And church, I would invite you to turn with me to the very first book in all of scripture as we begin a new sermon series today in the book of Genesis. Chapter one, verse one. Before we read this wonderful text, I invite you to join me in prayer for the hearing of God's word. Let's pray. Our Father, we come before you now and we seek your face. And we long to see you, our God. We long to know you. We long to think your thoughts after you. And we long to be with you. So Father, we ask that you would send your Spirit now to work with your Word, that it might have its full effect here in our midst. and pray that you would take our minds from all of the diverse places where our thoughts are prone to lead and to go astray. We pray that you would focus us on your word. We pray that in it we would find life we would find truth. We pray that the power of God would be unleashed in our church by the working of the Word of God. And we pray, Father, that even our hard hearts would become softened by the heat of your glorious Word. Above all, Father, that we pray that we would see Christ We pray that we would know him and that we would know his grace, that we would know how kind he is with us, that we would know his way with us as a church, that we might know how near he is to us now as the Spirit brings the living word of God to us. We pray all these things in the matchless name of Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Genesis 1, 1 and 2. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. So far, the hearing of God's Word. Well, church, we spent the last year and a half in the book of John, where that book began as we heard it read fresh for us today. about how the Word was with God and was God and was at the beginning God. We come, in a way, today to the first part of the Book of John, which is far more than that to us, of course. The very first book in all of God's Word and the start of God's Word itself, and it concerns these glorious first things. Some of you have asked, why this book? Why would we spend whatever amount of time we're going to spend here? Why was this the next book for us in the life of our church? I suppose it would be good for us all to ask, why? Why? It is something that we all ask, not just from time to time, but each day, is it not? Why? Just about an hour ago, I received a text from someone in our church who last night had a friend that was killed in the car driving home from work. And at times like that, we just stop and we say, God, why would you do that? Why would you allow these things to take place? Why do people who have families suddenly, suddenly see their lives taken from them at but a young age? Why in the world would God allow a child who is but a few days old to perish and to die? Why does God allow the sun to rise and the rain to fall on the just and on the unjust alike? Why does God allow evil people to flourish and to prosper on the face of the earth? Why does God allow me to feel the things that I feel in my life, experience the things that I suffer through? Why do I think the thoughts that I think? Why am I the way that I am? Who am I? Why? I wonder where you go when you ask these sorts of things. Where do you turn to try to answer the most important questions of life, about life itself, and why the world is the way that it is, and why I am the way that I am, and why you are the way that you are? So often, when we ask these things, we begin to try to answer them by turning within ourselves. We look to ourselves and we say, well, this is what I think, or this is the way that I feel, or this is who I want to be, or this is who I think that I am. But am I the best one to ask myself about the most important questions in life? Because at the end of the day, don't I know myself well enough to know that my thoughts can change on a dime? And don't they so often depend on just the simple mood that I'm in and that one single second? Why would man look to himself to try to answer the big questions of life about who we are and why things are the way that we are? I would propose to us that at this time, of all times, we need to go back to the beginning. We need to go back to the very first words and all of God's word, because we need to go to the Lord himself, and we need to pose all of these questions to him, and we need to find the answers that he provides for himself in his word. Church, look with me at the very first words of the Bible. Look with me at the first four words of the entirety of the Word of God. And if we just single out the first four words, we find one of the most stunning statements that we could hear. Because as God begins this amazing book and all of the things that he's going to teach us about himself and about the world that he has made and about the design that he has shot through the world that he has formed by the word of his power. He doesn't begin with man. or with plants or with animals. He doesn't begin with the planets or the stars. He begins with himself. In the beginning, God, period. In the beginning, God. Before there was anything else, before there was creation, before there was time, before there was anything, before there was a speck of matter, there was someone. There was God. There was God. The word that he uses here to describe himself is Elohim, which within itself, as a name of God, finds plural form. So that we know, as we read that word, that as God has says that He is existed from before the foundations of the earth and before time itself, He Himself has always been, and He has always been, the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit. The Psalms praise God for this one simple fact, that from everlasting past into everlasting future, He alone is God. The Psalms say, before the mountains were brought forth, before you formed the earth, you, O God, are God. Your throne is everlasting. Your days have no end. The prophet cries out and says, have you not known people of the earth? Have you not heard that the Lord is the everlasting God? He is the alpha, that is the very first of all things. He is the omega. He is the end of all things. He is the glorious one. as John was taken up by the Spirit on the Lord's Day to see the things that he records in the very last book of all of God's Word. He says in chapter 4, I looked and around the throne I saw these four creatures with wings and with eyes all around. And as they looked, they beheld and they worshiped the Lord God Almighty. And this is the way that they ascribe worship to him. They say, we worship you, the one who was and who is and who is to come, God. This triune God is the eternal God. And one of the things that He reveals for us to know about Him here, now, from before the foundation of the time, He has been separate and apart from all other things. What does that mean for you and me? It means that this God does not stand in need of anything or anyone. This God does not depend upon anyone else. This God is fully sufficient in and of himself, and this God is satisfied in himself. I love the way that the Westminster Confession of Faith summarizes this great truth about God by saying, God has all life in himself, glory in himself, goodness in himself, blessedness in and of himself. He is alone in and unto himself all sufficient. He doesn't stand in need of any creatures which he has made, nor derives glory from them, but manifests his own glory to them. He alone is the fountain of all being. Church, what a way to begin the new year by just thinking about God in his being, who he is, that he has been before time, that he is altogether. altogether in himself. All that God is, is God. God is fully pleased with all that he is, and he stands in need of nothing and no one. He is replete in splendor, glory, goodness, power. This is our God. You remember Job and his three friends that came to his side. The hard thing about the book of Job is that each of these three friends came to him and spoke truth to him, and yet spoke truth that was incomplete, and perhaps spoke to Job truth taken out of context. And yet, nonetheless, Job's friend Zophar came and spoke to Job true things about the infinity of God. saying, Job, can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find the end of his being? It is higher than the heavens. What can you do, Job? God is deeper than the depths of Sheol. What can you know? The effect of what Zophar has said was to cause Job to be rocked back on his heels to just contemplate the vastness of God. Do you ever take time to do that in your life when you are struck by how massive problems in your life seem to be or how out of sorts this world in which we live feels like it is? Do you ever just step back and think about the vastness and how huge and immense God is? The Psalms spur us to praise by saying, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. His greatness is unsearchable. We can spend our entire lives trying to search out more and more and more in God. And as we do, we will find one thing upon the next upon the next to marvel at and the beauty of all that God is. And yet we will never come to the end because we cannot plumb the depths of the greatness of the glory of God. These are the first four words in all of God's Word to rock us back on our heels and to say, before there was anything else, there was an eternal and all-sufficient God. Let me ask you this. What was God doing before the foundations of the earth? What was God doing before he spoke the cosmos into being? What was God doing before he was forming trees and forming man from the dust of the ground? What was God doing before he was working out his decree of his will that includes all of the momentary details of your life and my life? What was God up to before you? God's Word tells us what God was up to. Before the foundations of the earth, God was satisfied in himself. God was enjoying being God. The Father was enjoying the Son, the Son was enjoying the Spirit, the Spirit was enjoying the Father, and they had no lack. They were infinitely satisfied with all that God is. Church, that is the best news for you. The best news that you could hear today is that God does not need you. If God needed you, then the world would be in a great heap of trouble. But God doesn't need you. God doesn't need me. God doesn't need someone else. God doesn't need things. Consider what a weak God he would be if he depended upon creatures like you and me. The good news is that because God does not depend on anyone, anything, you and I can depend upon him with all that we are. We can come to him with all of our needs because he holds the entire world by the word of his power. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Colossi, a church that was taken by thoughts of all that it meant to be wise, a church that was impressed with itself. And in trying to work with that church to think about what it truly means to be wise, do you recall what the Apostle Paul did in chapter one of his epistle to that church? He wrote to them about the infinity of the Son of God. He said in chapter one, verse seven, that all things are of Christ, all things are in Christ. In Christ, all things hold together. The Lord Jesus is this supreme, God. He is this all-sufficient, all-powerful God, and we need to know that that is who He is before we come to think about the promises of grace that He speaks to us in the gospel. Because as good as the gospel is, it is not the starting point. We don't begin with hearing pardon from Christ. First, we need to contemplate that there is a God and who this God is as being holy, glorious, eternal, and good. And then from that place, we begin to learn who we are. And we will do that in the weeks to come. But today, we sit and we look at the glory of the eternal God. Well, let's move on from the first four words. The Word of God tells us that God created heaven and earth, and that the earth was without form and void, and that there was darkness above the face. of the deep and there the Spirit of God hovered above it all. This word heavens here that is separated from the earth is not the same word that we'll see in verse 8 when we see on that day when the Lord separated the dry ground from the seas and then separated the sky from the earth. Here, what is being described to us is the creation of that realm which is beyond the earth. That realm which is beyond what man can see. And not just the realm that man can see with his eye, but that man can find out by the vast reaches of science. This is heavens that are the place where God dwells, if you will, the courtroom of God, the place where the hosts that he has made to serve him day and night wait upon him. Highest, highest heavens. This is the realm of God, which is beyond the realm of man. That's what's being described here. And as there is that place that has been made, which we cannot see, and then this realm that we live in, all that we can see and perceive through the extent of science, above all of this, the Spirit of God hovered, hovered, And this word that is used here pictures the Spirit of God in a bird-like way, stretched out above the world that has been made. But what we're not supposed to picture is just the Spirit of God here, but rather a way that the triune God, who cannot be seen, is now capable of being seen. This God, which does not have form or does not have substance to himself that could be touched, that could be seen, is now picturing himself as a cloud, as a cloud that is outstretched above this world. It is almost as if God is stretched out like a bow or like a sign. to declare that he is present, that he is powerful, that he is poised to act, that he is prepared to fashion out of the deep and dark earth and sky, planets and stars in space. What is the intent of this text? The intent is that we should know that God is full of power and might, and there is none who can tend against him. There is no foe against God. There is no dark and light power battle taking place here. There is no one else described here as being someone who would come to do war against God. In fact, God does not appear in a pose to strike war. But God comes as a artist. He comes and he stands as it were, prepared to act, prepared to create, prepared to speak and to form, to bring shape, to bring color, to bring light. to set boundary, to say that the seas can go this far and no more, that the dry land shall begin here and go to this place, but not beyond this reach. God is here to work his art craft because he is the supreme. He is the one true Lord. He is the one who claims absolute authority, absolute absolute ownership above all things. We just step back and think, who are we? Who are we, oh man, to speak back to God and say, why did you make me in this way? Why did you make my life to be the way that it is? Why did you give me this poor human body that I have? Why did you make my heart the way that it is? Why have things turned out in my life the way that they have turned out? You see, isn't it the instinct of fallen man to think that we are God, to think that we claim a right over ourselves, that we claim a right to our life, to do with it whatever we wish, and yet we do not. You see, God's Word begins in this way, in this special way, before God comes to create and to make the earth by speaking words from His mouth, to form servants by the word of His power, that we might worship Him and serve Him. In the first place, He presents Himself as the one supreme Lord. worthy of worship, worthy of glory. Isn't that a way for us to begin this new year? By just contemplating God, contemplating all that he is, And before we look on this massive book and all that it is going to teach us about so many things, isn't it wonderful in God's design that it has begun in this precise way to turn our eyes towards the glorious One, the Holy One? the one who comes to stand before his church today by the power of his word and say, I am Lord. Won't you worship me? Augustine wrote, I am told, five separate commentaries on the book of Agenesis. And he loved this book so much, he wrote why he could not escape the demands of this book. He said, I want to know God and the soul and nothing else. Church, just think of all of the things that you and I want to know, of all of the things that we give our life to. Before it all, do we want to know the Lord? Do we want to know in the depth of our soul who God is? That is what the Bible is. And that is what this series is going to be all about. Not just the things that God has made, not just the way that God does what he does, not just the ways that God works, and the ways that God works in your life and in the life of our church, but above and before it all, who this glorious God is. Come along. Dive in. Let's pray. Well, Father, we thank you for the riches and for the vastness of your word and for the way that you reveal yourself to us. Father, we pray that the Spirit would be powerfully at work now to take this word and to cause it to take root within our lives. We thank you for the way that he sows seed as the word of God is heard. And now we pray that it would sink deep into our lives and that it would grow, flourish, and bear fruit. And we pray that we as a church in this new year would be a church of the word of God and that we would flourish and lavish in all of the delights of your truth. Oh God, would you do that for all of us, we pray. Jesus' name.