkness reminds us of his character. It reminds us that his holiness and righteousness shine without anything else being needed. And like the time when God, or in this time we're talking about when God speaks and there's creation, and maybe we'll see that again in the new heavens and the new earth. Well, one day there's not gonna be a need for any sun or moon either. Revelation chapter 21, verses 23 to 25. The city, this is the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. In eternity we'll see this God who light comes from him, and we'll see it again. It's described in the first chapter of the Bible, and it's described at the very end of the Bible. Now there's great news here for those who trust in Christ. One day you'll see him create again. And there will be a day when there's no longer any sun or moon or stars needed, because God is the light. And it'll be perfect light that emanates from him. You don't have to worry about like wearing blue light blockers before you go to bed or what color temperature you set your LED bulbs to, all the things we're so concerned about today. It'll be perfect light, unadulterated light, perfect light. But if you're here today, you don't know Jesus Christ as Savior, while God made light in the beginning, and you experience a different sort of light now, not what we see here coming from him, but a different sort of light now, your future only has darkness ahead. Because while hell is a place of eternal suffering and torment and fire, there is no light. It's only dark. And the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Every one of us has sinned against God, myself included. We've looked at the Bible, we've looked at the world around us. We're gonna talk about this in just a moment. And we've said, no, I don't wanna submit myself to the God of heaven. I want to walk as I want to walk. I wanna do what I wanna do. Live my life according to my rules and not subject myself to the creator who made me. And that's called sin, violating God's law. And the penalty is death forever in hell. It's in Romans 6.23. But the second half of that verse is the really good news. As the beginning says, for the wages of sin is death, but the second half says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. If you repent of your sins and turn to Jesus, you seek his forgiveness, you turn from the life of rebelling against him and submit yourself to him, he will save you. and you will be His, and you can know peace. And the light that was at the beginning in this creation is the same light that you'll get to see in the new heavens and the new earth as God makes again. Repent of your sins today and turn to Jesus Christ. God made this light without the sun, moon or stars. He divided day and night. God knew from the very beginning that everything would be subject to day and night. And he knew it because he created it that way. Have you ever seen flowers that pull back at night, but open up during the day? Did you know that you have to sleep? And that there's chemicals in your body that are created through what God made in you, that when you're exposed to bright light, you wake up, and when it gets dark, you want to go to sleep? That's why all the stuff's so hard this time of year, when it's dark so early. He intended a design that everything would be governed by these cycles. This is no accident of evolution. Before the sun, there was day and there was night, and God designed everything to fit that. It's part of design. You know, it's interesting, I've been looking at some medical stuff recently, and I heard two different doctors this week talk about being designed, the human body being designed to either function or have a part of the body that was designed by evolution in some way. That's an oxymoron. Because they claim evolution is a process of random events, that these things just happened, and it just happened over billions of years, and so we get what we have today. But why would atheistic, unbelieving scientists say that something was designed by evolution? Because you can't look at the world around you and not see design. It's all been intended. It's made a certain way. Everything goes together. Unbelievers run into the same problem this week with the idea of Thanksgiving. GK Chesterton said, the worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank. Design is behind everything. Merriam-Webster defines design as to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to a plan. And that's the first definition, but every subsequent definition basically says the same thing. It's according to a plan, it goes down an intended path. Because God is creator, and because he made us, we can see the design everywhere. And the Bible speaks directly to this in Romans 1, 18 through 20. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them. because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse." Everyone knows that there is a God. If you are here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you believe deep down there is a God. I know that's true because the Bible tells me it's true. Everyone knows, everyone can see the design. We can see the intent that God has in even the creation of light and its separation into night and day. God called the light day and the darkness he called night, and there was evening and there was morning, the first day. We see here the 24 hours of creation in the very beginning separated into evening and morning. God creates time and matter and light. So why does this matter to you? What difference does it make besides some kind of peripheral knowledge or, great, I know a little bit more, I recognize a new light was the first day, but I didn't think about the matter part with earth being there. I think first we should give God glory for his timelessness. You and I have to sleep. We must rest. We're less functional at night during the day than we are during the day. We only have so much time. And God's gonna call us to account for that time, by the way. He's gonna say, how'd you spend it? Did you redeem it? Use it well, or did you waste it? God is not subject to this. He does whatever he pleases. I think I told you guys a few months ago in a sermon, I heard John MacArthur talking about the pastoral worries that tend to keep men up at night. And he said, yeah, I had those. And then I realized that God doesn't slumber and neither does he sleep. And so I don't see the point in both of us being up. Amen. If you're up at night worrying, don't worry. God's not subject to time, he doesn't need sleep like you do. Let him handle it. Give it to him, let him take it. As MacArthur said, no point in us both being awake. Give God glory for his timelessness. Recognize that he is not subject to what you and I are subject to and praise him for it. See God as the giver of all light and all good, because he is. And I've quoted James 1.17 earlier, and there's a really hard truth in that passage that I could preach a whole nother sermon on right now, but I won't, don't worry. James 1.17 says that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. And you'd say, oh yes, all the good things are from God. Hugs from my kids, getting to pet the dog, nice cup of coffee. Those are all from the Lord. Amen. But the context of that passage, go read it, is trials. And what James is saying is that everything is a good gift from God. Everything is in fact a perfect gift from God. No matter what you're going through right now, no matter how hard it is, God is in control of your circumstance. And in fact, as you walk through James 1, it tells you that he's brought this into your life to conform you to the image of his son. Praise God for his sovereign control of all things. The hard part of that truth is the longer you stay there without honoring the Lord, the longer the trial is. when we repent and we honor the Lord, it changes us. Not necessarily the circumstance, but it changes us in the midst of it. And we can see God is the giver of all light and all good. Because if you believe that God spoke everything into existence, and that everything is subject to him, including Satan and his demons, you know that Satan and his demons, not by letter of God's law, but according to his eternal plan, work out the will of God, nothing is outside of his sovereign will. He doesn't cause their sin, James 1 works to that too. He doesn't make them sin, but he still ordains all things. He ordained, Acts tells us that it pleased God, pleased the father to crush the son on the cross. So if he ordains all things, you have to believe that he's sovereign over every aspect of your life. And you have to believe that your responsibility is to respond to the Lord. Not how bad it hurts, not how difficult that relative is, not how angry your own heart is, but to respond to the Lord, to repent and turn to him in all things. He's been intimately involved in the creation, and he's intimately involved now, and all things are for good. Give God glory in his timelessness, see him as the giver of all light and good, and see God's hand in absolutely everything, and know he cares for you deeply. You might be in the darkest place of your life, but if you're a Christian, I promise you God is for you. He hovered over the face of the waters, and if you're a Christian, He indwells. That Spirit that hovered over the face of the waters that endued creation with energy at the very beginning, He indwells you now. He lives inside of you. He's holding you fast until the day when Christ returns, when our hope is made sight, when faith and hope are no longer needed. He's with you now. No matter how dark it gets, no matter how much it hurts, He's always there. My encouragement to you is in the midst of darkness, in the midst of pain and difficulty, is run to Him. He hasn't gone anywhere. He's right there. If you know Christ, He still indwells you. You are His. You have opportunity right now to honor the Lord with your life. And we can trace this all the way back to the very beginning of all things on the first day when God said, let there be light. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love, for your care, Lord, your kindness to us. We thank you that you are light and in you is no darkness at all, that there's not a hint of anger that is unrighteous. There's not a hint of bitterness. There's not malice in you, Father, there's just righteousness. The things that we so easily fall into as sinful humans, Lord, you've never been tempted by any of them because you are not tempted with evil and you yourself, Father, you tempt no one. We thank you that you are only righteousness. And as we look to you, as we praise you for your mighty work and creation, as we praise you for your timelessness, that you indeed, Lord, have always been. As we recognize that all light and all good comes from you, and in fact, everything you give is a good in our lives to conform us to the image of your son. As you recognize, Lord, that you are intimately involved with us, not some far off God that doesn't know us, but Lord, you are here and you are now. We thank you, Father, for your presence. We thank you for your care. We praise you for your wonderful creation. I pray, Lord, that we would live in light of who you are. that every moment of our day would be colored by the beauty of your creation and seeing your glory expressed in it, that every trial would be recognized as one that your hand is directly on, that every moment of our day would be lived in trust in you and a love of your word. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.