Genesis 1:3–13 — The God of Order

This sermon is from Genesis chapter 1, verses 3 through 13, and is entitled, The God of

Genesis 1:3–13

Order.

It was delivered to Ecclesia churches on Sunday, May 10th, 2026.

Today, we're going to get into the creation account properly.

And last week, we kind of introduced the whole book of Genesis, which is important because

it's the context of every verse that we break down.

Crucially, we dialed in on the fact that this is narrative history and not a mythological

poem.

And it's important that we take it as truth and not myth.

However, we also talked about what God intended to reveal with this truth.

And it's more about who he is and about this grand redemption plan that he has carried out

for humanity.

These first few verses of Genesis are no stranger to controversy for the modern reader, and

frankly, not for the ancient reader either.

It was likely pretty controversial for Moses to completely dismiss the Egyptian gods and

myths that these people had grown up around for several centuries at that point.

And today, it seems controversial to contradict what many of us have been taught by a secular

education system that God created with perfect design, what evolution could never have created

by random chance. And I don't want to dismiss those questions that I'm sure many of us have,

but in the end, I also don't want them to distract us from God's actual purpose in Genesis,

which was to reveal himself to us. Remember, this account is not meant to be an exhaustive

description of creation. It's a painting with broad strokes that is showing us the work of God,

and really it's showing us the God behind the work. So I'll try to kind of address some of those

things as they come up. But if you do have more questions, I'm happy to share what I know and

give you some good resources for digging deeper. So feel free to reach out. I also want to make sure

that you know that many people who believe the Bible is true and trust Jesus wholeheartedly

will disagree over the interpretation of some parts of the creation account.

There are some things in the creation account that we must consider primary issues and that

we cannot disagree on because scripture is clear.

For example, that God created intentionally and that evolution did not create accidentally.

that Adam and Eve were real historical people made in the image of God and that we are all

descended from them. These are examples of things that are primary issues that we really can't

disagree with without stepping away from the truth that God's word presents clearly.

But there are other things like what the length of a day was in the creation account that we can

land in different places over and still come away standing on the same truth that God created

in them.

Does that make sense?

We'll talk more about those things as they come up, but I just wanted you to be aware

that not all disagreement threatens unity among Christians when we are still united around

Christ.

We're looking at verses 3 through 13 today, which contain days 1 through 3 of creation.

And in these verses, we will see God ordering creation.

And next week, we'll look at the following three days in which God is filling creation.

And these two sections work together because we begin when God created the heavens and

the earth with an earth that was formless and void, that fun tohu wabohu phrase, without

an ordered shape and empty.

And so we'll kind of see a mirroring here between these verses in which God first orders

the shape and the form, and then he fills it with life.

So let's begin where we left off last week, and we'll read in three parts today, beginning

with verse three through five.

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.

The first thing that God does here is to introduce light to his creation.

If you think about it, what's the first thing that you do when you walk into a dark room

or a space?

You turn on the light.

And you and I have it pretty easy when it comes to this because we can flip a switch

and the lights come on.

But think about the ancient audience for a second.

For most of human history, the darkness of night has brought a sense of fear and danger

and the unknown.

And when the daylight was gone, you went to shelter.

You lit a fire, if that was an option, and you waited for morning.

Without light, there is no life.

And so by introducing light, God is setting the conditions up for life to exist in this space.

Beyond that, he is in some way separating the light from the dark, and he gives name to both

the light and the darkness. This is different from the pagan ideas that the light and the dark were

at war in the beginning, and there was a back and forth between them. They taught things like

the celestial bodies like the sun was a god or was pulled by a god in a chariot. And here,

God speaks light into existence before he creates the sun and the moon. Now, hold on just a second,

right? If the sun and the moon and the stars don't come until day four, where does this light come

from? I feel like every kid's Bible and felt Bible illustration from my whole childhood failed to

bring up this question adequately. Because I guess the most obvious answer is that it didn't say.

It doesn't say exactly where the light came from. Remember, the Israelites, though, had been led

through the desert by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night.

they don't need to be convinced that the sun is required to provide light if God wants to provide

light. And Moses' point here is that the light came from God's provision and it was ordered

into day and night. But just for fun, here's a few things to think about. So one, we have measured

that the universe is expanding even today, moving away from each other. So it is possible that God

spoke into existence what was quite literally an explosion of light. Whether that was a temporary

kind of light, like the explosion of a supernova, or like the star that led the wise men to Bethlehem,

or even the light of stuff that was going to rapidly move to the edges of space as creation

week continued. That is possible, and it's quite plausible from a scientific standpoint.

it is also possible that there was something more going on here and that God was in some way that we

can't quite wrap our minds around providing light. So put a pin in that thought. I want to come back

to it before we finish this passage. But before we move on to day two, I wanted to at least touch on

this issue of days. So I mentioned at the beginning these secondary issues and what is meant by the

word day here and in the verses that follow has been a matter of debate more recently in particular.

So the most often asked question is, are we to believe that God created the earth in six 24-hour

days, earth days? And Christians over the course of time have disagreed over the answer to this,

and many of them are quite persuasive on their particular position. But we don't really want to

form our answer based on the persuasiveness of their position or mine, what we really want is

to be shaped and informed by scripture. So let's use the steps that I introduced last week.

Starting with the text, Genesis is narrative, not poetry. And Moses intended this to be understood

as history. It is written in what we would consider the normal Hebrew narrative tense,

which is meant to relate to historical records.

And he's writing this whole record of events

that happened in real time and space world

that we experience.

So those theories that have run with an idea

that by day, Moses could have meant an age or millennia

are taking the word day

and they're stretching it beyond what Moses meant,

most plainly.

And certainly they're taking it beyond

the Hebrew audience would have understood it as. I think that's a good example of people trying to

make scripture comfortably fit their belief instead of allowing their belief to be shaped

by scripture. But then on the other side, to those who would say a day must mean a 24-hour period of

time, I think we also have to challenge that from the text because we measure days by the rising and

setting of the sun, but there's no sun to measure by until the fourth day. And then secondly, by the

time we get to chapter two with the arrival of the seventh day on which God rested, it does not have

an end. There are evening and morning on days one through six, but none marked on the seventh day.

So the level of detail that we should really take from the text here and how the original audience

would have understood it, is that these are simply the six work days of creation. The days that God

worked to order creation. The same way that if I told you I worked six days a week, but I had off

Saturday. From that statement, you would have no idea what my hours were. You wouldn't know exactly

what time I went to work or came home from work because that is not the information that I was

giving you. So in this case, what God is giving us is the truth that he created and ordered and

filled the earth with life with only his word and that it was good. That's what we walk away

from this with. So let's move on to day two. This is verses six through eight.

And God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters

from the waters. And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse

from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse heaven,

and there was evening, and there was morning the second day. So what's happening here? Let's

first speak physically, and then kind of unearth a second level of spiritual implication here.

Physically, this is what we would call the creation of the atmosphere, or of air, with

this separation between the waters on the face of the earth and the emptiness of space,

this physical cavity that is filled with air for us to breathe and protection from the

radiation and asteroids and everything else found in space.

All around the earth is this little pocket of space that has been created for life to

flourish.

What we have observed on other planets is that this pocket of atmosphere has to be infinitely carefully balanced.

If you make it too thick, you have runaway greenhouse effect and everything cooks like Venus.

You make it too thin and it dissipates into nothing like Mars, for example.

Isn't it interesting that on either side of us, we have planets that point to a perfectly crafted space for us in the middle of space?

Now, why does it say the waters above?

Remember, this isn't mythology, but it is written in a language and a level of understanding

that the original audience understood.

When you look up during the day, what do you see in the sky?

It looks like a dome of blue that sometimes unleashes water on the earth.

So this is what we would call a phenomenological description, which is a long word for a really

simple idea.

It just means from the human perspective.

Or even simpler, what does it look like?

Remember, God's primary purpose is that they know the one who made it so.

And so the waters above the expanse is the sky.

And it is also what is referred to here as heaven.

So this is not saying that it's heaven is in the spiritual realm in which God dwells.

This reference to heaven is as in the heavens, the skies.

And so you notice that it keeps marking each day by evening first and then by morning.

Because in the Hebrew world, evening marks the beginning of a new day.

That's why the observance of the Sabbath begins on Friday evening at sunset.

But if we were to try and read this through the perspective of the ancient Israelite,

there's something else that they would have been impressed by here.

They would have cared much less about what the sky actually was than that the waters represented.

They would have cared about the use of the word waters because in ancient cultures,

water carried this representation of chaos or a chaotic world that was out of their control.

If the waters were held back for too long, there was a drought which caused a famine in the land and people died.

And if there was too much of it, there would be floods.

I can't imagine there was a single Israelite also at this point in time that you could say waters to without bringing back memories of walls of water on both sides of the dry ground.

Or the horrifying scene when God caused those same walls of water to crash down onto the

pursuing Egyptian army and completely destroy the enemy of Israel.

The waters above and below were a chaotic and dangerous world.

And God is saying to them, I am the God who is God above the chaos.

And I am the one who made a dwelling for you by restraining the chaos above and below.

God is trying to impress upon his people that he is sovereign over everything always.

And also that he has created boundaries for our good.

The space that God has created and called good is actually good.

And the outside, outside the bounds of where God calls us to be is chaos.

And I want to be really careful not to over-allegorize this or say something that the text is really

not, but when we understand that our God from the beginning has only ever used boundaries

as a good thing, I think that changes how we think about some of his commands.

Genesis is about knowing who God is and learning to trust that he is good and his plans are

good and his commands are good. In a week or two, we'll kind of see this play out in real time and

see the chaotic consequences of not trusting God. But for now, I would challenge you to see this God

who is making space and keeping the chaos at bay and start to trust him. Let's look at one last day

today. This is day three and the final day of ordering before God starts filling. A little

more happening here. This is verse nine through 13. And God said, let the waters under the heavens

be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. And it was so. God called the dry

land earth and the waters that were gathered together, he called seas. And God saw that it

was good. And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees

bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so.

The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees

bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was

good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. So after making a space between the

sky and the sea, God further restrains the waters, causing land to rise up and seas together. And

God says it was good. Everything God made was good. Everything he ordered and put in its place,

chaos restrained, land separated from the sea. And then from that land, we have every kind of

vegetation, trees, bushes, plants, fruit springs forth at the command of God. Are you starting to

see God the way that the original audience did? That this God is someone trustworthy. Not only

in all that this God created is only creating good. It seems that he is good, that everything

he created and restrained and caused to grow was for our good. This is all being done with a purpose

and a picture of God starts to grow clearer with each verse that this God is all powerful

and he provides what is good for us. But by this third day, we also start to see that God has a

pattern for how he works in creation and therefore how he works in us. The end result for creation

is to be fruitful. There's growth on display. There's seeds being planted and fruit coming

forth. If you've been paying attention outside this spring, we get to witness this every year

with the coming of April and May in the Midwest. All of creation answers this call to grow

and be fruitful. And so are we. So before we close, I want to kind of work our way backward

from day three, but using this lens of what this means for how we are called to respond

to this God who presents himself as a good provider and orderer of all things. What does

this mean for ordering our lives? Because Jesus teaches over and over that being a part of the

kingdom of heaven involves this kind of process that is on display in Genesis in creation.

Starting with the growth on display in day three, Jesus uses multiple parables based in planting

and caretaking and harvesting. The planting of seeds is the example we're given for sharing

the gospel. And God is the one who brings growth. Bringing fruitful is the example

for the change in us that comes from being rooted in Christ and allowing the Spirit of God to

produce spiritual fruit of heart change in us. Do you see how the end condition of the Christian

is a life marked by fruitfulness? And based on the commands of Jesus, what is the environment

that those things happen in? Well, go back to day two. It's a life that's defined by borders,

in this case being the law and the commands of God.

Christians are commanded to live according to the laws and statutes of God that are found

in Scripture.

The borders that God has lovingly given to us, and it is not a space that's created for

restricting us or keeping what's good from us.

It is a space created for us to thrive in.

And as Adam and Eve will quickly find out, there is nothing but chaos awaiting those who

want to try to live outside the boundaries that God has put in place. And that brings us all the

way back to day one, in which we are presented with the light. The light that even before the

creation of the sun, all of creation was oriented toward and formed in light of. Remember that idea

I said to stick a pan in about where that light came from. This is it. And this is the conclusion

that I find most likely as someone who has spent far more time with scripture than astronomy.

So all throughout scripture, we see light associated with the presence of God himself.

In fact, Moses himself was first called by a voice that came from a bush that burned brightly,

but was not consumed by the fire. Later in Exodus, we get this account of Moses,

standing in the presence of God. And when he returns, it says his face shone brightly to the

point where people were afraid to look at him. The prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah both describe the

brightness or the radiance of God when they have visions of heaven. And Paul, even when he encounters

the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, is blinded by him and describes him as a bright light.

So when God said, let there be light, I think it's quite possible that he was simply revealing

the light of his glory to creation.

And I know it might sound to some of you like I'm over-spiritualizing this or really taking

the supernatural route here, but there's one more verse that really makes me lean this

way confidently.

There's this passage almost at the end of Revelation where John says,

After the sun goes dark and the stars fall from the sky in the new heaven and the new earth,

there's an eternal city.

And this is what it says.

It's Revelation 21 verses 23 through 25.

Revelation 21:23–25

And 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.

The new creation will begin in the same way that the first creation began,

oriented toward the light of God's glory.

And today we are called to turn to the light of his son, Jesus.

This is John 1.14.

It says,

And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and

truth.

We see the glory of God even more clearly than when light burst onto the new creation,

when we consider Jesus, the light of the world.

And I can't manage to express how essential it is that we orient our lives around the

risen Jesus.

Just as the universe was ordered by God, if we want to live in the light, we have to order

our lives around Jesus and his glory and his kingdom.

And if you want life, you will find it most fully by orienting and ordering your entire

life around the person of Jesus Christ.

Ekklesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Council Bluffs, Iowa and in homes

throughout the week.

We are a Bible-centered church focused on preaching from Scripture and making disciples

of Jesus.

You can learn more about what we believe and contact a pastor at ekklesiachurches.org.

you