Light

[0:00] We are at the front end of a series on Genesis in just the third week, in which we're going to spend a few months going through the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis before we take a break.

[0:13] Then we'll take a break and we will go through another book of the Bible and come back to Genesis and do another section of Genesis. But right now, we're towards the beginning of a study through the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis.

[0:26] And we're spending a few weeks just in chapter 1 and the opening verses of chapter 2, trying to get a handle on, trying to understand what it is that God is teaching us about Himself in the opening of the Bible.

[0:39] So I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1. And we're going to read as we have the past two weeks and we will for the next two weeks. We're going to read all of chapter 1 and the first three verses of chapter 2 so that you can see and get a feel for the broader context of what we're going to be looking at this morning.

[0:56] So Genesis chapter 1, we're going to begin in verse 1. I ask you guys to stand with me as we read from God's Word together. Moses writes, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

[1:10] 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. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

[1:24] And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

[1:36] And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse, and it was so.

[1:50] And God called the expanse heaven, and there was evening and there was morning the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.

[2:03] God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together He called seas, and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth.

[2:18] And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good, and there was evening and there was morning the third day.

[2:34] And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

[2:46] And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.

[3:02] And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.

[3:17] So God created the great sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

[3:29] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.

[3:47] And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

[3:59] Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

[4:13] So God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

[4:32] And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.

[4:52] And it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them.

[5:05] And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.

[5:18] Thank You for Your Word, Father. I pray in Christ's name, Amen. You guys be seated. I'm not sure how many of you have seen or heard this audio recording of a lady who called into a radio station.

[5:36] Honestly, I don't know if it's real or if it's fake. There's a good chance it's fake because I saw it on the internet. But it's funny. This lady calls into a radio station, and she's calling in to complain because she's had three separate traffic accidents on the freeway where her car has been damaged.

[5:55] And every time that every one of these accidents was an instance in which she hit a deer that was crossing the road. And she called into the radio station to sort of vent and complain and say she couldn't understand why, because she could see the signs for deer crossing.

[6:11] She couldn't understand why would they put a deer crossing at a busy freeway. She couldn't understand that. And what she didn't understand was that the sign was not there to tell the deer where to cross, as if deer could read a sign at all.

[6:26] The sign was there to warn drivers that deer do cross at this spot, so watch out for them. And the mistake that she made is she didn't understand the purpose of the sign.

[6:37] She didn't know what it was there for. She thought it was there for the benefit of wildlife, but it was there for her benefit, and she missed it altogether. Well, I feel like a lot of times as we approach Genesis, particularly chapter 1, that we approach it with a wrong understanding of what it's for.

[6:55] We approach the book of Genesis asking questions that Moses did not write Genesis to answer, questions that we would like to know about the formation of the universe and the creation of the world, and yet Moses didn't write Genesis to show us those things.

[7:11] Moses wrote the book of Genesis, and he wrote Genesis 1 and 2 in order to show us things about God. God is revealing Himself to us in these pages. Genesis chapter 1, in fact, is not primarily about how God created the world, although we do learn some details about how He created the world, but there are a lot of things that we would like to know that Moses is just not concerned to tell us about how God did it.

[7:39] Of course, he tells us a few things, the most important things about how God did the world that reveal things about God to us. So, for instance, we saw, as we looked at just verse 1 of Genesis chapter 1 a couple of weeks ago, that God created everything out of nothing.

[7:56] The heavens and the earth is a phrase that refers to everything created that exists, everything that we can see and even the things that we cannot see around us.

[8:07] God created everything, which means that prior to Him creating everything, nothing existed except for God. And so Moses teaches us here in Genesis chapter 1 that God Himself created all things from nothing, and that's an important thing to understand if you want to know how did God do this.

[8:25] God did not simply take pre-existing material and shape it and mold it into what we see around us today. He created everything out of nothing. And we saw that He did that by the power of His Word because over and over we read throughout Genesis chapter 1, and God said, and God said, and God said.

[8:44] And then when you turn to the New Testament, to the Gospel of John, you open up with a statement about the Word of God existing in the beginning. In the beginning was the Word. God's Word already existed.

[8:56] And that Word, through whom all things, John tells us, came into existence, we are told by John that that Word is the Son of God Himself, the eternal Son of God.

[9:07] So we know from Genesis and then from later Revelation in the New Testament that God created all things from nothing through His Son.

[9:17] God the Father made all things through the power of His Word who is His Son. So we can see some things about how God created the world. We even saw last week that as you look in verse 2 that there all of a sudden is a shift in focus.

[9:33] First God creates everything and then the focus begins to shift to the land or the earth as God begins to turn the land from something that is uninhabitable, a wasteland, a void.

[9:46] You can't live there. No life could be sustained there. Animal life could not be sustained. Plant life and certainly not human life. And so we saw last week that the rest of Genesis chapter 1 from really verse 2 on is the story of how God begins to prepare and shape the land or the earth primarily for man to live upon.

[10:06] For us so that we could flourish, so that we could exercise dominion, so that we could reflect God's glory to the rest of creation. So that in a lot of ways when we want to know how God created things, we know He made everything from nothing, but we also know that He began to shape all that He made into something suitable for His image bearers.

[10:32] And of course we know, Genesis tells us, that He did that over a period of six days. A lot of controversy about the meaning of those six days or those literal 24-hour periods of time.

[10:42] Are they long periods of time? Or is there something else going on here? Well, I'm of the opinion that if God really created everything out of nothing in verse 1, and then He begins to shape that everything into something habitable for man through the power of His Word, that what we're reading here in Genesis chapter 1, is a miraculous account of the creation of the world, which means that we're reading things here that we can't observe around us.

[11:07] These are one-time events. God created the world once. He fashioned and formed the world once. Yes, He will recreate and reform and refashion the earth in the future, but this is something that we can't look around us today and observe the processes by which God made the world in Genesis chapter 1.

[11:27] So this is miraculous, and I'm inclined to think that if we're reading a miraculous account of the creation of the world, the only one who can tell us how that happened, since we can't observe it today, is God Himself.

[11:41] And God says, He did it in six days. Make of that what you will, but that's exactly what He says. And in fact, He does it in a very orderly fashion.

[11:52] If you notice on these six days, days 1, 2, and 3 line up very neatly and nicely with days 4, 5, and 6. So that on day 1, God creates light, and on day 4, He creates the sun, moon, and stars.

[12:08] On day 2, He separates the waters above from the waters below, creating what we would call the oceans or the seas and the sky, most likely. I think that's probably what's going on there.

[12:19] And then on day 5, corresponding to day 2, He creates birds to fly in the sky and sea creatures to swim in the oceans. On day 3, He causes the land to come up out of the seas and He puts vegetation on the land.

[12:33] And on day 6, corresponding to day 3, He creates animals and people who live on the land and eat that vegetation. So there's an order. It's an orderly account, and God created things in a very orderly fashion.

[12:48] God is not, the Bible tells us, He is not a God of disorder or chaos. He is a God of order. And so it should not surprise us that God created and fashioned the world in such a way that it's structured and organized even in the way in which He did it.

[13:05] What's interesting to note, though, about this correspondence between these days and about this order in which God did things is the strange relationship between day 1 and day 4.

[13:18] I mean, day 2 and day 5 makes sense. You've got to have sky and water before you can have birds and fish to fill the skies and the water, right? And days 3 and 6 make sense because you've got to have land and you've got to have plants for animals to eat before animals can live on the land and eat the plants.

[13:39] That makes perfect sense. But days 1 and 4 stand out as an anomaly, as strange, because God first creates light on day 1 and He waits until day 4 to create the sun, moon, and stars which we normally associate as the things from which light come.

[14:02] It would have made more sense, at least to us, perhaps, if God had first created the sun and the moon and the stars on day 1 and then waited until day 4 before He began to cause light to shine forth from them.

[14:15] That would make sense. That would match up with the way the other days match up. It would be clear and straightforward and orderly. And yet, here, things are flipped.

[14:27] Things are reversed. Our expectations are reversed. First light and then light bearers. In fact, if you look, when He describes in verse 14 the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, He calls them lights.

[14:41] Plural. Verse 14, God said, And let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate day from night and let them be for signs, for seasons and for days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

[14:57] And it was so. And God made the two great lights. The greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars. Over and over. He's emphasizing that these celestial bodies, sun, moon, and stars, these exist primarily to shed light upon the earth.

[15:15] Remember the focus we saw last week is upon the land where man is going to live. This is very much, in a good way, a man-centered view of the universe.

[15:26] It's ultimately God-centered in that man exists for the glory of God, but all of creation is created in such a way with man as the focal point, the high point of creation.

[15:37] And so the lights are created on day four. The sun, moon, and stars are created to shed light, to give light and mark the seasons upon the land for mankind. That's what they're for. But over and over, he keeps calling them lights.

[15:50] He doesn't call them sun and moon. He simply calls them lights so that we don't miss the connection between light singular created on day one and the lights or the light bearers, plural, created on day four.

[16:04] He wants us, I think Moses wants us, to see that connection. And so I want to ask what seemed to me to be an obvious question as I studied through the text.

[16:14] Why? Why did God create in this particular way? Why did He make the light first before He made the sun, moon, and stars?

[16:25] Because if He did all of these things and then revealed to Moses the things that He did, then He did all of that to show us something about Himself. He's teaching us something about Himself and His purposes in doing things in this way.

[16:40] And I want to know what it is. God, what are you trying to show us about yourself as you create the light on day one? What are you showing us?

[16:52] Why would you do that? And there are, as far as I can tell, at least three, there's probably more, but three things that stood out to me. Three reasons, three things that God is trying to show us about Himself in the creation of light on day one and sun, moon, and stars later on day four.

[17:11] You get a hint at the reason why He creates light first, back up in verse two, where we're told that the earth was without form and void. We saw last week that means uninhabitable. The earth was without form and void.

[17:24] And darkness, we are told, was over the face of the deep. Darkness covered the world. There was no light in verse two.

[17:35] There's only darkness. Unless we begin to think that the darkness is something evil or something ominous, we read further down in day one, when God does create the light, we're told in verse five, God called the light day, in the darkness He called night.

[17:51] There was evening and morning the first day. And right before that, we see that God looks at the light and calls the light good. He says in Isaiah, I form light and I create darkness.

[18:03] So that the darkness itself is not by itself something evil and wicked and ominous. The problem with the darkness is that you cannot see the things that are around you.

[18:16] If God is shaping and forming and fashioning the land, the earth, for man to live upon and for man to exercise dominion upon, then man needs to be able to see what's around him.

[18:27] We need to be able to identify things around us. And we can't do that without light being shed. And so the first problem that God addresses in terms of the earth being uninhabitable is to shine light upon the earth.

[18:41] because light serves to reveal truth to us. It shows us what's in front of us. It shows us what is behind us. Light serves the purpose of revealing the truth to us.

[18:55] And God wants us, before he begins to create anything else, he wants to make it known that he has made things visible. He's revealing things about himself to us. He's showing things to us.

[19:07] And our problem is that as fallen sinners, descendants of Adam, as post-Genesis chapter 3 people, is that we don't always want the truth shined in our direction.

[19:22] We don't always want to see clearly because when we come into the focus of the light, not only do we see around us, but we also see ourselves. This is why over and over the Bible identifies light with God himself.

[19:39] So that in 1 John, John says that God is light and in him there's no darkness at all. God is light. In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, Jesus stands up in the temple and he says, I am the light of the world.

[19:53] Now obviously, we're not meant to take those things in an overly literal sense as if God literally is light. John is trying to tell us something about God.

[20:05] Because when you come into the presence of God, much like when light shines upon you, your heart is laid bare. The truth about you is made known. That's why Isaiah, when he was in the presence of God, in Isaiah chapter 6, and he saw God in His holiness, and he saw God's glory on display, Isaiah's response was to say, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

[20:30] Isaiah, in the light of God's presence, saw his own sinfulness, and knew that he was done for. Then in the presence of a holy God, he had no hope.

[20:44] In fact, if you look, hold your place in Genesis, chapter 1, and turn all the way over to the Gospel of John, chapter 1, where not only does John tell us that the Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, we read this in verse 3 of John, chapter 1, All things were made through Him.

[21:04] That's Jesus, the Word. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

[21:18] The light shines in the darkness. The darkness has not overcome it. Verse 9, The true light, again Jesus, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not know Him.

[21:34] He came to His own people, but His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

[21:49] Why do His own people, why do they reject Him? He came to His own, and yet His own people did not know Him. Why is that the truth?

[22:00] Because He comes as the light, and He comes to bear witness about the light. And as the light, He reveals to us who we are. And we are not naturally inclined to receive that bit of information.

[22:14] We don't want to hear the Apostle Paul say that there is no one righteous, not even one. We do not want to hear him say that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We don't want to face the truth about ourselves.

[22:27] And yet, the light of God's glory has the natural effect of revealing and opening our eyes to see the truth about ourselves.

[22:39] And I think a part of the reason that God begins creation with the creation of light before really anything else as He's shaping and forming the world is so that He can remind us at the very beginning of the creation account that when you look upon Me, and this chapter is aimed to make you look upon Me, when you look upon Me, you will begin to see the truth about the world and about yourself.

[23:10] Light comes first. When you hear, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Light comes first. And you begin to see who you are as a creature.

[23:24] Fallen, frail, and in need of mercy. So one of the reasons, at least, that God has done things in this way is so that we might understand first off who He is and by seeing who He is and to turn and see in the light of who He is who we are.

[23:44] Sinners. Fallen people. That's one reason. There's more reason than that. I think there's more going on here than simply the revealing of truth. There's more going on here than that.

[23:56] But we have to begin with that. But not only do we see that God is the source of truth, the source of light, we also see here that God, because He's able to simply speak it into existence and, in fact, speak light into existence before the sun, moon, and stars existed, we're seeing a display of God's sovereignty and power over all things.

[24:19] Remember that the people that surrounded Israel and especially the nation of Egypt from which Israel had come, if Moses is writing this book throughout their wilderness journeys, and I believe that he did.

[24:33] If Moses is writing this book throughout their wilderness journeys, then the images of Egypt's dominion over them would be fresh in their minds. And you must remember that in Egypt, the chief of all the gods was the sun god.

[24:48] And the Egyptians, like most other people in the world at that time, and even many people today, were given over to worship of the sun and the moon and the stars, worship of the heavens above.

[24:59] Whereas the Bible comes along and tells us that we're not to bow down to the heavens above. The heavens above exist to reveal God's glory to us. They declare God's glory.

[25:10] And so here, because God creates the light before he creates the sun, moon, and stars, it's as if he's saying that those are not the source of light.

[25:20] They are not ultimate. I create light. Light comes from me, and though I might use these things as mere creations, I might use them to shed light upon the earth.

[25:31] Do not for one moment forget that I am the originator of light. I speak and light goes forth. I have all power, all sovereignty over the world.

[25:43] And I evidence that by the fact that I create light before I create light bearers. I'm sovereign. It's not a stretch to see that here in Genesis chapter 1 because that's exactly how the Apostle Paul understands the impact of these verses.

[26:02] I want you to, again, hold your place in Genesis chapter 1. I want you to turn over. I only have one more place after this that I want you to turn, but I do want you to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We saw a piece of this. We read a piece of this passage at the beginning of worship, but I want you to see it clearly because in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul is actually going to quote from Genesis chapter 1 verse 3.

[26:23] So we'll jump in in chapter 4 at verse 3. He says, Even if our gospel is veiled, which is another way of saying those in darkness cannot see it.

[26:36] Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world, that's Satan, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

[26:59] So there's a fundamental problem that we have as sinners. We are unable to see the light of the gospel. We are unable to appreciate the beauty of the gospel.

[27:11] We are unable to love and treasure the one who is revealed in the gospel. Apostle Paul says that we cannot obey God's law, that we cannot please God on our own.

[27:29] We are blinded to the beauty of the gospel, blinded to the light of Christ. And what's the solution to that? It says in verse 5, For what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

[27:50] For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness. That's a paraphrase of Genesis 1-3. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

[28:08] the same God who has the power to speak light into existence in the midst of darkness. It has the power to open blind eyes, to cause us to be able to see, to give us love for Christ, to give us faith.

[28:25] He has the power to remove the veil so that all of a sudden we see Jesus for who He is.

[28:38] And if you see Jesus for who He is with the veil removed, you will love Him. You will treasure Him. You will believe in Him.

[28:48] You will trust in Him. You will follow Him. The God who has the very power to speak light into the midst of darkness has the power to shine in our hearts and to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

[29:10] I'm convinced that one of the reasons that God creates light before He creates sun, moon, and stars is to remind us I'm the king here. I'm the sovereign here.

[29:23] And even the biggest, brightest things that you can observe in the world around you, they are subservient to me. They serve my purposes.

[29:35] And they are not the source of light or truth. I am. And just as I have the sovereign power to create light in the midst of darkness, I have the sovereign power to give life to dead hearts and to cause sinners to see the beauty of Jesus.

[29:59] I think also, though, that there's a third reason and I think perhaps this third reason is more obvious and more on the surface of the text, especially as we read through the rest of the Bible than maybe the first two.

[30:12] But I think that one of the reasons that God has created the light before He has created the sun, moon, and stars is so that we will understand and know that because He is the source of light, He has no need for sun, moon, and stars.

[30:30] And in fact, what Genesis chapter 1 does in the context of the whole Bible, if the Bible is, after all, not simply a random collection of books written by individuals over a few thousand years, but is, in fact, a collection of books written by people over a few thousand years, superintended by God, breathed out by God, so that at the end of the day, it's one whole book, we should expect the parts to fit together rather well.

[30:58] And Genesis chapter 1, the beginning of the Bible, fits together rather well with Revelation chapters 21 and 22, the very end of the Bible. So that I think that one of the things that's happening here in the context of the whole Bible is that God, in doing things in this order, is pointing us ahead to what He's going to do in the future.

[31:20] Last place I want you to turn, hold your place in Genesis, but turn over to Revelation, the very end of the book of Revelation, chapter 21. We looked at this passage briefly last week as we talked about God's intent to give humanity a place to dwell, the land, and that that intention is not forgotten or not left behind in the new heavens and new earth, but in fact He creates the new heavens and new earth and He creates a place that He calls the new Jerusalem so that His redeemed people may have a place to dwell.

[31:52] But He says some interesting things about that place that He creates here in Revelation 21 and 22. Look at verse 22 of chapter 21. John tells us that He says, I saw no temple in the city for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb.

[32:11] Verse 23, And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the Lamb.

[32:24] By its light will the nations walk and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there. It has no need of sun, moon, or stars.

[32:38] God is the source of its light, just like Genesis chapter 1. And then down a little further in chapter 22, verse 4, we read this, that they, that is God's redeemed people, they will see His face, Jesus, and His name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more.

[32:55] They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. God means for us as we read on day 1 that light is created and on day 4 the sun, moon, and stars.

[33:10] He means for us now as new covenant believers who possess all of the Bible, He means for our eyes to be shifted from the beginning to the end and to see that which is our ultimate final hope.

[33:25] God has good reasons for creating, ordering, and structuring the world in which He has done so. You know, even, even as believers, there are times when we we shy away from the light and the truth of God's Word.

[33:47] Even as believers, there are times when we would rather not have His light shine quite so brightly upon our hearts and our lives. it may be that you harbor in your heart that no one else can see, but you harbor a lot of bitterness and anger towards people in your life, towards a family member who just has frustrated you over and over throughout the years and you're bitter about that and you're angry about that and you refuse to let go, you refuse to forgive them.

[34:21] Or it may be that you have a kind of bitterness that's aimed towards a fellow church member or a fellow believer in another church or whatever the case may be and you have this anger and bitterness that is built up in your heart and you cling to it and you feel that you've hidden it well from everyone around you and yet the fact that I'm talking about it right now makes you uncomfortable because if I would dare to turn and begin to read the commands of the Apostle Paul about anger and bitterness and unforgiveness, the light of God's Word would begin to shine and reveal the ugly hidden sins that you've been keeping locked away in your heart.

[34:59] Even as believers, even as those for whom the veil has been lifted, there are times and there are moments when we would rather the clear light of God's Word not shine quite so brightly at us that we see ourselves all the more clearly.

[35:20] That's true. There are also times when we would rather not think of God as the all-powerful sovereign God who speaks light into existence and speaks life into His people.

[35:35] We'd rather not think that way. It doesn't sound equitable, it doesn't sound fair, it doesn't fit with what we learned in Sunday school as a kid, it doesn't fit with the way that we feel and yet Apostle Paul says, who are you, O man, to talk back to God when he gives us a picture of God's sovereignty.

[35:53] We'd rather not hear it, we'd rather not think about it, we'd rather move on, we'd rather come up with alternative theories to explain away scriptural teaching about God's sovereignty and yet when the light of God's Word begins to shine and we see He has the power not only to create light but life in dead hearts, we see the truth revealed to us.

[36:17] And of course, we are a people who are consumed with the now. We are. I mean, we are consumed with everything that's happening right around us at this moment.

[36:30] And so many times the things that occupy our minds in the moment are trivial things. Things that really don't matter. What if I were to go around the room and give a quiz on pop culture and see who knew the most about pop culture and what was happening with the icons of pop culture, I would be willing to guess that a lot of you would score pretty high on those quizzes.

[36:56] And I would probably score pretty high on those quizzes to be really honest with you. Because so much of our attention, so much of our thoughts are just sort of sucked up and eaten up by all these trivial meaningless things.

[37:08] But the root cause of that is that our minds are fixed on the now. And sometimes we will fixate on trivial things because they are right now.

[37:19] Because they are right in front of us. And so we read the articles and we watch the shows and we see this and that begins to occupy so much of our time and no more do we look and see our hope out in front of us to a city that has no need of lamp or sun or moon or stars.

[37:43] And the reason that it's dangerous to have your eyes fixed on now rather than fixed on that future is because when trouble comes into your life and it will when cancer creeps into your life whether in your body or the body of those that you love it will when those things come crashing in on you and when life begins to press in on you if all of your brain power has been taken up and focused upon the now whether trivial things now or meaningful things in the now if all of your attention is riveted upon those things and not upon your ultimate hope your hope will waver and shrivel and you will be tempted to throw in the towel when that day comes and from the very beginning God would have us not obsessed with now he tells us the story of the beginning so that he might direct our eyes to the end so that we might have a more sure more full more firm hope in Christ and I'm urging you as we go through the book of Genesis to not merely be focused on what happened then but to ask the question constantly how is what happened then pointing me to Christ and what he has ultimately in store for me in the future all of our hope all of our hope is found in Christ who stands before us and says

[39:25] I'm the light of the world I prepare place for you someday that place will be your home and in that place there will be only light let's pray Father as we think about and reflect upon the creation my prayer is that we would not become obsessed with answering all of the how questions but that we would be satisfied with the amount of answers that you've given us and that even more than that we would turn to the why questions so that we can see what it is you're showing us about yourself and your word what it is that you're revealing about your power and your majesty and your glory and your sovereignty and your plans father I pray that if there's anyone here for whom the veil still lies over their face through your word now and the power of your spirit you would so move that you would speak light and life into them may we begin to trust in

[40:39] Jesus now and have the hope about which we're talking pray in Jesus name amen what you guys