1. In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all existence
2. In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all power
3. In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all order
4. In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all relationship
READ GENESIS 1:1-2
How many times have we read the first three chapters of Genesis? I’d venture to say that most of us would have a hard time counting the number of times we have. If you were raised in church, you’ve heard the creation story dozens of times. And you probably know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden by heart. So why do we need to look at it again? If it’s so familiar to us, why even study it again? Because without the first three chapters of Genesis, the rest of the Bible is meaningless. That’s why Satan attacks it so hard. Scholars tell us God didn’t create the universe, time and chance did. They tell us the Genesis account is a myth. That it is just a story created by a bunch of Jewish priests after the exile. Satan attacks the first three chapters of Genesis, because if he can discredit them, it will discredit the entire Bible. They are that important. And over the coming weeks we will see why they are that important. But tonight, we’re starting at the beginning—actually before the beginning. In these first two verses of the Bible, it is my prayer that we will be able to see God in a powerful way. As we look at these verses, I want each of us to marvel in the awesomeness of God. And marvel in the fact that that awesome God desires to have a relationship with us. And because of that, I want each of us to seek a better relationship with Him. In order to do that, we’re going to look at four attributes of God revealed in His creative act. The first attribute God revealed in His creative act is that He is God of all existence.
READ GENESIS 1:1a, “In the beginning God…”
In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all existence. Have you ever tried to witness to an atheist? If you’re talking with an atheist, many times they will try to back you in a corner and put you on the defensive. They’ll throw out something like, “Prove to me that God exists.”
And there are Christian scholars that have written a lot of books trying to win that argument by proving the existence of God. Now, sometimes those books are interesting. I think they’re much more beneficial to Christians than they are to atheists, because you won’t ever argue an atheist into heaven. But if we’re talking to an atheist or someone who’s not sure, why don’t we start where the Bible does? The Bible doesn’t waste any time trying to prove the existence of God. God is self-existent. He doesn’t need to prove that He exists. After all, how did He tell Moses to introduce Him to the children of Israel? He said, you tell them I AM sent you. That is what God told Moses His personal name is. In Hebrew it’s spelled yod he vah he, or crossed over into English—YHWH. We pronounce it Jehovah. When you look in your Bible, and you see LORD in all capital letters, that’s what it means. God’s personal name—Jehovah—YHWH—I AM. God doesn’t waste a bunch of time trying to convince people He exists. He simply says I AM. Not, I was. Not, I will be. But I AM. Jesus identified Himself the same way to the Jews in John 8:58. He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Those Jews knew exactly what He was talking about, because they immediately picked up stones to try to stone Him for blasphemy. When Jesus called Himself I AM, they knew He was equating Himself with God the Father. So they tried to kill Him. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit IS. We don’t have to prove that. We don’t have to defend God’s existence. Romans 1:20 says, “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” Any person that looks at God’s handiwork in creation and denies the existence of God is a fool. That’s why both Psalm 14:1 and 53:1 say, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” Only a fool can look at the intricacies of creation and deny the hand of God. Look at human DNA. DNA is a genetic code, specifically written within each living creature that defines who or what they are. Even scientists describe it as the book of life. Now tell me, does a book write itself? Of course not. Only a fool would think that. Just like only a fool would believe creation happened by itself. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.” God exists. He always has existed and He always will exist. He is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. His creative act reveals His existence. His creative act also reveals He is the God of all power.
READ GENESIS 1:1
In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all power. One of the things that really interests me is science. I mean, scientists can do all kinds of stuff that just a few years ago most of us thought was limited to sci-fi shows like Star Trek. A story is told of a group of scientists that got together and decided that they didn’t need God anymore. So one of them decided he would go and tell God the news. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we can do all the stuff that you can, so we don’t need you anymore. We can build robots. We can fuse atoms. We can even clone people. We just don’t need you, so you can just go away.” God listened to what he had to say and then brought up a suggestion. He said, “Why don’t we have a man-making contest. If you make a man just like I did the first time, I’ll go away.” The scientist agreed, and bent down to grab a handful of dirt. God stopped him and said, “Get your own dirt.” Now, of course, that’s a silly story, but it has a good point. Everything that we think we create starts with something that God created. We build buildings, we make machines, but God is the only One who created something from nothing. Think about it—with our finite little minds, that sounds impossible. Something can’t come from nothing. But it did. God spoke the universe into existence from nothing. That’s how powerful He is. Think about how big the Bluestone dam is. Think about how much manpower it took to build it. Think about the power of the tons of water it holds back. Think about the Big Walker Mountain tunnel and all the manpower it took to build it. Think about the massive weight and power of the mountain it’s holding up. The power of that water and that mountain are just a tiny fraction of the power that exists in all of nature. And all that power was spoken into existence from nothing by the indescribable, infinite power of God. Something from nothing doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. All it has to do is point to a power that is more than we can comprehend—and it does. Because God’s creative act reveals that He is the God of all power, it also reveals that He is the God of all order.
READ GENESIS 1:2a
In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all order. Why would God create earth as void and without form? That is a question that a lot of really smart people have wrestled with for a long time. There are some people who have tried to create a gap between verse 2 and 3 and say that’s where evolution happened. There are a lot of reasons why that isn’t true and we’ll get into that later on in Genesis. Doing that was just a way for people to try to bend Scripture to match what the science of the day was saying. But that science has proven itself wrong time and time again. And Scripture still stands. We don’t have to bend Scripture to make it fit anything. We just have to read it for what it says. And it says that God’s first step of creation was to create the earth void and without form. The words void and without form literally mean chaos. God’s first step of creation was chaotic. That doesn’t mean much to us today, but it sure meant a lot to the ancient world. Remember who wrote all this down—Moses. And he wrote it down as he was leading the children of Israel up out of 400 years of slavery in Egypt. For 400 years, they had been steeped in the philosophies and religion of Egypt. Egyptian religion was very similar to all other ancient religions. They believed in a lot of little gods. All those little gods came from bigger gods. And those gods came from bigger gods. And they believed that this went all the way back to the biggest god of all. But there was a problem with their gods. They could have some type of relationship with the little gods, because they were imperfect like they were. But the farther back you got, and the bigger the gods got, the less they could interact with people, until they got back to their biggest god of all. That god was completely impersonal. They had no way to know it. It was completely unknowable. They called that god chaos—the same word that God had Moses use to describe the first step of His creation. Here’s what Moses was telling all the people of the ancient world: “You know that unknowable god you have that you think is in back of everything? Well, I know the God who created chaos. And He’s real. And He’s a person. And He spoke. And I have a relationship with Him.” Now do you see why Pharaoh hated the Israelites so much? About 1500 years later, Paul did the same thing to the philosophers on Mars Hill. In Acts 17, he pointed to their altar to the Unknown God. The word for unknown there is agnostos—the word we get agnostic from. It means “can’t be known” or unknowable. The Athenians had set up an altar to worship chaos, just like the ancient Egyptians, and Paul told them the same thing Moses did. “You know the one that you worship that you say you can’t know? Well, I know Him. And He’s a person. And He commands you to repent because He wants to have a relationship with you.” That’s what God does. God is a personal God and He brings order out of chaos. He did that in creation and He does it in the lives of His children. God takes our lives that are void and without form—our lives which He created by the way—and brings order to them through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. God’s creative act reveals that He is the God of all order. And finally, His creative act reveals that He is the God of all relationship.
READ GENESIS 1:2b
In His creative act, God revealed He is the God of all relationship. What was the first thing that God did with the first product of His creation? He cared for it. He sent His Spirit to move over it. The word for move comes from the same word as brood. Have you ever watched a bird brood over her eggs? That is the picture that God paints of His Spirit brooding over His creation. By all accounts, this was an unfinished step of creation. It was chaotic. It was dark. It was formless waters. Really, it was good for nothing—worthless. But God created it, so He interacted with it. He cared for it. He nurtured it. He moved over it and had a relationship with it even though it wasn’t worthy of His attention. He did because He is the God of all relationship. He cares for all of His creation. He cares for it and wants to transform it from worthlessness to holiness. From a mess to blessed. Don’t you think He wants the same thing for you? You are His creation. As a matter of fact, you are His crowning creation. If He brooded over His creative act that was void and without form, don’t you think He broods over you? He is the God of all relationship and He desires to have a relationship with you. The God who is all existance. The God who is powerful enough to create something from nothing. The God who brings order out of chaos. That God cares for you and wants to have a relationship with you through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, He moves over your chaotic, worthless existence and He changes you and makes you something He can call good. He does that so that one day, you can stand before Him and He will say, “well done, my good and faithful servant.” Have you allowed Him to do that in your life, or are you still void and without form? Let the God of all existence, the God of all power, and the God of all order be the God of all relationship in your life.
