In the Beginning | Genesis 1 | Micah Hales

All right, alright, alright.

Y'all can go ahead and take a seat.

Man, that's crazy.

So you watch you watched him get a ticket on his motorcycle today?

That's crazy.

Bummer.

Bummer for Levi.

Ticket first time ticket on a motorcycle.

Okay, well, welcome to Saw Company.

If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Mike and I get to serve on staff here with Mac.

That seems let's temp let's temper the expectations.

There's some new people here.

Well, yeah, that is my title.

Um, but I get to serve here with Salt Company.

Uh super glad that you're here with us week two.

Um, if you were here to kick off, make some noise.

Trick question.

We were at Lake Park.

You were not here for kickoff.

Jokes on you.

No, I'm just kidding.

Um yeah, I'm excited.

I know, boo, whatever.

Um, but uh, but yeah, like Max said, we are the College Ministry of Ambassador Church, which also meets here on Sunday mornings.

We would love to have you come and join us.

Uh, if you've missed the past couple weeks, we've had some food given out, okay, some some culverse uh Scoopy tokens, all right, for some free custard.

Okay, and next Sunday, this coming Sunday, we actually have, we didn't talk about it, which we should have done that.

My bad.

Didn't put the slide in there.

Uh we have Feed a College Student Sunday.

So if you like food, which I think you all do here, uh you should come check out Ambassador this Sunday because there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna want to give you some free food.

Okay, so take advantage of that.

That's this upcoming Sunday at Ambassador.

Um but last week we kicked off Saul Company for the year uh and we talked about a kind of a standalone message of Zacchaeus and Jesus uh from the book of Luke.

And this week we're starting a new sermon series uh called In the Beginning.

Okay, can you guess where we're gonna be at for the next couple of weeks?

Anybody?

Genesis, thank you.

Who said Revelation?

That's crazy.

That's wild.

We're gonna talk later, Hannah.

Um uh but we're gonna be taking a look at Genesis chapters one through three over the next three weeks.

Okay?

Uh and tonight we're gonna start with the first chapter, Genesis one.

Uh so we're also going to be uh the goal of tonight is going to be answering this question of how did we get here?

Okay, that's the question we're gonna be answering tonight.

So if you have your Bibles, you can open them, uh start opening them to the very first page, well maybe the second or third or fourth page.

Uh, you know, you got some filler pages in there.

But Genesis chapter one is where we're gonna be tonight.

Um, if you don't have a physical copy of the Bible, you can borrow one uh from the pews around you, or we would love to give you a free Bible straight at the back at the Connect table.

Um you can take one home with you.

We'd love to have you have a physical copy of God's word.

But as you're kind of not really turning there, but as you're thinking about uh Genesis one, I want to start with that question that I just mentioned.

How did we get here?

Okay, how did we get here?

It's one of the biggest questions that we face in this life.

Okay, you maybe phrase it differently, like why is humanity here, or how is humanity here, or how did the world come to be?

Like, like what what how do we get to where we are right now?

Uh but we've all asked or thought about that question, how did we get here?

And there are varying answers and and theories and sort of lines of thinking when it comes to answering that question.

Okay, you've probably heard about uh the Big Bang Theory, not the TV show, but the the actual theory itself, and it is a theory.

Uh or the black hole universe model, that's for the nerds in here.

You might not know that one.

Uh nobody?

Okay, cool.

Um, or the Marvel Multiverse.

Anybody?

That's a theory as well.

Okay, these are just some of the uh sort of atheistic scientific explanations for that question.

Um, there's even other religious creation accounts.

Okay, there's a there's an Islamic creation account, there's a Hindu creation story.

Okay, there are tons of attempts at answering that question.

But here's the problem with having so many theories and stories for answering the question of how did we get here?

They can't all be right.

Okay, they can't possibly all be right because there are countless contradictions and aspects that go against each other within all of them.

Okay, so what does that mean for us?

It means that we need to pick one.

Okay, you either have faith that everything somehow got created out of nothing, okay, or you have faith that everything was created by someone.

And tonight what we're going to do is we're gonna take a look at the first chapter in Genesis, the first chapter of the entire Bible, and get the Christian biblical creation account to sort of see how it answers this question of how did we get here?

Okay, sound good to nobody.

Sounds terrible to everybody.

This is gonna be awesome.

Love it.

Okay, well, if you've managed to turn two pages into your Bible, we're gonna start in Genesis 1.

Uh so you can open your Bibles up now.

I'm gonna read verse 1 for us.

Okay, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Okay, so right away, what we get is with the short and sweet answer to the question of how did we get here?

Okay, God and more specifically, the one true God of the Bible created the heavens and the earth.

Okay, everything that you will ever see, the one true God of the Bible has created it.

Okay, those beaches that you love to post on your Instagram, God made them.

Okay, the mountains that you love to go visit, but maybe you actually haven't been to very many mountains yet, right?

Your aspirational mountains, God made them.

Okay, those stars that your breath gets sort of taken away by when you see them in all of their clarity, when you're out of the city lights and you're out in the middle of nowhere, God created them.

Okay, there is a beautiful simplicity to verse one because it encompasses this like unfathomable amount of aspects and intricacies and details of what God had created in ten words.

Everything in this life and in this world, according to the Bible, comes from the one true God of the Bible.

Okay, and this is the foundation of the Genesis creation account.

Okay, and it's the foundation of the answer to our question of how did we get here?

Okay, so how did God create?

If God created, how did he create?

What did he do?

Okay, we're gonna find the answer in our verses tonight.

So, verse two, it says this 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, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

There was an evening and there was morning one day.

Okay, so how did God create?

The first thing is this God declared.

Okay?

God declared.

One of the most powerful aspects of the Genesis creation account is that God literally just declares, He speaks something to be created and it gets created.

Okay, he declares that something be and then it is.

He says, Let there be light, and there is light.

He declares a name over an element of creation, and that is the name.

There's no questions asked.

He speaks and it is done.

Okay, and this isn't the only place that he does it.

It's throughout our whole chapter tonight.

We're not going to be able to touch on every single verse because we're covering the whole thing.

But in verses six through eight, God, he creates our atmosphere and what will eventually become our water and our weather system just by saying the word.

God creates the land that we call earth and the seas just by speaking them into existence.

God also creates in verses 11 through 13 vegetation.

Any plant people out there?

Any plant moms in the room?

Yeah, a couple of you.

You're a little scared to raise your hand, but that's okay.

You're out there.

Every single kind of plant known to mankind, he creates it and just it's done.

Okay, verses 14 through 19, God creates the sun and the moon and the stars just by speaking.

Verses 20 through 23, God creates all the fish in the sea and the birds of the air and the thousands and thousands of species just by saying the word.

Verses 24 and 25, God creates the land, animals of the earth, every single one of them, all of the species and the subspecies and everything in between, he just spoke it into being.

And finally, verses 26 through 31, God finally creates his crown jewel of all creation, humans.

Just by saying the word.

Okay, that is power.

Okay, that is authority.

That is what only God can do.

He declares it and things happen.

Like I can't even imagine what it would be like to have even like a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of that kind of power, right?

The authority to just declare things into existence.

Like I would abuse that so badly.

Like I would immediately say, my declare my student loans are just gone, right?

That'd be the first thing I'd probably say.

Okay, like I would be declaring a Culver's Bacon Deluxe combo into my hands every night at about 6 p.m.

Can I get an amen from somebody?

Yes.

Okay.

I would be declaring the dumbest things, guys.

Like I would be abusing this so badly.

Like I'd finally, I'd I'd probably declare that the Brewers would finally win the World Series and get over the hump against the Dodgers.

Maybe this is the year, right?

The Miz is really dealing it this year.

Okay.

That's crazy, Gavin.

Gavin Long is the biz the biggest Miz fan I've ever met in my life.

If you don't know who that is, Google later.

Okay, I would be so incredibly irresponsible with that kind of power.

Okay, but here's the good thing.

I and nobody else here have the kind of power that God does.

Okay, we cannot declare things into existence.

Because there's only one true God that can declare things into being, and that is the God of the Bible.

He's the only one that can do this.

You want to know something truly wild about God like declaring the entire universe into existence?

He does it in six days.

Six days, guys.

Some of you have had relationships shorter than that.

Okay?

Maybe all of us have.

Six days.

Okay, like God declares that the heavens and the earth are created in a six-day period.

That's not even a week.

Like we almost can't wrap our minds around that number that God created everything that we see in the universe simply by declaring it in less than the amount of time it takes you to get a homework assignment.

But he didn't just declare things to come into existence, he also designed everything in existence, too, which is our second way that God creates.

God created everything in the universe in six days, but that doesn't mean that he was any less intentional with his design.

Okay, so if God is the one true God of the universe, if he is perfect, then everything he does is perfect, including his design.

Like each step, if you were to look at this whole chapter in Genesis 1, each step that God takes in the creation account is a step that is intentional, that builds on each other perfectly, that displays his perfection through intricate layers of complex and deeply interconnected design in the world.

Okay, God's original design in creation was purposeful and it was perfect to the point where after all of these parts of creation, God says, it was good.

Did you notice that?

Like God creates something in this account, and he says, that's good.

Like God is not unhappy with his design.

Like he loves what he created.

But you know what he loves most of all?

If you've read through the chapter, you know you know what it is?

It's us.

Okay?

Human beings.

God creates all the other things in the universe, and finally, last he creates us.

He was saving the best for last.

Let's jump down to verse 26 here in our chapter.

Okay, verse 26, it says this.

And then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Do you catch what he says there?

He says, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Yeah, you can clap for that.

Come on.

Now, if you've been around Christianity for long, you probably know there's this aspect of God that is both beautiful and is also a mystery.

And that is that the one true God of the Bible is actually three in one.

Okay, this is often referred to as the Trinity or the Godhead.

God is one God existing in three persons.

Okay, God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit.

And while this is possible to understand that there is one God in three persons, our brains literally cannot wrap our minds around how this actually makes sense.

Okay, but that does not make it any less true.

Okay, just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't true.

Okay, one of the things that is incredible about the Trinity is that we don't have to actually fully understand the concept to believe in it wholeheartedly.

Okay, you know what that's called?

Faith.

So when we read all the passages in the Bible describing God as one, but God is also our Heavenly Father, and God is also Jesus Christ, and God is also the Holy Spirit, we can have faith that what it says is true, even if we don't fully understand it or fully comprehend it.

And in our passage, and specifically this this verse, we see that God has always existed in this way.

Okay, when verse 26 says, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

What it shows us is that the triune, God of the Bible, created human beings in his image and likeness, and that we as humans are a reflection of all three persons that make up the one true God.

Okay, translation here is this means that we as people are special to God.

We're not just special to God in the creation account, but we are special to God.

God created us with special treatment.

Okay, the second half of verse 26 says this they, that's humans, will rule the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures, excuse me, that crawl on the earth.

It goes on to say, so God created man in his own image.

He created them in the image of God.

He created them male and female, and God blessed them.

And God said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.

God also said, Look, I've given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed.

This will be food for you.

For all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, for every creature that crawls on the earth, everything having the breath of life in it, I have given every green plant for food.

And it was so.

And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed.

Evening came, and then morning, the sixth day.

Like with God being our heavenly Father, you know what that makes us?

His favorite kids.

Right?

God creates us in his own image, as his favorite creation, exactly like we were supposed to be in his perfect design.

And this means that when God creates us as human beings, as male and female, he didn't make a mistake.

Like how God designed men and women is exactly how he intended.

Okay, this has so many implications for humanity today, just like it did in Genesis 1.

This means that if you were born a male, God didn't make a mistake with you.

This means that when you were born a female, God didn't make a mistake with you.

This means that the special qualities that women have, God didn't mess up on.

This means that the special qualities that men have, God did not mess up on.

Okay, but here's the thing that we need to know about God's original perfect design.

Okay, it eventually, here's a spoiler coming, it got corrupted by something that we call sin.

Okay, and we'll unpack this in the next couple of chapters, specifically in Genesis 3 in two weeks.

But God's original design, it's flawless, it's perfect, and it's exactly how it was supposed to be.

Like God created us as humans to simply reflect God's image, to display his character, to steward the earth, and to multiply his presence throughout the world.

Okay, God does not make mistakes, and he didn't make any with his design either.

Okay, but God doesn't just declare things into existence, he doesn't just design creation, but out of love, he actually delegates responsibilities to other elements of creation, including us as human beings.

Okay, so God delegated.

Do you remember being like a little kid and your mom and dad asked you to like help with a job or like gave you a job to do for one of the first times?

Do you guys remember that?

Like, hey, you want to you want to help you wanna help dad with a job?

Hey, you want to help mom with a job around the house?

So my son, he's turning four in a few weeks.

All right, and when I give him a job to do, my guy is psyched.

Like I could be like, hey buddy, can you take this banana peel and just just toss it in the trash?

He is like out of a rocket ship, just throwing that banana peel in the trash.

Like he loves to be given a job.

He loves to be delegated something to do.

Okay, it doesn't really matter what it is.

Like if I go, hey buddy, you want to help Dad out with a job, he will almost always reply, uh-huh, yep, what is it?

You know, and he can barely talk at this age, right?

He loves it.

He'll happily put a dish in the sink.

Sometimes break him, but that's okay.

It got in the got in the sink, right?

He'll happily help vacuum, not really, but like he just kind of pushes it around the floor and maybe some stuff gets picked up.

Right?

He'll happily pick up his toys.

No, he actually he really actually doesn't do that.

That's actually a problem we need to work on.

But when my son gets invited in, okay, when he gets delegated a task that I could easily do on my own, I can put a dish in the sink, okay?

I can put a banana peel in the trash, I can do that on my own, but he gets to participate when I invite him in.

It's one of the best gifts that I could give him.

Because he's just as excited about being involved in the stewardship of our home, right?

Even if it's a small thing.

And when God created, when he declared, when he designed the universe, he always knew that he would delegate certain tasks to his creation.

That was always in the plan.

Just like me being able to put a dish in the sink, but I decide to delegate that task to my son who receives it joyfully.

This is how God takes the approach of creation in Genesis 1.

Okay, don't get me wrong here, God is all-powerful.

He can do anything and everything on his own, but God, in his loving kindness, decided to delegate some of those responsibilities to his creation.

Okay, look at verse 3.

God says, Let there be light, and there was light.

Okay, let there be light.

He speaks it into existence.

But then in verse 14, skip down there, I'm gonna pop all over Grace, so get after it.

In verse 14, he declares more light into existence.

Why does he do that?

Okay, first of all, what was lighting the world before the sun and the moon and the stars?

Anybody?

God was.

God was lighting the world.

He didn't need the sun and the moon and the stars.

Okay, and second of all, he designs the sun and the moon and the stars to be delegated the responsibility of providing light in the world.

Like God could have just said, I don't need the sun, it's just me.

I'm just gonna glow all the time.

Going to be light all day long.

Okay?

But instead, he delegates the responsibility to the light sources that we know today.

Okay, but God doesn't just delegate the sources of light, he also decides to delegate dominion or ruling over the earth from the seas to the skies to the land itself to us, to humans.

Okay, notice how God actually blesses the animals.

When he blesses them, he says, be fruitful and multiply.

But he doesn't hold on to the responsibility of ruling the animal kingdom.

He delegates it selflessly to humanity, the responsibility of having dominion and stewardship over the earth.

Like he gives us, humanity, a job to do.

Now, why would God do this?

Like, why would he give humanity a responsibility that he could easily have handled himself?

God, out of love, intentionally delegates responsibility to us because he doesn't want to be some impersonal, distant God.

But he has a desire to actually closely partner with us, his creation.

He wants to partner with creation to establish things like the rhythms of our days and nights and our rest and sleep.

Okay, anybody loves sleep in the room?

You can shout out to God for that, right?

He could have lit this whole thing up all day long.

You would have never slept a day in your life.

All right?

He wants us to help him establish things, like the food chain.

All right, there's a reason that us and chipmunks aren't on the same playing field.

He wanted us to help establish that food chain.

Not like you eat them, but you know, somebody does.

Okay?

He wants us to help him govern the world and society at large.

He invites us into this.

He gives us specific roles and responsibilities as his creation simply so he can shine his light into all the world against the darkness.

Okay, God loves delegating to his creation because he loves what he has created.

Which brings us to our last answer into how God actually created, and it's this God delighted.

Okay, I remember the first time that I held my son.

Okay, he's the oldest, so he's the firstborn of the family.

And we were living in uh Beaumont, Texas.

I don't think anybody's ever heard of that before, but if you have, let me know.

We'll talk Beaumont after.

The southeast corner of Texas, basically the swamp.

Okay, we were living there.

My son was born.

Uh my wife had just gone through a brutal labor and delivery.

And I remember the doctors and the nurses, they they take him away, they clean him up, and they bring him back in this little like swaddling thing, and they asked me, they're like, Do you want to hold him?

Right?

I I to be honest with you, not a lot of experience holding babies before my son came along, right?

But I absolutely said yes.

Okay, this was my son.

Okay, he was my creation, right?

I wanted to hold him.

They made me do this like skin-to-skin contact thing.

I don't know if you guys know what that is.

They make you like take your shirt off and like the guy take the shirt off in the room and like hold the baby, and supposed to get you more connected.

I don't know, man.

But I did it, right?

And I remember holding him, like skin-to-skin contact with my son, thinking this is kind of weird.

But I remember just like weeping over being able to hold my son.

Like we'd spent nine months anticipating my son entering into the world, and finally I get to hold him.

And I just remember crying like literal tears on his little head as I'm holding him, and he's he's just cashed.

Like he just got out of the womb.

He's just chilling, right?

But I remember just, I was weeping.

Like I don't cry that much, okay, normally, but I had never experienced anything more incredible and awe-inspiring in my entire life.

Like I don't know how to describe it other than that.

Like the gift of my own flesh and blood, my wife and I's own creation.

And in that moment, more than any other emotion, okay, I was crying, but what I felt was delight.

Like seeing my son in my arms, I felt complete and utter delight because like I could not love anything more, other than Jesus and my wife, than this little guy.

Like, I can't imagine loving anything more.

But what's true about how Bo came into this world is that my wife and I, we created him out of love.

We didn't try to create him for any reason other than that.

And by God's grace and kindness, we were able to experience holding our creation in our hands with pure delight for him.

That is what it was like for God to see and to hold his creation in his hands.

Like, just like my wife and I, God didn't create for any reason other than love.

Like he has no other reason to compel himself to create other than love.

Like God isn't creating a world out of anger or boredom or any other negative emotions that you can think of, but God creates the world and all that is in it out of love.

Like we see this all over the chapter here.

God creates an element of creation and he says, it was good.

He creates another part of creation, and he says, it was good, and another one and another one, and finally God creates humanity and he says, it was very good.

All these instances of God looking upon his creation are examples of God displaying his delight in what he has made.

Like God didn't have to delight in his creation.

He is God after all.

He can do what he wants.

But even though he didn't have to delight in it, he chooses to anyways.

And it's this delight, this deep intentional love for what he has created that causes God to never give up on us, his most prized part of creation.

Okay, and sin is simply anything that goes against God and his word.

And if you look forward just a couple of pages in your Bible to Genesis 3, you'll see this perfect design gets altered by our choice to sin against him.

And when humanity chooses to go against God, it creates this ripple effect of brokenness that has echoed down through thousands and thousands of years.

Okay, it's the reason why this world doesn't look like the flawless creation that we read about in Genesis 1.

Like sin fractured our standing with God, it fractured our relationships, and it even fractured creation itself.

Like by all accounts, we broke it.

We broke God's perfect creation.

And if God had treated us the way that we deserved, he could have just scrapped the project.

Like he could have started all over, he could have wiped the slate clean.

But instead, because of that very same delight and love, he creates a way back to him.

Okay, God didn't leave his creation to fend for themselves in the dark.

Instead, he sent Jesus, being fully God and fully man, down into his creation to take on flesh, just like you and me.

Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life that we could never achieve, and he fulfilled every part of God's design that we failed to keep.

And then he willingly, lovingly, took the penalty for our sins upon himself.

Like absorbing the full wrath that we deserve by dying a brutal death on the cross.

But he didn't stay dead.

If Jesus stays dead, we're not here right now.

Our Bibles don't exist as they are.

None of this makes any sense.

But Jesus didn't say dead.

He shattered the power of sin and death by rising again after three days.

Dead man came to life.

Jesus didn't just make a path, but he became the way back to God.

And it's because of this, it's because of what Jesus has done that our Creator God has opened the door for us to be fully reunited with Him.

Just like in the original design.

Perfect.

You don't have to clean yourself up.

Okay, the gospel isn't a message about cleaning yourself up before you come to God.

You can't work your way back into the Garden of Eden.

You can't earn your way back to God.

But all you have to do, all you can do, is confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Declare that he is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

That's it.

When you place your faith in him alone, your debt is paid, your eternity is secure, and you are welcomed right back into right relationship with your loving creator.

That's what happens, guys.

Like, so what do we do with all of this?

What do we do with the creation account?

If Genesis 1 tells us that God declared the universe into existence, that he designed us in his image, that he delegated us with stewardship over the earth and delighted in us as his creation, how does that change how we walk out of this room tonight?

Okay, because ultimately that's what I'm doing here.

I want you to change how you are as you leave this place.

Okay, so how do we do that?

Okay, it gives us three practical ways to live from our passage tonight.

The first is this.

They're not going to be up on the screen, so if you're note takers, lock in.

Okay, the first is this stop living like an accident.

Okay, so many of us walk around carrying this quiet, like heavy burden that like we are a mistake, or our past was a mistake, or our struggles were a mistake, or our insecurities mean that we were thrown together by chance.

Okay, but Genesis 1 completely shatters that lie.

You were intentionally designed by a God who does not make mistakes.

Your life has purpose because the creator of the universe gave you one.

The second is this step into the work that he's given you.

God didn't just create us to sit on the sidelines and watch him work.

Okay, he graciously delegates responsibility to us.

He invites us to partner with him in bringing his order, his care, and his light into our campuses, into our dorms, into our workplaces, and into our city.

So, what is the area of your life right now where you need to stop coasting and start stepping up to steward what God has placed in your hands?

Think about that.

And the third is this rest in the delight of your creator.

But God looked at his creation long before we ever produced anything or proved our value, and he said, it is good.

Like your worth isn't based on your hustle or your ability to get good grades or anything like that.

It's rooted entirely in the fact that you are known and delighted by your creator.

Like just imagine what would happen if a room full of students actually believe these things.

Like, what if we flip that script?

Imagine if we stopped treating our campuses or our jobs or our daily routines as like meaningless chores and started stepping up as faithful stewards of what God has delegated to us.

Okay, imagine the freedom we would experience if we stopped chasing our worth in our grades or our status or our hustle and simply just rested in the deep, unchanging delight of God, our creator.

Like when each of us start living out of who God created us to be, it doesn't just change our individual lives, it changes where we live, it changes our dorms, it changes our classrooms, it changes our city, and ultimately it can change our world.

Okay, Jesus did it with 12.

Imagine what we could do with a hundred, hundreds of students to believe this.

Let's pray that this would be true as we go from this place.

God, thank you for creating it.

God, thank you for declaring our universe into existence by just speaking the words.

God, thank you for your design of creation, your perfect design for us and for all that's around us.

God, thank you for not just doing everything on your own, but delegating and inviting us to participate in the stewardship of what you have created.

God, thank you for delighting in what you have made.

God, you love us.

You made us in your image.

God, thank you for that.

Like I pray that we would be people who lived as free people who were designed with a purpose.

Like I pray that we would be people who take ownership as faithful stewards of God's creation.

Like I pray that we would be people who would rest in the delight of our Creator God and nothing else.

I pray that we would change our campuses, that we'd change our city, and we'd ultimately change our world as a result.

I pray all this in your name.