Creation

Good morning, Good News Church. Today we begin a series on the book of Genesis titled, How It Started.

I think this is a great opportunity for us. I think it's good for all of us

to learn the book of Genesis or review the book of Genesis.

I think this is especially good if you are a new believer and you are at that

point in your life where you are going like, Christianity is so overwhelming.

Like it's, I mean, I'm glad I know Jesus. I'm glad I believe in him,

but goodness gracious, there are like a thousand Bible studies on a thousand

different topics. I don't even know where to start and I don't know which things

are most important and I just wish someone would like hit reset and just start from the beginning.

Well, that's sort of what we're doing. We are beginning on the first page of

the Bible and we are teaching the first book of the Bible this morning.

So we begin with Genesis.

Genesis means beginning. Like that's what the word means.

The original title in Hebrew was their word for in the beginning,

which is how the book of Genesis begins.

The English word Genesis means beginning. Like it's not even a religious word.

Sometimes people will say things like the Genesis of this idea was blah, blah, blah, blah.

And that just means the origin, like where it began, where it started.

So the book of Genesis is the book of beginnings. And the book of Genesis explains

the beginnings of a lot of things.

The beginning of the world, the beginning of humanity, the beginning of work,

the beginning of marriage, the beginning of parenting, the beginning of civilization.

Early on in Genesis, you see people making like tools and instruments and tents and eventually cities.

It's the beginning of sin in the book of Genesis, the beginning of God's reaction

to sin, the beginning of God's people, the beginning of the nation of Israel

and the family line where Jesus came from,

the beginning of the relational agreements that God makes with people known as covenants, right?

All of that begins in the book of Genesis.

There are a lot of things that begin in Genesis. And so here we go.

Today, I'm going to read to you the first 27 verses of the book of Genesis.

But before I do that, I do want to make just a few introductory remarks about

who wrote the book of Genesis.

Sometimes it's good when you start with the book of the Bible to ask the question,

well, who wrote this? Who is the author of this? And I think that there's like

more than one right answer to this question.

But I think the main answer I want to start with is I want to remind,

I want to let you that I believe God wrote the book of Genesis.

God wrote the book of Genesis. The creator of the world wrote the book of Genesis.

And you might go, well, how do you know that God wrote the book of Genesis?

Jesus said so. Like Jesus was here on this earth and he did miracles and he

preached what he preached and he died on the cross for our sins and he rose

again and his resurrection is proof of his divinity.

And he's the one that said God wrote the book of Genesis.

You might go, when did Jesus say that? I'll show it to you in Matthew chapter

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

19. As weird as it is, we're gonna start our series in the book of Genesis in Matthew chapter 19.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

So if you have your Bible, you can turn there.

This passage that I'm about to read to you is usually, the topic is divorce.

So typically when pastors preach on Matthew chapter 19, this section of it,

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

it's usually because the sermon is on divorce or the sermon is on marriage.

I have preached on this passage a couple of times.

Every time I've preached on it, I have preached on the topic of divorce or marriage.

This time, I think this will be the first time that I preach on this passage

and I'm gonna ignore all the divorce and marriage stuff.

I just wanna focus on the part of this passage that shows us what Jesus believed about Genesis.

So here we go. Matthew 19, starting in verse three.

Some Pharisees approached him to test him. This was the question they asked to test him.

They asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?

Jesus, are we allowed to get divorces? Now look what he answers.

He says, haven't you, what's the word?

Read. That's interesting. So he is referring to something that's written somewhere.

Okay. Haven't you read? He replied that he who created them in the beginning

made them male and female.

Okay. So who in the world is Jesus referring to when he says,

when he's talking about someone who created them in the beginning and made them

male and female? Who's he talking about?

Okay. Clearly he's referring to God. Okay.

And he also said, so who's the he here? God has to be God, right?

So the one who created and made them male and female, that person said something.

What did he say? This is what Jesus says. God said, for this reason,

a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh.

That's a quote from Genesis. That is from Genesis chapter two.

Jesus said, God said, and then quoted Genesis.

And this is what's interesting. This particular section of Genesis that Jesus

is quoting, that he says, God said it is not a section of Genesis where God is talking.

There are times in the old Testament. There are times in the book of Exodus.

There are times in the book of Genesis where the Bible says,

and God said such and such, right?

And God was in the burning bush. And he said to Moses, this or that, right?

And it would make sense if Jesus said, God said, and then quoted something from

the Old Testament where God was talking. That's not what this is.

He says, God said, and then he quotes who? And this is interesting.

If you go back to Genesis chapter two and you read this, you'll find out the

person that's speaking here is not God.

It's the narrator of the book of Genesis.

It's the unnamed narrator. Like the person who wrote, like Genesis is written

from the point of view of someone who's telling this story.

And at the time that he gets to the Adam and Eve part, there's like a little

aside where the narrator says, for this reason, a man will leave his father

and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh.

It's whoever wrote Genesis.

And Jesus says, God wrote that.

So I think that's really important. That's where I want to begin. This is God's word.

Now that does not mean that I don't believe there was a human author for the

book of Genesis. I do. I think all of the books of the Bible had human authors.

The person who is traditionally credited as the author of the book of Genesis is Moses.

In fact, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy,

the first five books of the Bible are attributed to Moses.

In fact, it seems that the New Testament assumes that those five books of the

Bible are the books of Moses. I don't know if it like flat out says it explicitly,

but it does seem to be something that is sort of hinted at or implied or assumed.

You can see this if you wanna look it up in Mark chapter 12,

Mark 12:26

verse 26, Luke chapter 24, verse 27, and John chapter five, verses 46 through 47.

Luke 24:27

Those are all places in the New Testament where it refers back to the first

five books and says something like, didn't Moses say, or in the book of Moses,

it seems that the book of Moses is sometimes used as a word to mean Genesis through Deuteronomy,

you know, or whatever. or in the writings of Moses, doesn't it say this?

Okay, so we see that in the New Testament time period, that seems to be how

this book was primarily credited to Moses.

Now, having said that, I do think it's possible, don't know for sure,

but I do think it's possible that Moses could have incorporated other writings

of other people into the book of Genesis when he wrote it.

For instance, in Genesis, you'll see that there is a genealogy that traces like

the genealogical record from Adam to Noah.

I think it's possible that Moses got that from somewhere, okay?

That somebody else had written that down or kept track of that,

and then he incorporated it into his document.

I also think it's possible that someone or someones came along after Moses and

edited Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy more,

and maybe even added stuff to it.

The reason I say that, well, first of all, I'll say there's one section that

I think almost everybody agrees that it was added on after the fact,

And it's Deuteronomy chapter 34, verses five through eight.

Deuteronomy 34 · chapter mention

You can look it up this afternoon if you want. But Deuteronomy 34,

five through eight is the account of Moses's death.

So a lot of people think it's very possible that that portion of Deuteronomy

was written after Moses died. Right?

Some of you seem to be like, I'm having a hard time with this,

that he had already died when it was written.

That's how they were able to write about Moses's death, right?

That probably Moses did not write about his death before it happened,

but probably after he died, someone chronicled what happened and then put it

at the end of the books of Moses. Okay.

So the reason I bring this up, because it seems to me that sometimes there are

skeptics who come along and try to bring this up as, it seems like as a way

to like devalue the book of Genesis.

So they would go, well, it seems

like there's portions in here that were written by different authors.

And I guess what I wanted to start off today by saying is, like,

I don't think that matters. I think Jesus said God wrote it. This is the word of God.

And so there might be times throughout this series that I refer to the author

as Moses, or maybe the author of Genesis, or maybe I'll just say God.

I don't know what we'll do.

But I guess I just, the thing I wanted to start off with first and foremost

is to kind of answer the question, why are we learning the book of Genesis here at Good News Church?

The answer is because it's God's word. Jesus said so.

Okay. So let's go ahead and read Genesis chapter one. I'm going to read most

of the chapter. I'm going to read the first 27 verses.

This is how the Bible begins.

Genesis 1, 1 and following. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty.

Darkness covered the surface of the watery depths and the spirit of God was

hovering over the surface of the waters.

Then God said, let there be light. And there was light.

God saw that the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light day and he called the darkness night.

Evening came and then morning, the first day. Then God said,

let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.

So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water

above the expanse. And it was so.

God called the expanse sky.

Evening came and then morning, the second day.

Then God said, let the water under the sky be gathered into one place and let

the dry land appear. And it was so.

God called the dry land earth and he called the gathering of the water seas.

And God saw that it was good. And then God said, let the earth produce vegetation,

seed bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth, bearing fruit with seed in

it according to their kinds.

And it was so. The earth produced vegetation, seed bearing plants according

to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.

And God saw that it was good.

Evening came and then morning, the third day.

Then God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the

day from the night. They will serve as signs for festivals and for days and years.

They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth. And it was so.

God made the two the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser

light to have dominion over the night, as well as the stars.

God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth,

to dominate the day and the night and to separate light from darkness.

And God saw that it was good.

Evening came and then morning, the fourth day.

Then God said, let the waters swarm with living creatures and let birds fly

above the earth across the expanse of the sky.

So God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves

and swarms in the water according to their kinds.

He also created every winged bird according to its kind and God saw that it was good.

So God blessed them. be fruitful, multiply and fill the waters of the sea and

let the birds multiply on the earth.

Evening came and then morning, the fifth day.

And then God said, let the earth produce living creatures according to their

kinds, livestock, creatures that crawl and the wildlife of the earth according

to their kinds. And it was so.

So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds,

the livestock according to their kinds and creatures that crawl on the ground

according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

And then God said, let us make man in our image.

According to our likeness, they will rule the fish of the sea,

the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God.

He created them male and female.

And that's where I will stop. That's the first page of the Bible.

At least in my Bible, like it's literally, it ends on verse 27.

That is the first page of my Bible that I just read to you. And I think that's enough for today.

What happens on the first page of the Bible?

Like if we were to open our Bible and go, okay, well, what's the first thing

the Bible says? I think it's pretty obvious in this passage, God does what?

He creates the world. So that's the first, that's point one in the Bible.

What's the first thing that you learn?

God made the world. In this passage, God creates the world. That's what happens

on the first page of the Bible.

We are only one page into the Bible and we have already come across things that

people disagree on. Did you notice that?

Yeah, that's crazy, isn't it? And so you have some people that read that and

some of you, maybe this is the first time you've heard that read out loud.

And for some of you, this was a reminder for you. Some of you,

maybe you're very familiar with it.

But we hear this and we go, whoa, like maybe some of us go, is that true?

Is that really how the world began?

And then there may be some of us that we don't say, is that true?

Because we go, no, no, Jesus said it's true. I believe it's true.

And so we'd phrase it this way. We'd go, is that literal?

Is that literally true that that's the way it happened?

You know, like what about science class? And what about evolution?

And what about all the things I've learned? And what do we do with this?

And so I'm sure you're aware there are lots of different people that have lots

of different opinions about Genesis chapter one.

Tons of opinions on what the first page of the Bible means.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start with, I'm gonna give you a list of,

I think, five different views.

I wanna go over five different like positions, five different perspectives that

people have on Genesis chapter one, five different perspectives on the first page of the Bible.

And I think this is going to cover pretty nearly everything everybody believes.

Maybe there's some category you'll be able to come up with that I missed,

but I think everything's probably a subcategory under these five main headings.

Okay. So these are the different views of Genesis chapter one.

First one is I'm going to call it the literal view. The literal view of Genesis

chapter one is God created the world and he did it the way that it says it here

without a whole lot of interpretation.

You just read it and go, okay, God spoke and the stuff started existing.

God started talking and he wanted there to be trees. So he told trees to exist

and then they started existing.

And that happened. And that happened over a period of roughly six,

24 hour periods. Okay. So that's the literal view.

The second view is called like a gap theory is what I've heard it called.

And that is the idea that there is a gap of time between Genesis 1 verse 2 and

Genesis 1:2

Genesis 1 verse 3. I think that's typically where the gap is.

Genesis 1:3

The idea, and I think the purpose of this is to allow for an earth to be very

old, is that God could have created an earth and it could have sat there for

quite a while before day one of this six-day process.

So here's how the idea works.

Genesis 1.1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

So some people would say, well, that's when God created the heavens and the

earth in verse one, when it says God created the heavens and the earth.

And now at that point, you got an earth.

Even before you have all the other stuff, something exists at this point because

it says the earth was formless and empty. It doesn't say it was non-existent.

It was there doing something. Well, what was in it? I don't know.

I mean, there was at least water because the Holy Spirit was hovering over the

surface of the waters, right?

So God makes some world and there's some water. And I'm guessing underneath

that water is some land because later on in the passage, God tells the water

to move around to reveal the land, right? So we got some land, we got some water.

And so there's something there. And then after that, God says, let there be light.

And then you have all the things that happen in the six days.

And so I think the gap theory people would say God creates a world.

And then there's a period of who knows, maybe millions of years.

And then the things that happen in the six days take place.

And I think some people would even say that it's something of a,

like God creates the world.

And then after whatever period of time, there comes a point where he creates

the world the way that we know of it, where he is separating light from darkness

and fish from birds and moon from stars and making it more in the way that we understand it to be.

So we got two views so far, literal view, we got the gap theory.

And then the third view, I've heard it called progressive creation.

I've also heard it called the day age theory.

The day age theory is that God created the world the way Genesis describes it,

but the word day that's found on the first page of the Bible does not mean a

literal 24-hour period, that it refers to an indeterminate amount of time.

So God made the world. I guess you could say this, like the Bible,

they would say the Bible says God created the world in six God days,

not necessarily six human days, right?

And they would say the word day here is being used a little bit metaphorically,

sort of in the way that like when your great grandma says, back in my day,

we sewed our own clothes. Okay.

Well, she's using the word day, but she doesn't mean that there was a particular

24 hour period where all the clothes were sewn, right?

She's saying there was a time period, there was an era where that was true.

And so they would say God created the world over the course of six eras of time.

They would probably lean very heavily on, there's a verse in second Peter that

says to the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.

And so if you have a God that is sort of outside of time, there could be to

him a six era thing that takes place over a long period of time from our perspective,

and it's all called six days.

They probably also would point out that the sun and moon were not made until

the fourth day. So it'd be hard to have 24 hour periods prior to the fourth day.

Okay, so we got the literal view, we got the gap view, and we've got the day-age

theory. And then the fourth view would be called theistic evolution.

Theistic evolution, as best as I understand it, would be someone who would say

all the stuff that you get taught in science class in public school is true.

Like there was this thing and this thing, or maybe not all, but a lot of it is true.

Like it was really true that like birds came from reptiles over a long period of time and all that.

And they would say that theistic evolution is what it sounds like.

So there was this evolutionary process. And there is a God who is superintending

over the whole thing, theistic evolution, that there is a God and he is the

one who administrated over this process of evolution to bring about the world

that we live in now. Okay.

That he was the one who made things happen very slowly over time in a certain

way. So we'd have the world that we have.

And in fact, I would imagine they would say there is absolutely no way we would

have the world that we have if there were not a God who was superintending over

the process to make it turn out as it did.

Those people would probably look at the first page of the book of Genesis,

they would not say it's false. They would say that it's not to be taken literally.

They would say it is a poem.

In fact, I remember in one book that I read, I think it mentioned this,

that there are times in the Bible where a historical account.

Like a historical narrative is given.

And then sometimes the Bible will give a, like a song or a poem about this historical event.

And the song or the poem is more, is less literal than the narrative is.

And so like one of the examples I think they gave was the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

And they said, when the Israelites cross the Red Sea, there's a chapter in Exodus

that is like the historical explanation of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

And then also in Exodus is a song about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

And the song is less literal than the historical narrative.

And so they would say, what's happening in Genesis is Genesis chapter one is the poem.

And then Genesis chapter two is the historical narrative where God makes Adam

and Eve and everything goes from there.

All right, then, so we've got literal gap, day, age, theistic evolution,

and now the fifth view is atheistic evolution.

Atheistic evolution is what it sounds like. Atheism meaning there is no God.

So the world came about how? Well, there was evolution and there were things

that came from things and birds came from reptiles and there was no God superintending

over the process because there is no God, right? The stuff just happened.

And so the belief with atheistic evolution would be, I think one of these two

things they would have to believe is true.

Either A, everything that exists just has always existed inexplicably and has

just kind of swirled around and it just happened to swirl around into the position we're in right now.

Or there was nothing at some point. And then without a cause,

like everything started and then swirled around and then came into the form that we are right now.

Okay, well, I think it would have to be one of those two things.

And it seems to me it would take a lot of faith to believe either one of those.

But that would be the belief that they would say there is no,

like the atheistic evolutionist would not say Genesis is not literal.

They would say Genesis is false. It is a religious myth. Okay.

There is no God that caused anything to happen.

So the question is this. In fact, I've had people ask me this.

I can remember one particular guy.

I remember he came up to me and the question was like, okay,

of those views, like which ones, like, are you, are you like allowed to believe

and still be a Christian?

Like of those views, like what's, what, where's the line of like in and out?

Like which one of those can you believe?

And it's like, okay, we'll tolerate that. And which ones it's like,

sorry, you're not one of us.

Like which, which ones are you allowed to believe and be a Christian?

That's a good question, isn't it? I think so too.

So let's go ahead and and go through them. And I think, let me start with the real easiest one.

The fifth one that I told you, that one's out.

It is like, you cannot be an atheistic evolutionist and be a Christian,

right? You cannot be someone who doesn't believe there's a God and be a Christian.

You cannot be someone that believes the Bible is false and be a Christian, okay? So that one's out.

It seems to me that of the other four remaining views, it is possible to be

a believer in Jesus Christ, meaning that you know Jesus and you hold to the

gospel and you believe any of those other four views.

Depending on the details of what you believe, it seems to me you could believe

any of the other four views and you could be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Because the thing that unites us as Christians is not our interpretation of Genesis chapter one.

It's the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? That we know Jesus, that we go,

I am doomed in my sins apart from him.

And he lived the life I should have lived. He died on the cross in my place.

I trust in him as my savior.

I trust him as my Lord. That's why I repent of my sins. I believe he rose again.

I believe there's eternal life and he's got it. And I believe that he's coming

back for me and I will live with him forever.

Like that's the thing that unites us as brothers and sisters in Christ,

not our view of Genesis chapter one, right?

Okay. So I think that's very helpful. Now I will point this out just,

I'm going to give this out.

And of the four views, the one that I think is the most problematic,

okay. And this is my opinion, but I don't think anybody's going to stop me from giving it.

It seems to me that one of the, of the four views, the one that's the most problematic,

from my perspective, I think is the fourth one, theistic evolution.

And that is, not necessarily so, but it seems to me that if you're a theistic

evolutionist, one of the things you will be tempted to do is not believe that

there was a literal Adam and Eve,

but rather there were primates that became more and more humanoid over time.

And then at some point, humanity began, but it's not some obvious point,

right? Because it was just very slowly.

Like at some point, apes were like a little bit less ape-like until one point,

at some point, we're like, well, I guess that's a human.

All right. And so it sort of started, but there's no beginning point that's

obvious of like, this is where humanity began. This is where sin began.

And this is where death entered into the world because humans sinned.

And so that's an issue that then will start to collide with some of the things

we see in the New Testament. Okay, so I wanted to show you this one verse.

This is 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Our associate pastor, Doug Davison, read this verse last week in the Easter

service. In fact, I thought Doug did a great job on the Easter message last week, didn't he? Yeah.

So glad I skipped this year. It was wonderful. I mean, I didn't skip,

I was here at church, but I'm really glad that he was the preacher.

And as he was preaching, this verse came up. Now he brought up this verse because

he was talking about the resurrection.

But I looked at it and went, I'm going to put that in my Genesis thing because it brings up Adam.

So, so this is a verse that you all just saw last week. If you were here at

Easter, first Corinthians says, for as in Adam, all die.

So also in Christ, all will be made alive. And I want you to notice Adam here

is treated like he's a person, like Jesus Christ is a person.

And something happened in Adam that Christ is reversing, right?

Adam did something that caused death to reign. And then Jesus is the second

Adam that comes along that reverses what happened in Adam, right?

It seems to me that that's an important part of like the New Testament gospel.

Now, that's not necessarily something that disqualifies theistic evolution,

because I think there are some people who believe that God created the world

through evolution all the way up to Adam and Eve. And then that's where he said, stop.

And then he made Adam and Eve directly right then. Okay.

So depending on the details, it seems to me Christians are able to believe different

things about Genesis chapter and we can be each other's brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now, at that point, I can imagine someone go, okay, but Mario.

Which one's the right one like that's what i

want to know i don't want to know like what's tolerated around here i want

to know like what is the correct one okay and i don't know if you realize this

but when you ask me which one's the right one you do realize basically what

you're asking me is mario which one do you believe right i don't know which

one the right one is i know which one i think the right one is so that's all

i can tell you okay mario will you tell me.

I will. But, oh, you were surprised.

But not until I've made something clear. Okay. The reason that I've said everything

that I've said up to this point in the sermon is because I really wanted to

make it clear that Christians do not have to divide over this.

Christians are able to accept one another as having different opinions on Genesis 1.

I don't want anyone showing up at their community group and shunning people

that have a different view than their view of the first page of the Bible.

Are you following me? Okay. So I want to be really careful with this sermon

to not make it sound like you are not a

Christian unless you agree with my interpretation of Genesis chapter one.

Have I accomplished that? Okay. That has happened.

All right. Fair enough. Now I will tell you, okay, with all that being said,

I take the literal view. Okay.

Now I realize there may be some of you like, hey, my pastor's not a heretic. But here's the thing.

I really want you to get this. There are people who disagree with me on Genesis

1 and they are not heretics. Okay.

Second thing is I realize there are some of you that are going like,

oh no, my pastor's an idiot. Okay.

Right. Cause you're like, yeah, I just can't, I've been going to church here for a year and a half.

And he just, he seems like such a bright young fellow. I would have never guessed

that he's dumb. And he's never, he's never taken a science class.

Clearly like, this is just like what a disappointment.

So first I guess I should let you know I have taken science classes.

I have a bachelor's degree in fact just so you know. Now it is like it's not

in science it's a bachelor's degree in performing arts so I'm aware.

I am aware that that's not a science but I will tell you in order to get a bachelor's

degree from any college they make you take science classes okay whether you

like it or not those first two years they force these science classes on you

or they won't give you a degree.

So I took all the science classes. I went to a secular university too.

Okay. So just in case you're like, well, maybe he doesn't know.

Like, no, my college, we did not have like posters of Adam and Eve writing pterodactyls

to church or anything like that.

Okay. I went to a secular university and I took all the science classes.

I didn't just take them. I passed them.

I didn't just pass them. I got good grades, y'all.

Okay. I did all the stuff they wanted me to do to like say whatever they want

me to say on the test in order to get an A. Okay, so I guess what I'm saying

is like, I'm aware of the alternatives to my belief.

But the reason that I take the literal view and I'll just explain it briefly

and you can agree or disagree, I really kind of don't care.

But it seems to me that if there is a God,

Who created a fully functioning world?

And by fully functioning, I mean like there's trees and there's flowers and

there's pollen on the flowers and there's bees pollinating the flowers and there's

rivers and the tides are doing the thing with the sand and all that.

Like if God created a fully functioning world, that world by necessity would

look older and more evolved than it actually is. It would have to.

So let me give you some examples if you can't imagine this.

When God created the world, he made trees. Like it said that in the passage. Did you catch that?

Like God said, let there be trees. The passage does not make it sound like God

planted a bunch of seeds and waited for them to grow.

Like there was a day according, if you take Genesis 1 literally,

what you would interpret it to mean is there was a day where God said,

there needs to be a tree right there. And then a whole tree was there.

Okay, now here's what that would cause though. I just want you to think this through.

If there were a lumberjack back there at the time, which he wasn't there yet,

but imagine he was there and he would have saw down this giant tree.

He would count the rings and say, whoa, this tree is 500 years old.

And God would say, it's five minutes old.

Right? And then the lumberjack would be like, well, why are you lying to us?

Right? And God would say, I'm not lying. I just wanted to build a whole tree. Right?

Adam and Eve, when you look at them in Genesis chapter two, it's pretty clear

that they were made as adults or something. They're walking and talking right away.

God did not create two babies named Adam and Eve and raise them from babyhood.

Right? So they're looking whatever they, I don't know what they look like,

25 years old, 30 years old.

But there would have been a

point where they're looking 30 years old and they were like two days old.

Okay. Here's another one. Canyons. I go on vacation like you do and go to the

museums and look at the, read the plaques and stuff. I mean,

not all of you read the plaques, I'm aware.

But anyway, but some of you do. And you'll see the places where it says like

this canyon is 1 million years old, you know, because that's how long it takes

with the sediment and the thing.

And the, you know, when it's at the rate of erosion, it would take 1 million

years for this canyon to be here. And here's the thing, I get that, I get that.

I believe that at the rate of erosion, it would take 1 million years to make

that canyon. I totally believe that.

But what if God created a world and he just wanted canyons to be there right there in the first week?

Then you'd have sections of the world that look a lot older than they actually are.

Last illustration I'll use is stars because this one comes up quite a bit.

The stars are really old, right?

That's what, like the idea is, the amount of time it takes, like the stars are

light years away from us, right?

To light years, how far light travels in one year.

And I think there are stars that are like a million light years away from us.

So people will point out, like when you go out at night and you look at the

stars and you see a star, you're actually not seeing that star.

You're seeing something that was like a million years ago. Like that's how long

it took for the light to get to your eye, right? That star might not even be there anymore.

Who knows what it's now? Cause it takes so long for the light to reach.

You know, us to be able to see it.

And I get that. Like, I believe that it's a million light years away.

Like I get all that, but this is, and so the idea is, well, then that star must

be one million years old because we can see it. and okay, sure,

maybe, but this is my thought.

What if, what if God created stars to be seen by Adam and Eve right away?

Would he have to create them and then wait a million years?

And then one day like get off TikTok and go, oh, it's time to make Adam and

Eve. They can see the stars now.

Or could he just have created them and the light already be there?

Well, of course he could.

But then what that would cause is we'd go, but that star is a million years old, right?

So I believe that if God were to make a fully functioning earth,

it would look older and more evolved than it actually is.

Additionally, Exodus chapter 20 repeats a lot of the most important things from

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter one. And Exodus chapter 20 is not a poem.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

So that's what I believe. Here's the deal. I could be wrong.

And that's fine. As long as I am not wrong about the gospel. Do you realize that?

Like if the gospel, if understanding Jesus Christ and belonging to him and being

saved by him is what saves me, then that's what matters.

I could be wrong on my interpretation of Genesis. I could get to heaven one day.

In fact, I think this could happen. I'm going to get to heaven one day and I

could find out that I was wrong on Genesis chapter one.

And if that happens, I will be fine with it because I'll be in heaven.

Right? So I might get there and find out I was wrong and you were right.

I might get there and you might find out you were wrong and I was right.

That's what I'm hoping for.

But the point is to be there.

Okay. So let's move on to some application. We look at the first page of the Bible.

God creates the world. And what do we do with it? Like how will this affect

our life on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday?

And so there are two things that I want to share with you that I think are very

important for the way we view this world and the way that we live.

And I think that these two points that I'm about to make, we can all agree on,

no matter which one of the views you take about Genesis chapter one,

with the exception of the fifth one, that's the one you just,

you really got to get rid of that one. It's no good. Get rid of view number five, please.

But of the remaining four, I think it really doesn't matter whether you think

there's a gap in there or whether you think God made the earth in a very quick

period of time or they made a really slow period of time or whether it's a poem or not a poem.

It seems to me that no matter what position you take, you're going to agree

with these next two things I'm going to say.

Number one, Genesis chapter one teaches that God is the origin of everything.

Everything comes from him. Whether everything came from him,

slowly or quickly, everything comes from him.

God is the origin of all of the things.

And then the second point, and this one I think is just implied by the first

point, God is the origin of everything and God is the owner of everything.

Now I realize the word owner is not in Genesis 1, but that's implied.

If God is the origin of everything that exists, then he is the owner of everything that exists.

Just like if you take a bunch of car parts and put them together and create

a car, like that car's yours, right?

And if you take clay and you make some sort of pottery thing out of it,

the thing that you made when you're done creating it, that's your thing.

You're the owner of it, assuming you owned the materials it was made out of, right?

God made everything so he owns everything. He owns everyone that you've ever talked to.

He owns you. He owns every part of you. He owns every breath you've ever taken.

He owns everything you've ever seen. He's the owner of everything.

And that is why we owe him like the loyalty and the obedience that we owe him,

because it all belongs to him.

That if we were to go, well, who does God think he is?

He wrote a whole book and it's got rules in it and tells me how I have to handle

sex and tell me how I have to handle parenting and tells me how I have to handle

my money. Who is he to tell me what to do?

He's the one that owns you and everything you own and everything you've ever

seen and everything they own. That's why it's all his stuff.

And if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, it seems to me you are doubly owned

by God because not only did he create you, but the Bible says he bought you.

Let me show this to you in 1 Corinthians 6. This will be the last verse for today.

1 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 19. Don't you know that your body is a sanctuary

of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? Now,

I really want you to notice this next part.

You are not your own for you were bought at a price.

Therefore glorify God in your body. So that's the application.

Glorify God in your body, right? Honor God in the way you live.

Why should you honor God in the way you live? Because you're not your own, you're his.

Well, why are you not your own? Why are you his? And what's interesting is this

verse doesn't actually bring up the Genesis idea.

It doesn't say you are not your own because God created you,

even though that's true.

It says, you are not your own for you were bought at a price.

That's a reference to Jesus dying on the cross for your sins, is it not?

That's, that the idea here is God owns you because God owns everybody.

But we walked away from him. We left him. We rejected him and walked away from

him, rejected him as our father, rejected him as our creator and as our owner.

And then he sent his son to pay the price and he bought us back.

The whole story with Jesus and the crucifixion, he was paying the ransom to

get us back into his family.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are doubly owned by God because he

made you so he owns you like he owns everything.

And then he bought you after that.

And so that's why therefore glorify God in your body.

So I think there's a lot more that we could say, but I think that's good enough

for week one. Let me go ahead and close this out in prayer.

Lord, thank you for the book of Genesis and thank you for the beginning of this

journey. and thank you for these people. Thank you for the opportunity to teach your word.

I do pray that you would help us, that we would not be people who draw lines

of judgment in the wrong places. We would go, I can't believe you believe that about Genesis.

Well, I don't know if I wanna invite you over to my whatever thing anymore.

I pray we would not do that, that we would not treat brothers and sisters as

if they are not our brothers and sisters.

I also pray that you would help us to take your word seriously and we would

just believe your word and trust you as best as we could possibly trust you

even in the midst of doubts.

Jesus, thank you so much for dying on the cross for our sins.

We love you. Amen.