Genesis chapter 1, where it all begins. You know, we have 66 books that's in the canon of scripture. All 66 books are significant. They're important because they are God breathed. They are the very word of God. They are inerrant. We can trust them. We can depend on them. But when I think about the book of Genesis, To me, it is the foundational book of the Bible, because it speaks of origins. And to take that maybe a little further, I also think that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are the footers to that foundation. And so hopefully this morning, as we look at just verse 1, these 10 words that we see in this verse, that we would learn and see how it is so foundational to what we believe. And the fundamental and the foundational understanding of Genesis is simply this, God exists and he has made himself known. Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. Another familiar passage is found in Romans chapter 1 verse 20, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse. God wants to make himself known and has done so in his creation. The word Genesis, we know it's the beginning of things. In Hebrew, the word that is used is actually how the verse 1 begins, in the beginning. That's the Hebrew meaning of Genesis. If you were to use the Greek word, it would mean origin. And the origin of things is a good way to describe Genesis, because that is where we learn the origin of many things. For example, we learn of the origin of the world, but not just the world as we see it, but how it's ordered and how its complexity works. Gentlemen, by the name of David Gusick, writes this in his commentary, this is an example of the teleological argument for the existence of God. It is the understanding that there must be a purposeful intelligence that created this world because the world shows both purpose and intelligence. We also see the origin of the human race, where we come from. We see the origin of marriage. In fact, recently Michael Easley made this statement, or it's at least attributed to him. The Bible begins and ends with a marriage. Think about that. In chapter 2, we hear of the marriage and learn of the marriage of Adam and Eve. And then in Revelation chapter 19, we read of the marriage supper of the Lamb. We also see in Genesis good and evil as a result of sin and the fall. We also have the origin of language, government, culture, nations, and religion. We have the origin of the Jewish people. So Genesis is the beginning of everything. Dr. Ken Ham has stated that if we only had the first nine chapters of the book of Genesis, we would have everything we need. And if you read through those chapters, you'll understand. We see creation, we see sin, we see judgment, we see a savior, we see redemption, we see eternity. The problem is we, as a people, has abandoned the foundational truths of Genesis. This explains why our world is in such a mess. Matthew Henry writes, The pagan philosophers wretchedly blundered and became vain in their imaginations, some asserting the world's eternity and self-existence, others describing it to a fortuitous concourse of atoms. Thus the world, by wisdom, knew not God, but took a great deal of pains to lose him." Think about that last statement. We have taken a great deal of pains to lose God. Sadly, we've done that in our nation that was once founded upon biblical principles. Also, as we think of the beginning part of Genesis, we have to discuss identity and God. How does that play? Our culture today is working really, really hard to tell us that we can identify as anything that we want. If you want to identify as a dog, all you got to do is say, I'm a dog. And our culture is going to accept that. How ridiculous is that? It gets worse, and I won't go through all of them. But here's the thing. Our identity, who we are, is only found in God and God alone, period. He's the one who created us. He's the one who designed us. The world that's around us, its beauty, its complexity is all a result of God, of His creation. Atheists and evolutionists who are vehement in their argument that God did not create anything or that God even exists for that matter, They can't answer the question that needs to be answered. And that is, what was the first cause? God is the one who created this world. God is the one who created our existence. And he did it from nothing. There were no gases. There were no explosions. God created from nothing. The only existence prior to creation was God. God is self-existent. He is the answer to the question. God is the first cause. Think about this. God is so secure within himself. Which by the way, that's a good thing. He is so secure in himself that he was willing to create a people that he knew would rebel against him. And he did it anyway. Why? Because he had a big plan. He had a plan for redemption that was before the foundation of the world. And we read about that in Ephesians 1 verse 4. So let's begin now by looking at verse 1 of Genesis chapter 1, which I'm sure you all have memorized. But in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So it begins with, in the beginning. So I want to point out what I'm just calling a glaring omission in this verse. That may be too strong of a statement, but here There is no argument given to prove the existence of God. Did you see that? Did you notice that? Moses just wrote, in the beginning, God. It is assumed. It is understood. In fact, it's the logical conclusion that God is the one who created. So I want to use this illustration. It's not perfect. Most illustrations break down, but I'm going to use it anyway to kind of help, hopefully. But this pulpit that I'm standing behind, this pulpit was built by somebody. I don't know who it was, but they built it. It didn't just mysteriously come together with shelves and stain and glue and screws. No, somebody built it. Now obviously the biggest problem with this illustration is whoever built this, built this from existing material. Whereas God built the universe from nothing. He spoke the word and it was created. See, the universe has not evolved over millennia as we are being told and as we teach our children in public schools. God created it from nothing. All we have to do is look at the design of the world, how it functions, to see that it is more than just some random things coming together. It requires that highly skilled and intelligent design. Scientific discoveries that we have today, some of them are just absolutely amazing and they just blow my mind. You know, the Hubble telescope has returned images and now the James Webb telescope are returning images from deep, deep space that are just amazing. And these scientific discoveries, they're given to us by God, not to prove that he exists. He's not trying to prove he exists through science. In fact, it's rather science is there to help us understand who God is. Like I said, some of these discoveries just leave us in awe of what we can see. I mean there was a submersible submarine that went to the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, it was like 6 miles down. And it caught images of, I don't know what you call them, fish? I don't know how in the world they survive and not be crushed with the weight of the fathoms of the water. But yet God has a creature that thrives six miles deep in the ocean. It's amazing to me. So we can say, just as the psalmist said in Psalm 53.1, the fool says in his heart there is no God. To me, it takes more faith to believe in an evolutionary process than it does to believe that God created. And if you look at evolution and their arguments, you will see that there is no reasonable evidence that can show anything that is evolving into something better. When we reject God as the creator, we have to explain a lot of different things. Here's just a few things to think about. How did something come from nothing? How did order come from chaos? How in the world does natural selection result, excuse me, how natural selection results in deterioration of the species versus a highly developed form? Those are just a few questions that have to be answered. It is easier, again, to believe God created than to try to even think about how things evolve. So verse 1 again begins with the Hebrew title of the book, In the Beginning. So in the beginning is when time began. Time didn't exist prior to creation. Now, verse one of Genesis can be taken in a couple of different ways. The first way we can take it is that it is a summary that introduces the whole creation narrative that we see in chapter one. It's a common literary practice to have a summary statement called a thesis, whatever, and then all the subsequent information that follows is the detail that supports that. The second way that we can take verse one is that it was the first event, meaning it's the origin of the heavens and the earth that took place at some point before the first day. This would also include the creation of matter, space, and time. Think about what we read in Hebrews chapter 11. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of the things that are visible. Revelation 4.11, worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. So prior to creation, as I said, time did not exist. But God did. God exists in eternity. He exists outside of time and within time. Wayne Grudem in his book, Systematic Theology, writes, we should not think of God as existing in an unending extension of time. Rather, God's eternity means that he has a different kind of existence, an existence without the passage of time. Now, I admit, this is hard to wrap our heads around. And the reason why is because our minds are finite. At some point, our minds get to a point where it just can't compute anymore. And trying to understand infinity, trying to understand eternity with these minds that are falling is just impossible. Because think about our experience. All of our experience, all of our life, we have known stuff that has a beginning, And we know that it has an end. It's just the way it is. That's the way it's always been for us. But God, who is the all-powerful One, the self-existent One, He exists outside of time. He is eternal. He has no beginning and He has no end. Well, the Hebrew word for God is very significant. It's Elohim. Elohim is the plural form of the word called Eloah, which means deity. It is rarely used. But when we see Elohim here in verse 1, it's that first hint that the Trinity was active in creation. You see, time is an anomaly. It's a parenthesis within this thing called eternity. And so, at some point in God's eternal existence, He executed His divine plan. And He created what we know. It has a beginning. But you know, if you really think about it, His creation is not going to end. Author Jonathan Rogers made this statement, everything that exists in the universe exists because God thought it was a good idea. But sin disrupted creation as we know it. When Adam and Eve sinned, when they ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, they forever changed creation. We now see that living things die. Matter deteriorates. However, God is a redeeming God. Amen? He is going to redeem His creation. Think about what Revelation chapter 21 tells us in verses 1 and 2. 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. Time is going to cease to exist. But man, mankind, we are eternal. We are going to live in an existence without the passage of time. And when I say man is eternal, I'm talking about all men. I'm talking about men who reject Christ in this life, as well as men who accept Christ in this life. For those who reject Christ, when they pass into eternity, they are going to go to a place called hell. Hell is a place of torment. It'll be eternal torment. You will never know for the remainder of eternity, which never ends, anything but torment. We don't have time to read Matthew chapter 25, but this is where we learn of that. Verses 41 to 46. But those who put their faith and trust in Christ in this life, when they die, they will also live eternally. But they are going to live in heaven. They are going to have eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace, and so on. We also learn of that in Matthew chapter 25 in verses 31 to 40. The main thing is that Christ is there. And the things of this earth will not be remembered anymore. And I don't know about you, but there are some things I hope I never remember. Well, in glory we will not remember those things. But the verse continues. Not only do we read, in the beginning, God, but we also read, in the beginning, God created. This all-powerful, transcendent God created the universe from nothing. God had a master plan. He has a master plan. He has a grand design. He ordered all of creation according to that master plan. And again, he only had to speak to cause it to be in existence. But here's the thing about creation when we read the account. Creation was fully functional from the very beginning. What do I mean by that? Those foundational blocks for existence were immediately there. They were complete. They were operating perfectly. These things did not evolve. Some people refer to it as plug and play. You don't have to do anything. It just operates. That was creation. I don't want to be overly simplistic here, but this theory of evolution that people don't teach as a theory, but as fact, this theory of evolution is nothing more than a rejection of the authority of God. You see, Genesis is about God. And when Darwin wrote his book, The Origin of the Species, he made it about man. And I assure you, it never ends well when you make it about man. If you read on through chapter 1, you'll see that 10 times we read the phrase, and God said. Five of those times it says, and it was so. Nine times it follows with, according to its kind. Seven times it says, it was good. And one of those seven times it says, it was very good. God is the one who created. But we see that God created two things in chapter, in verse one. The first is the heavens. Notice heavens is plural. We know that Scripture speaks of three different heavens. Maybe there's more, I don't know, but we know of three from Scripture. And you say, well, how do you know that? Paul provides us this statement from 2 Corinthians chapter 12. He said, I know a man, speaking of himself, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. We also know the Apostle John, when he was exiled to Patmos, he had a vision of heaven, this third heaven, while he was there on the island. But we have two different heavens that we see being created in Genesis chapter 1. The first heaven is the sky. It's where birds fly, it's where planes fly, it's where the clouds exist and rain waters the earth. The first heaven is this atmosphere that we are able to sustain life in. It's pretty large. It's roughly 62 miles from Earth to cross into outer space. The Earth, if you were to measure it at the equator, is about 25,000 miles in diameter, just under that. So if you try to compute the size of the sky, it's large. It's big. That's the first heaven. The second heaven, we refer to that as outer space, the universe, the solar system. That second heaven is where the sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies exist and many other celestial bodies. The Encyclopedia Britannica makes this statement. The observable universe, think about that, the observable universe, is more than 46 billion light years in any direction from the Earth and about 93 billion light years in diameter. I can't calculate that, but it's big. Scientists, I remember in elementary school, scientists were saying, the universe is imploding. And at some point, not sure when, this whole thing's just gonna be done. Well, they've since changed their tune because they've realized that the universe is not imploding, it is expanding. And it is expanding at an astounding rate. What they estimate is, the universe expands one light year for every Earth year. So that's about six trillion miles annually that the outer space is expanding. Wrap your head around that. But you know what that tells me? Not only is the universe large and getting larger, but what it tells me is God is consistent with himself as a creating God. I believe the expansion of the universe is God still creating. What sights we are going to see in eternity? But here's the other kicker. As big as the universe is, God is exponentially bigger than that. The psalmist, he exclaimed this in Psalm chapter 8. It says, Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? And then we have the third heaven. This is where God lives. We don't read of this being created in the creation narrative. But that's where God lives, in the third heaven. And when we pass away from this life as a believer, this is where we go. We go to be where God is, in the third heaven. Paul had this experience at some point after his conversion of going to the third heaven, but we don't really have an understanding of where it is. We just think heaven up and hell is down. That's maybe true, I don't know. But the third heaven is where God is and where we will go to be with Him. Heaven is described throughout the whole of Scripture. But Revelation chapter 4 and chapter 5 are probably the best description of what heaven is like that we see in scripture. If you want to turn to Revelation chapter 4, I'm going to read the entire chapter. It's just 11 verses, but we need to see how it is described. Now I want you to pay attention as I read this. the description of the throne in heaven. It says, After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings, and peals of thunder. And before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass-like crystal. And around the throne and each side of the throne are four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who is seated on the throne and worship Him who lives forever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were. created. What a description of heaven. Revelation 5 describes the scroll and the lamb. We're not going to read that chapter, but just a select couple of verses. But one thing to point out here between chapters 4 and 5, heaven is not a quiet place. These images that people put of sitting on a cloud playing a little harp is ridiculous. Heaven is not quiet. Heaven is vibrant. Heaven is loud. Again, from chapter 4. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things by your will. They existed and were created. In chapter 5 we read, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. And elsewhere it says, worthy is the lamb who is slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven, and on earth, under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing, and honor, and glory, and might forever and ever." Heaven is not quiet. But you know, we also read in chapter 8 what I think is one of the most remarkable statements in all of Scripture. Verse one, when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about 30 minutes. Heaven is not quiet, but yet there's a point in time where it is going to be silent. How deafening that must be. How terrible that seventh seal judgment must be. And the second thing we see that God created in verse 1 is the earth. The Hebrew word is Eretz. It means the earth as opposed to the heavens. This same word is used multiple times in scripture and particularly in Genesis. And in chapter 1 we see it again in verses 11 and 12 where it describes soil and productivity. So it talks about fruit and vegetables being grown and harvested. Verse 26 describes ground and the surface of the ground. It's used elsewhere to describe the earth in whole, not in part. It's used to describe the inhabitants of the earth. It's used to describe the land that is divided into territories and countries. It describes the land of the living. But here in verse 1, the focus is to make it clear that there are two distinct things that were created. That is, heavens and the earth. Verse 2 provides a little bit more information on the earth at that point. It says it was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. So what it's telling us, when it says without form, it means it's like this primeval chaos and void, that there's emptiness. But it talks about darkness, and this darkness means absolute darkness, because there is no light. It's the absence of light. But then we also read that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, co-eternal with the Father and with the Son. The Blue Letter Bible website describes the Spirit of God in this way. It refers to it as, quote, the energy of life, of vital power, unquote. But we also see that name of God again, Elohim, plural. So it's just further proof of the Trinity participating in creation. But you might ask the question, well, we see God, we see the Spirit, but where's Jesus Christ? Well, we don't see it in Genesis, but we see it in John 1. where we read, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. Word is a capital W. It is referring to Jesus Christ. That's what John is saying there. So we see that Christ is present, the Trinity is present in creation. So what do we draw from verse 1 of Genesis 1? What's our conclusion this morning? Well, the conclusion is worship. We need to worship God. God has made himself known. Do you know that God actually commands worship? It's a command, it's not a suggestion. A lot of people ignore that. A lot of Christians, or say they're Christians, ignore this. but we are to worship. You see, Moses, when he wrote Genesis, his opening statement not only provided a description, at least in summary of creation, but more importantly, the who behind creation. This God, the one who created, is the one we worship this morning. God is all-powerful. So powerful that all He has to do is speak, and stuff happens. Creation is made. He created all of this from nothing. God is all-glorious. His glory is seen in all of creation. We referred to that when we read Romans 1.20. God is magnificent. His beauty is displayed in His creation. How can you walk in the mountains of Western North Carolina and not be at all of the beauty of God's creation? Think about this. As beautiful as that is when you're standing on the top of Pisgah or Mitchell and looking out over the landscape, and as beautiful as that is, that's a fallen beauty. What are we going to see when we're in a perfect environment? It should blow our minds. It's this God who is worthy of our worship. But we have a problem. We have this tendency to become complacent. We forget that God cannot be contained in a man-sized box, which is so often what we try to do. Creation is vast, but God is beyond vast. What is God, though? He is so big. He is so beyond His creation. But yet this very same God who created us has come to us. He is our refuge and our strength. He is our ever-present help in time of need. God is our hope. now and our future hope and glory. We tend to get very focused on those things that are right in front of us. It's natural because we're human. But we have to discipline ourselves. We have to train ourselves to get our eyes up from our circumstances. The Psalmist says in 121 verses 1 and 2, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. So this God who created heaven and earth is the God that we need to look to every moment of our day. We have to find a way to maintain an eternal perspective within the lives that we are living. The prophet Isaiah wrote this in chapter 26, you keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you. Our minds need to stay on God, the creator. So God created everything there is from nothing. He remembers that we are dust, that we are weak, that we are frail. But he has promised to provide for all our needs. So I ask you this morning, will you trust him today? If you're a believer, How do we trust Him? Well, we let go and we allow God to handle our troubles and our concerns. Our difficulties are big to us because we're finite. But do you realize that our troubles and our difficulties are nothing but a speck in God's eye? And He's got that all in His hand. We have to have faith and trust, and it's not always easy. The Christian life is not an easy life at all. But if you're here and you're not a Christian, then my question to you would be, will you respond to His call this morning to save you? Because this God that I've been talking about this morning, who created everything that there is, wants you to know him personally. And he has done everything that can possibly be done to make that happen. You just have to come to him by faith and believe that he is who he says he is. And he did that through his son, Jesus Christ, dying on the cross for our sins. So I hope this morning that we learned a little something about who God is in his creation. Before I conclude, I heard a song yesterday from a group called the Isaacs. They're in the gospel bluegrass world. They released a song called, More Than a Hollow Hallelujah. I'm not going to read all the lyrics, but there's one line that just really hit me right between the eyes. Because I think we all can identify with what I'm about to read. And that is this. When we think about worship, my lips know the words, but my heart isn't singing the song. Think about that. Are we just mouthing things or do we believe? And do we trust? God is big. God created. God loves you. Make sure that our heart is singing the same song that our lips are speaking every moment of every day. Let's pray.