Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church Sermon Podcast.
We're so glad you're here,
and we hope this message inspires you,
builds your faith,
and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.
Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible
and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.
So welcome and enjoy the message.
If you have your Bible,
please open it to the very first book of the Bible, the book of
Genesis chapter 1, in a message I'm calling, It's All Good. It's All Good. Last week we started a
new series in Genesis and we looked at the very first sentence in the Bible, Genesis 1-1. In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now, there's not really
an elaborate introduction of God there, is there? It just says, in the beginning, God.
Have you ever heard someone introduce a keynote speaker at some event, and it seems like the
introduction lasts longer than the speech? They go on and on about this degree and
that degree, this accomplishment and that accomplishment. But I've also noticed that
it seems like the less well-known a person is, the longer that introduction speech is.
But when someone's actually known, it's very brief. So that when the president is introduced,
it's just, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.
That's how God's introduced in Genesis chapter 1.
In the beginning, God.
Now, if you can believe that, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,
I believe that the rest of Scripture is pretty easy to believe at that point.
So let's pick up in verse
number two. It says, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the
deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. We see here that the earth
started out dark and empty, and the Spirit of God was hovering over it. Now, some have emphasized
the desolate nature of that, that it's a wasteland, but I think a better way to think about it is that
God first created a big blank canvas that later He would paint His world upon. Now, as we dive
into the text, we're going to see the progressive sequence of action
that God took as he created the world.
In verse 2, he creates space, time, and matter.
But it's without form, meaning it's unfinished.
It's uninhabitable.
So the first few days, God prepares the earth for life.
And then in the remaining days, God populates the earth for life. And then in the remaining days, God populates the earth with
life. Now, before we jump into the actual text, we need to explore, I think, for a moment,
what is meant by the word day when the Bible speaks about the six days of creation. Because
the way you interpret the word day, yom in Hebrew, has a significant impact on how old you believe the earth to be.
So bear with me as we drill down into the weeds just a little bit more than we typically do.
There's two camps out there.
There are young earth creationists who believe the earth is roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
And there are old earth creationists who believe
the earth is perhaps billions of years old. The young earth position interprets days one through
six as basically 24-hour days. The old earth position seeks to reconcile the biblical account
with what modern-day scientists tell us about the age of the
earth. And so they get there in a couple different ways. Some believe in what's called the gap theory,
which suggests that there's a gap of billions of years between verse 1 and verse 2. Others believe
that the word day is a literary term or that it's referring not to a specific 24-hour day,
but instead it's referring to an indefinite period of time, which could be millions or even billions of years.
Now, it's true that yom in Hebrew, day in English, is used in various ways in Hebrew.
And it's actually the same in English.
Sometimes I'll tell my kids, you know, back in the day, we didn't have smartphones. Now kids panic when you say,
like, how did you live? You know, we did pretty fine, actually. Now, when I say that back in the
day, I'm not referencing a 24-hour period of time as a particular day. I'm referencing an era of time. So linguistically, the word means
different things based on context. So what's the context of Genesis 1? To me, the plain reading of
the text indicates a 24-hour kind of a day. Now, was it exactly 24 hours? I don't really know,
because as we'll see in a moment, the first several days, there wasn't even a sun.
So I'm not sure if it was exactly 24 hours or not.
But the text gives us two reasons to believe that it was probably a basic 24-hour day as we know it.
We find the first reason at the end of verse number five.
It says, so the evening and the morning find the first reason at the end of verse number five. It says, so the evening
and the morning were the first day. Now that language, evening and morning, it's repeated
over and over for all six days of creation. That seems to indicate to me a 24-hour period of time.
Now we'll also see that each day is numbered, one through seven, equaling a week.
In fact, one of the Ten Commandments that God gives us seems to be built upon this idea that God created the world in seven days.
Exodus chapter 20, verse number 11.
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. So I personally believe that God created the world in six literal
days or as close to literal days as we can get without having a son. So that would put me and
puts me in the young earth camp. But folks, the age of the earth is not something that we need to be
fighting about as Christians. Now, theistic evolution, on the other hand, perhaps is something
that's a little bit of a different story. There are segments of, there is a segment rather,
of the old earth position who believe in what's called theistic evolution,
which says that God used evolution over millions of years in these day age periods of time
to create the world. Listen, that raises some significant problems for us biblically.
If mankind evolved over millions of years, that seems to indicate that Adam and Eve were mythical figures.
But the New Testament is very clear.
Adam was a historical person.
Romans says, for by one man, sin entered into the world.
Now, theistic evolution also raises a significant theological problem.
Millions of years of evolution requires millions of years of death.
Of death.
But Scripture is very clear that death was not part of God's original created order.
Death is actually a result of sin.
I mean, over and over again in chapter 1, we're going to see it.
It says, and it was good,
and it was good, and it was good. And then verse 31, the end of the chapter, he says, indeed, it was very good. So theistic evolutionists are trying to tell us that God's original creation that was
very good was also full of death. I don't think so. No, I think the most natural reading of the text is instantaneous
creation. God said, let there be light, and there was light. So I strongly reject theistic evolution.
Now, I know a lot of people will say, well, but pastor, the earth seems to be so old. It looks old.
I believe that's based on faulty premises that don't properly consider
the flood. A catastrophic worldwide flood would have drastically altered geology as we know it.
But I also believe the earth looks old to some because they don't take into account that God
made the universe mature or complete. He made it whole, meaning that when God created the sun, moon, and stars,
I believe he also created the beam of light from them to us.
Because we're going to see in the text, they were created for us to provide light.
So when astronomers say that, you know, certain stars are millions of light years away,
I don't actually see any problem with that.
Also, Adam and Eve,
they were not created as embryos. They weren't created as infants. They were created as mature
adults, plants and trees. They weren't seeds. We're going to see from the text, they were created
mature. They already had seeds in them. Animals were created the same way. Creation was created mature and whole. So that brings me
to the question, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken. According to Genesis 1,
the chicken came first. Now, with all of that said, let's get out of the weeds for a moment
for the rest of the message, and let's just see what God has to say to us.
All right.
Day number one, verse number three, we read.
Then God said, let there be light.
And there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good.
And God divided the light from the darkness.
God called the light day.
In the darkness, he called night.
So the evening and the morning were the
first day. Now here's what we see. God is the creator of light. God spoke light into existence.
Now this phrase that says God said, it's going to be repeated over and over again throughout the
chapter. It emphasizes the almighty power of God, that when God says something, when God speaks, he does so with universe changing authority.
God said, let there be light.
There was light.
Now, light has been studied by scientists for over 2000 years and physicists.
They've advanced a great deal in their understanding of life.
And they've come to a point where they learn that light is both a wave and a particle.
But after thousands of years, they still really don't have any idea how it could be a wave and a particle simultaneously.
And yet God, even the complexity of light that we don't fully understand,
God spoke it into existence with a simple word.
Two words in Hebrew, four words in English,
let there be light. And there was light over and over again throughout the chapter. We're
going to see that God demonstrates his supreme authority over our universe, over the laws of
nature as we know it, because he created them. And he does so with his spoken word.
That reminds me of Jesus, who was on the sea of Galilee with his disciples
in the boat and a great storm came and the waves are tossing them back and forth so much that the
disciples feared losing their lives. And so Jesus stood up and he said, be still, peace. And the
winds and the waves, they obeyed his voice and they calmed. That's the power of God.
That's the power of the voice of Jesus. Now, notice that the text doesn't say,
let there be a sun. It says, let there be light. This shows, I think, that light has its source,
not in the sun, but in God himself. I mean, why didn't God first create the sun? I think
that's probably how I would have done it. That makes sense to me, but that's not how he did it.
He creates light without a sun, I think, to demonstrate that light is not dependent upon
the sun, that the sun that's been worshiped for millennia throughout many, many different cultures is actually dependent upon God in order to shine. Now, God, He also separated the light from the darkness. I think
that He probably kept darkness around in evening time to serve as a reminder of His light,
to remind us of what the world was like before He gave us light so that each morning that we awake,
we're reminded anew about the creative genius of God.
Now, did you know that according to the book of Revelation,
which is the last book of our Bible,
that in heaven there won't be a sun?
Did you know that?
For God will be our light, the scripture sage. Now the Bible calls
Jesus the true light. And did you know that in heaven, not only will there not be a sun,
there'll be no night. It will always be day, which by the way, means that we're all going to get
there on the same day. Amen? Isn't that an awesome truth? We're all going to get there the day, great day of the Lord.
Day number two, verse number six. You got to stay with me because we're moving fast, all right?
It says, then God said, let there be a firmament, that's an expansive space in the sky,
in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Thus, God made the
firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament
from the waters which are above the firmament.
And it was so.
And God called the firmament heaven or sky.
So the evening and the morning were the second day.
Here's what we see.
That God is the creator of the water cycle. You see, every known life form in existence
requires water in order to live, in order to exist. Now, while we don't actually see God
creating the water cycle on day two, he certainly creates the foundation for it. God creates this
vast, expansive sky that separates the waters from earth from the waters
in the sky, the clouds, which we know are important aspects of the water cycle. Now, some believe that
the earth or the water above the earth, Riley, or the water above, let's say, was this large,
formed this large vapor canopy that surrounded our globe. And that later God used that vapor
canopy to flood the earth at the time of the flood, that he used this canopy of water to do
that. That's certainly possible. We really don't know exactly what that canopy was like.
Number three, verse number nine. Then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered
together in one place, seems like one ocean, and let the land appear. And it was so. And God called
the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas. And God saw that it was
good. Then God said, And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.
Here's what we see.
God is the creator of the continents and the oceans.
Now the text seems to perhaps imply that God created originally one large land mass,
one large continent, which geologists have long said existed at one time or another.
It's called Pangea. And when you look on
a map, you can sort of see how various continents could potentially in time past could have perhaps
fit together like a puzzle. So I think that's possible. Many Christians will point to the flood
account to explain the breaking up of the continents of how that took place.
He'll point to Genesis chapter 7, which we'll be at in a couple months from now,
where the flood account, God says that the fountains of the great deep were broken up
and the heavens were opened above. So water rained down from above, but also it emerged from below to flood the earth. So many
have speculated that when that happened, the tectonic plates shifted in such a way that perhaps
the continents were separated. Now, we don't know for sure if that's what happened. It's possible.
Now, there was a second prominent act of creation on day number three, and that was the creation of vegetation.
God created the grass and the herbs and the trees all according to their kind.
Now, that language, according to their kind, is going to be repeated for the creation of animals as well.
So we're going to talk about that in just a moment.
Day number four, verse number 14.
Then God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night,
and let them be for signs and seasons for the days and the years. In other words, let them be for us,
and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.
And it was so. Then God made
two great lights, the greater light to rule over the day, that's the sun, and the lesser light to
rule over the night, that's the moon. He also made the stars. God set them in the firmament of the
heavens to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide
the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good, so the evening and
the morning were the fourth day. Here's what we see. God is the creator of the sun, the moon,
and the stars. Now, countless civilizations throughout history have worshiped the sun, the moon, and the stars. But we see here that all of
them owe their existence to Almighty God. Now, there is a phrase in verse number 17 that I want
to point out to you. You can look, if you've got a copy of God's Word, you can look for that
yourself. It says in verse number 17, excuse me, that God set them. God placed them. And boy, did he. I mean, if we were any closer to the sun,
we'd burn up. We're any further away from the sun, we would freeze to death. The sun is perfectly
located, perfectly set, perfectly placed for life to exist on earth. The moon is perfectly placed for to have a perfect gravitational pull
upon the earth. Now, if you've never seen pictures from the James Webb telescope,
you are missing out. You need to look that up online. You're going to get an opportunity because
of our wonderful technology that we have to get a closer glimpse of the stars and the galaxies God created,
and it will blow your mind. You'll just start worshiping our great Lord. Psalm 19, verse 1,
rather, it says, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day number five. You staying with me? Verse number 20.
He says, So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded according to their kind,
and every weaned bird according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying,
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas
and let the birds multiply on the earth.
So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
We see here that God is the creator of all life in the ocean and all life in the sky.
Day number five, God begins creating animal life,
specifically the birds of the sky and the creatures of the ocean,
all according to their kind. Now, one of my favorite
things to do is to go snorkeling in the ocean. I think I got that love of snorkeling from my dad.
If you ever get a chance to go, don't go in California, right? The water's too cold.
It's just a little bit different. Now, California, you'll have fun snorkeling,
but other parts of the world, you will be blown away.
As you go, you'll just be looking at this creature and that creature
and this fish and that fish.
There are millions of different life forms in the ocean,
and you'll be amazed by God's creation.
It will scream out the existence of God.
Now, interestingly, we see in the text that we read just a moment ago
that God blesses the sea creatures and he blesses the birds,
just like he will bless the land animals on day number six.
I think indicating that animal life is of more value than plant life, which he didn't bless on day number six. I think indicating that animal life is of more value than plant life,
which he didn't bless on day number three. Day number six, verse number 24.
Then God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind,
cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind. And it was so. And God
made the beast of the earth according to its kind, the cattle according to its kind, everything that
creeps on the earth according to its kind. See the pattern there? And God saw that it was good. Now,
for the sake of time, we're going to stop right there. I'd planned to read through the end of the
chapter. We don't have enough time today because next week, Lord willing, we're going to take a close look at the end of chapter one at God's masterpiece of creation, which is you and I
as humans, mankind. So here's what we learn. God's the creator of land animals and human beings.
That's what God does on day six. Now, next week, like I said, we're going to focus on the human beings part.
So here's what I want to do instead for the remainder of our time here.
I want to focus on this repeating phrase, according to their own kind.
We saw it with the plants.
We saw it with the sea creatures.
We saw it with the birds.
And now we see it with the plants, we saw it with the sea creatures, we saw it with the birds, and now we see it with
the land animals. This phrase, according to their own kind, is a God-given boundary or parameter
of reproduction. And I do believe that it removes evolution from a viable option for Christians. Now,
now, kind does not mean species. Species is a modern term. It came
around millennia later. It's a contemporary term. Kind is more general than species. Now,
we need to make this clear about evolution. This passage does not refute microevolution.
It refutes macroevolution.
Microevolution is the idea that a bird with a short beak can reproduce a bird with a long beak,
or a person who's short can reproduce someone who's tall.
That's microevolution.
Everyone believes that.
No one denies that. Macroevolution, on the other hand, is when one kind of animal changes and transforms into a completely different kind of animal over time.
We see here in the passage that God created each kind of plant and each kind of animal
with a certain specific genetic code that serves as a boundary of reproduction.
So that while some may adapt over time, none of them change kinds.
A mouse doesn't become a bird, a lion doesn't become a cow, and so forth.
And did you know that there isn't any scientific evidence of God's boundaries of according to their kind ever being violated.
That boundary still exists.
It has not been disproven.
Darwin said that his theory of evolution, if it was right,
that scientists would eventually discover and uncover transitional forms within the fossil records.
But those transitional forms have not been found.
And scientists have looked very hard. So the evidence is pointed to in our students' textbooks, the evidence that
evolutionists point to is actually microevolution, not macroevolution. So it's an intellectual
sleight of hand. It's disingenuous. Folks, it is very clear from creation that we have a creator. We have a maker,
and we know his name. His name is Jesus. The heavens declare his glory. The tiniest of cells,
they show his handiwork. I mean, a single cell is more complex than an entire city by design.
It's far more complex than the iPhone
that you might have in your pocket today.
Think about DNA, for example.
DNA provides detailed programming
for thousands of processes,
a vast assembly line that go to work
on each and every cell.
And if one of those steps in the assembly line fails,
the cell dies.
We think this has randomly happened. The
world, our very existence, life itself screams out the existence of God. Nothing does not produce
everything. Unintelligence doesn't produce intelligence. Chaos doesn't produce order. Random mutations don't produce irreducibly
complex organism. That defies logic to believe that. Now, as we wrap up, I want to read the last
verse of our chapter, verse number 31. It says, then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.
So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Over and over again, after every creative act,
God said, and it was good, and it was good, and it was good. Every aspect of creation is good,
from the light God created created to the land and the
seas to the creatures that live. All of it is good. And then he's created everything. And what
does he say? The summation of his creation. And it was very good. Now, this word good means morally right, but it also implies beauty.
Did you know that?
See, God is a beautiful God.
And therefore, God created a beautiful world.
Now, it's interesting that in atheistic circles who deny the existence of God,
typically their art reflects their ideology.
So that oftentimes it's sterile and cold or without color.
It's not what you would call beautiful.
But God's art is beautiful.
Why?
Because he's beautiful.
And it comes out of his nature, his creative order, and God is good.
So my question is, what in the world happened to all of us?
Because I don't know about you, but the world does not seem good, morally right, to me.
And it's because it's not.
It's not.
We're going to see in a few weeks out of Genesis chapter 3 that God's masterpiece of his creation, you and I, in his very image, Adam and Eve, our great, great, great, great, I don't know how many greats, grandparents, they rebelled against God.
They rebelled against the one who made them and owns them.
Now, God warned them ahead of time, if you rebel and you sin against me,
you will surely die. And that's exactly what happened. They sinned and the entire creation
has now been put into a death spiral ever since. Everything that's alive, whether that's vegetation
and thorns sprouting up among the vegetation, or whether that's animal life or certainly human beings. But the story of the Bible is that God looked on his dying world that deserved death,
and he did not want it to continue in death forever.
And so he stepped into time, and he sent his son Jesus to pay for our penalty, to fix this broken world, to save
and rescue us from our sins, to pay for our sin and to pay for our death, because in the day that
you sin, you shall surely die. We deserve to die. So Jesus died for us in our place on the cross so that the life that is God's, so that the light that is God's
spiritually is given to us freely and we can now enjoy him forever and ever.
You know, the Psalms poetically speak about how God placed the moon and the stars in their place with,
in the sky with his fingers. In other words, it didn't take a whole lot of effort because God is
almighty. He's powerful. But did you know that the scriptures also teach about how God saves us from
our sins with his mighty right hand? See, the greatest acts of God that we will worship him forever for,
according to Revelation 4 and 5, are his act of creation and his act of redemption.
Believe it or not, redemption is the greater act.
Redemption.
It called for the mighty right hand of God because it cost him severely.
It cost him the life of his precious eternal son who died a gruesome death, the death we deserve
to die. Let's thank God that God was not focused on what it would cost.
He was focused on what it was worth.
Did you know the fact that Jesus died for you means that you were worth dying for?
Did you know that God loves you more than anyone's ever loved you? Because he made you.
He crafted you into his image so that you're to reflect the nature of God, all of his goodness,
all of his greatness. But guess what? We're not reflecting properly. We've been broken.
The image of God has been marred so that we're now dying.
But God looks at us in our state of sin and failure,
and he still loves us.
Because he made us and he crafted us with his perfect hand.
He molded us and knit us while we were still in our mother's womb.
All the detailed processes of our DNA and all that,
he wrote the code for it.
He designed it all. He knows the number of hairs that are on your head. He knows all of your sin, and yet he still loves you.
It cost God his son, but it was worth it to him. Now, the Bible says that in order to have his life,
in order to have his light,
we must receive his gift.
The gift of life is son Jesus.
The only way that you receive that gift
is by faith in Jesus as your Savior and as your Lord.
The Bible says,
Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer,
both here and at Olive Drive.
This is a holy moment in the life of our church,
but it's not a formal moment.
I want to make sure you guys understand that. Yes, it's a holy moment, but it's not a formal moment. I want to make sure you guys understand that.
Yes, it's a holy moment, but it's not formal.
In just a moment, we're prayerfully have been expecting movement in our service.
People to get up and move as God is moving on their life.
And so in a moment after I pray, we're going to stand to our feet and we're going to sing a song.
We're going to worship God as creator and redeemer.
But we're also going to invite you to move.
If God's touching your life, if Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Perhaps the Spirit of God is hovering over your life right now and you sense it.
You can sense it.
If you sense that, I'm telling you right now, it's the Spirit of God that's wanting to touch you at a deep place of your being that no words from me, no one else
could touch you there in your soul, in your spirit to breathe life back into you. If that's the case,
you must respond to that. If you don't respond, if you reject it, you will not experience God's life.
That's very clear.
But God has given you the opportunity to pursue your purpose,
to come back to why you were made, and that was for him.
So I want to invite you to get to know God in a personal way.
Maybe you felt like there's been a distance between you and God.
You've known he's existed, but you haven't really known him personally.
That could be because you don't know him personally.
Because the Bible says that our sin separates us from God.
And so the only way the gap in the bridge can be filled is through Jesus. Pascal said that there is a God-shaped void within every human heart, an empty spot,
a place that we try to fill with all kinds of different things, but it's only shaped like God.
Sin caused that hole, and God wants to fill it again, but it only is filled
through faith in his son Jesus to believe that he died on the cross for your sins and rose the
third day. And if you give your life to him, he'll give you life. I want to invite you after I pray
and we stand and sing, there's going to be pastors and leaders and prayer partners
scattered all across the front of both of our worship services.
I just want to invite you to step out from wherever you're at
and walk down one of these aisles, one of these staircases,
and say, I want to give my life to Jesus.
It's time.
It's time that I live for something more than myself.
These folks will know exactly how to help you. They're not going to embarrass you by answering
a question you can't answer. They're here to help you. Maybe you want to be baptized and go public
with your faith. You don't want to be ashamed of your faith. It's a personal matter, but it's not private.
God wants you to be proud of him. And so maybe you want to be baptized. Let us know. We'd love
to talk with you about it. Or maybe you say, you know what? I want to become a family member.
I want to become a family member here at Valley Baptist. Then let us know. Come. We'd love for you to join our faith family. It could be, though, that God is stirring
your heart in such a way that you know you don't need to talk with a pastor. You just need to go
straight to the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. These steps are going to be open at both of our
worship campuses. And maybe you just want to come and move like i said this is not a formal time this is a time
where god's moving and when god's moving there should be movement in the room
maybe you just want to come and pray pour out your heart to the lord something's weighing on you
some burden that god has placed for another person in your life
and you just want to move and pray and ask God for his intervention.
However God moves, let's respond.
Let's pray.
Father, we're amazed by your creation.
We're amazed by the incredible design. Lord, as I've spent a number of weeks
studying Genesis chapter one, I admit to you, Lord, there's, I still have a lot of questions
how this worked and how that worked.
Lord, I know there's things I had to cut out of the message
for the sake of time, Lord,
but I'm trusting you and I'm asking you
that you would make the main thing clear to us
that we have been made
and therefore we were made with purpose.
Help us, Lord.
Everyone listening, come to that crucial truth
that changes all of reality as we know it.
Please, Lord, by your spirit,
will you do a great work in our midst
and stir our hearts.
We love you and we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Thanks for listening today. We hope you enjoyed this message. we love you and we pray this in Jesus name Amen We're calling you to take the next step in faith through salvation, service, or giving.
Don't wait.
Reach out to us by texting PODCAST to 88988.
That's PODCAST to 88988 or connect with us on one of our social media platforms.
You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org, to find even more great resources.
No matter where you are in your journey, know that we love you.
We're praying for you, and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.