Genesis 1

[0:00] Good morning. I'm Dave, for those of you I haven't met.! To give that to you.

[0:32] Now, last week, when we mentioned that we were starting this sermon series in Genesis chapter 1, and we said we're preaching the whole chapter all at once, I promised you not to preach a three-hour sermon.

[0:46] But I said nothing about two-hour sermon. We'll try to keep ourselves in line today. And so, I think the first question might just be why.

[0:58] Why this... Why would we go... There's a New Testament. Why study the Old? Why think about the first opening chapters?

[1:10] What we're hoping to do this year is we're starting out here with a survey of the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings. And the elders were praying about extending this survey to the whole Old Testament for the whole year.

[1:25] And so, why? Well, we're thinking about... Well, what does Daniel have to do with David? And who came first? And why? And where were they? And I think so many people know some Bible stories, but don't know how it all fits together.

[1:43] And it's a really beautiful story. It's one that captures us. It's one that we find ourselves in. And it is a beautiful thing to know the story.

[1:56] It helps us understand Scripture. It helps us understand ourselves. And so, if we do pray and the Lord leads us to this whole year... There are only 52 weeks in a year, and we've already burned one of them.

[2:08] So, we can't preach everything that's there. So, that'll mean that we need to focus. And so, this year, we will likely devote our attention to the ideas of redemptive history, the big milestones in God's action in history, to the theme of covenant.

[2:29] There's a covenant-making God. And then, his presence with his people. Those will be the focal points of this year. And so, even today, we won't be able to see everything that's in this passage.

[2:42] We might briefly touch on some of them. I'll send you out thinking about those as well. But there are a couple main ideas that we do want to get to. And so, the first few chapters of the Bible are foundational.

[2:58] And they're foundational in a couple different ways. They ground the whole Bible. Like any good book, the first chapters introduce the cast of characters.

[3:09] They establish what's at stake. They explore the main themes. And if you're really paying attention, they give you hints about the end. So, it grounds the whole Bible.

[3:22] It's foundational to the Bible's story. But it's also foundational to your life. This isn't just a morality tale or a fable or a mythology.

[3:34] It's history. And so, this cast of characters, these stakes, these themes and this ending, you are a part of it.

[3:44] You are living on this earth that we will see created today in Genesis chapter 1. These themes, creation, betrayal, loss, love, redemption, you see them in your life.

[4:03] In fact, you see them in all good literature. Why? Because it's woven into the fabric of the universe that God created. And so, the first chapters of the Bible are more than just simply an introduction.

[4:15] If you want to understand the big questions, what is this world? Who am I? What is wrong with the world?

[4:26] What is the solution? What should I do with my life? Did I make the right New Year's resolution? Those sorts of questions. You need this. We need this.

[4:39] And so, the God who writes history with his will, he wrote a book, this book, so that you could understand the world, so you could understand yourself, and ultimately, so you could know him.

[4:53] I love how my favorite children's Bible puts it. This is the Jesus Storybook Bible. Love it. Parents, if you don't have a Storybook Bible for your kids, we actually just got in a bunch of these, real cheap, on Black Friday.

[5:10] Talk to me. We'll get you one. Really beautiful. This is from the introduction of the Jesus Storybook Bible. Just introducing what is this Bible. Now, some people think the Bible is a book of rules.

[5:23] It's telling you what you should and shouldn't do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing.

[5:35] It's about God and what he has done. Other people think the Bible is a book of heroes showing you people you should copy. The Bible does have some heroes in it, but as we'll soon find out, most of the people in the Bible aren't heroes at all.

[5:50] They make some big mistakes, sometimes on purpose. They get afraid and run away. At times, they're downright mean. No, the Bible isn't a book of rules or a book of heroes.

[6:04] The Bible is, most of all, a story. It's an adventure story about a young hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It's a love story about a brave prince who leaves his palace, his throne, everything to rescue the one he loves.

[6:20] It's like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life. You see, the best thing about this story is, it's true. There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one big story.

[6:36] The story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. It takes the whole Bible to tell this story. And at the center of the story, there is a baby. Every story in the Bible whispers his name.

[6:50] He is like the missing piece in a puzzle, the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together. And suddenly, you can see a beautiful picture. And this is no ordinary baby.

[7:01] This is the child upon whom everything would depend. This is the child who would one day, but wait, our story starts where all good stories start.

[7:11] Right at the very beginning. Let's pray. Father in heaven, you are a good and glorious God.

[7:31] Lord, as we attend to your word this morning, I pray that you would open our eyes to your majesty. And that in looking clearly at you, we would be challenged and comforted.

[7:50] And Lord, that you would bring joy to our hearts. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. If the opening chapters of Scripture set the stage for everything, certainly the opening words are very important.

[8:13] What do we see? Genesis 1, chapter 1, or Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We see the Lord before all things, above all things, sovereign over all things.

[8:36] Friends, I'm afraid that in daily living, we don't think of him like that. I know there are days that I don't think of him like that.

[8:50] I don't consider his power. I don't ponder his immensity. I don't think on his goodness.

[9:00] So, as a result, I don't think we live each day like this God, that God revealed to us in the pages, on page one, that he exists.

[9:14] We're undone sometimes. When things don't go our way. Why? Because those things that we hold on to, they're so big to us.

[9:27] And God is kind of small to us. We think lightly on our sin. Why? Because God isn't before all things when it comes to having our own way.

[9:42] We don't go to him when the way forward is unclear to us. Why? Because we think very highly of our wisdom and very little of his.

[9:55] We don't cry out for comfort. Why? Well, because when God is small, we don't even remember he's there as a comforter.

[10:06] But these first words in Holy Scripture insist that we not forget. He is there. In the beginning, God. And he is mighty.

[10:18] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He is the owner. He is the one holding all the keys, possessing all the wisdom. And he is good.

[10:33] This passage overflows with the refrain, and God saw that it was good. Only a good God makes good things. Did you make a New Year's resolution this year?

[10:48] As a young man, Pastor Jonathan Edwards, who pastored in New England prior to the Revolutionary War, he wrote a long list of his own resolutions for his whole life. Not just for one year, but for his whole life.

[11:00] We would all do well to imitate him on this one. Resolved. Never, henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were in any way my own.

[11:14] But entirely, and altogether, God's. That's the kind of God we see in Genesis 1. Is that the kind of God you pray to each day?

[11:28] I live before each day. Friends, God made the heavens and the earth by a mere decree. He spoke, and from nothing they appear.

[11:41] One writer put it this way. This mere verbal fiat displays God's awesome, crushing omnipotence. That's just a fancy word for all-powerful.

[11:55] There weren't words for that kind of absolute sovereignty. And it's a terrifying thought, isn't it? Someone that powerful. Absolutely powerful.

[12:09] And that's why it kind of, you know, we see in our world, you know, our government has checks and balances so that power can't be absolute in any one location. We do that because no one person or even group of people has a complete view of the world or is incorruptible.

[12:28] But the Lord does have complete knowledge. And as we will soon see, goodness is a part of his essence. And so, absolute authority resides with him, and that is a good thing, friends.

[12:45] We want that. See, he holds authority over all the earth. Psalm 24 says, The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof and the world and all those who dwell therein.

[12:57] For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. When I first reported to the Coast Guard Academy for swab summer, my father gave me a new Bible.

[13:12] And on the inside cover he wrote the words from Psalm 95, 5, 5, as I began a nautical career, it said, The sea is his for he made it.

[13:26] And that comes from a larger section of Psalm 95. The psalmist is saying, he's building it to something greater. In his hands are the depths of the earth.

[13:39] The heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his for he made it and his hands formed the dry land. We see this creation idea. It is all his because he made it. And here's the payoff.

[13:52] Psalm 95, verse 6 says, Oh come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker. Friends, he formed us.

[14:06] We belong to him. Cornelius Van Til once said, Deep down, every man knows he is a creature of God. and responsible to God.

[14:16] Every man at bottom knows that he is a covenant breaker. The Lord was there at the beginning. No one beside him. He is not troubled. His words cause physical realities.

[14:30] His words cause physical realities. His power, authority, and sovereignty are not bounded or constrained by anything at all.

[14:44] Psalm 33 says, takes this creation idea. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth, all their hosts.

[14:55] He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap. He puts the deeps in storehouses. So that's creation. And then, therefore, let the earth fear the Lord.

[15:06] Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm.

[15:21] Friends, let us stand in awe of this God. As we're about to see, this frightening power belongs not to a tyrant, but to a loving father.

[15:34] It's absolute control wielded by the one you would want to have that power. See, if actions speak louder than words, this passage speaks with a unique volume, shall we say.

[15:47] Since the Lord's words cause real actions, and it's worth considering those actions. What actions does he take? We see in verse 2 that the initial creation was formless and void or without shape and empty.

[16:06] And the Lord gets right to the business of setting things in order, doesn't he? Not only does he fill the universe, but there's a distinct rhythm to how he does it. And God said, let there be, and there it was.

[16:20] God saw that it was good evening and morning. It's an ordered process. And throughout the process, God improves his creation from one degree to the next.

[16:33] We heard earlier read that it was formless and void. And then by the end of verse 10, that first reading, it's no longer formless. He's created light in the darkness, a sky overhead, and land in the sea.

[16:48] And then, that next section, by the end of verse 25, it's no longer void. The land has vegetation. The sky has stars and birds.

[17:00] The world is full of animals. In contrast to the other creation myths surrounding Israel and the ancient Near East, their creation mythologies were full of chaos and violence.

[17:17] But this narrative shows a God who is ordered and good and peaceful. 1 Corinthians 14 says, God is not the author of confusion.

[17:31] And we see that here. not only is he powerful, but he's also personal. He's powerful, he's ordered, he's personal.

[17:43] And I think that stands in contrast to the creation myth of modern pure materialism that presents a universe that can't wait to ignore you. Right? This narrative shows us a God who is personally involved in the affairs of the universe.

[17:59] So he is powerful, he is ordered, he is personal, and he is good. We see this in several ways. What God creates is good, and why God creates is also good.

[18:12] First, what he creates is good. Genesis 1 is a poem, and it is tripping over itself to use the word good over and over again.

[18:24] God has the Midas touch. Everything he touches turns to gold. And he saw that it was good. And he saw that it was good.

[18:35] And he saw at the very end that it was very good. You can tell a lot about an artist by the art they create, or a writer by the things they publish, or a mechanic by the quality of their repairs.

[18:51] And how much does that charge you? You can tell a lot about God by the world he made. The world and everything in it is good.

[19:04] And so is he. Now, this has impacts not only on how we relate to and understand God, but also how we relate to and understand the world we live in.

[19:17] The world he gave us. And I fear that this is one of those things that we will not have time to direct our focus to today. But think on that. what God creates is good and secondly, why God creates is good.

[19:36] Other religions in the ancient world taught that the gods created humans as slaves to do their dirty work, worker bees for their comfort. The scripture here is very, very different, isn't it?

[19:50] Here we see a God who creates in order to bless his creatures. not because he needs anything from them. He is absolute.

[20:02] In the beginning, God doesn't need anything from us. He chose to make us to bless us. And so we look at this narrative and we see that he is actually building up a world that has everything needed for human flourishing.

[20:20] And it's not just food, shelter, water, they're all there. The substance of this world is not just the basics, though. It's beauty and transcendence.

[20:31] Oceans to lose our gaze in. Mountains to awe us and to climb. Stars in the sky to spark our imaginations.

[20:46] The world God made, it is good. And it's a gift to us. It's meant as a blessing. This is a gift giving God.

[20:59] It's not a God who is only over us, but a God who is for us. We're going to see lots of blessing in these opening chapters, but it's not until we see that God the Son nailed to a cross on our behalf, bearing our burden that we will discover just how radically for us He is.

[21:22] That's kind of why we're praying over a year through the Old Testament to bring us to the advent of Jesus Christ. it was good.

[21:38] So what? Friends, God made this world and everything in it good. But when we look around, that might not be our experience of this world.

[21:52] Is it always good? When we look around and see brokenness instead of completeness, the completeness we see in Genesis 1. Disease instead of health.

[22:03] Trouble instead of blessing. We need to remember that this is not natural. We're responsible. We are responsible for this new broken order.

[22:15] We're going to see that in Genesis chapter 3 in a few weeks. But, because God is good, and because He is powerful, we have a hope that it will not always be this way.

[22:31] Romans chapter 8 we read, I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

[22:46] For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

[23:02] For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

[23:20] friends, your troubles, your griefs, your sufferings, those are all unnatural to this world.

[23:33] We have this kind of is-ought fallacy, right? We see the way that the world is and assume that that's the way it ought to be. But Genesis 1 tells us that it ought not be that way.

[23:46] This world is broken and it should not be. over this holiday season, I went to a funeral.

[24:01] Funerals are maybe the reminder that this world is broken and it is not how it should be. But friends, we were made to live forever.

[24:20] because we were made for Him. We're about to see that when we look at the image of God. Friends, God is absolutely powerful.

[24:37] And that's a good thing because He is absolutely good. And that's why statements like this one are good news for us. Abraham Kuyper once said, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine.

[25:05] Friends, you want Him to declare you His own because His will is good and He is powerful to save. In fact, Jesus asked this question to us, are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

[25:23] Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father, but even the hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not, therefore, for you are of more value than many sparrows.

[25:36] When you feel forgotten or helpless, and you feel like everything is against you, like a tiny sparrow falling to the ground, remember, even though I walk the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

[25:55] Why? What does the psalmist say? I will fear no evil because He puts a force field around me? No. Because He sweeps in and changes everything?

[26:08] No. Because He crushes the troubles in front of us before we ever encounter them? No. I will fear no evil for you are with me.

[26:22] Your rod and staff, they comfort me. Friends, the one who commands the storms and the seas, who made them with His voice, cares for His people and walks with them.

[26:33] He may not rescue you from the valley of the shadow of death, but the one who owns the future will walk with you in the valley of the shadow of death. He walks with His people through that valley, the valley of the shadow of death today because 2,000 years ago, friends, He walked it alone to its very end carrying a cross.

[27:02] in order to do that, He took on the nature of a human being. So let's begin to think about the ending of this passage, watching God form us.

[27:18] Verse 26 says, 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.

[27:34] So God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created a male, and female He created them. The world is no longer formless.

[27:45] It's no longer void. Things look complete. But God has something else in mind. Humanity. And we are not just the next thing on a laundry list of animals He made.

[27:59] Humanity is unique. of nothing else did He say, let us make in our image, after our likeness. See, the highest ends of the clouds that He made is to bring life-giving rain.

[28:17] The highest end of the maple and the birch trees that He made is putting on a brilliant display of red and yellow foliage. The highest end of the bees producing sweet honey.

[28:28] the highest end of a dog is fetching that ball for you and slobbering on you. The highest end of a cat is watching you with disdain as you clean its litter box.

[28:40] But you, you, what is your highest end? You weren't made like the trees or the dogs or thankfully like the cats.

[28:53] You were patterned after the image of God. What is your highest end? You were made for covenant fellowship with the living God.

[29:05] That is what you are for. He made you for Himself. He made you for prayer. He made you for His word.

[29:16] He made you as a temple to fill you with His Spirit. He made you for Himself, friends. What does that mean?

[29:33] Oh, it means so many things. It means, for instance, since all are made in the image of God, it means that racism is absolutely excluded.

[29:47] It means that sexism is absolutely excluded. It means that treating someone else in any way inferior, social, that's excluded.

[29:59] The social distinctions, the class distinctions that we can come up with, to diminish the value of another human being, they're on a front to the God whose image they're made in.

[30:14] It means that murder, to include abortion, is excluded. It means so many things. And that's what this story, this unfolding story, is going to tell us.

[30:29] Because the Bible is the story of God and His people together. theologians look at Genesis 1 and draw out an idea called the creator creature distinction.

[30:46] It simply means He is God and we are not. That's actually huge. And it's huge for two kinds of people.

[30:57] The person who's really proud and the person who is really ashamed. and everybody in between. See, if you've been made to feel like nothing, what we just said, made in the image of God, that should be a huge help to you.

[31:16] God made us a little lower than the angels. But if you are all puffed up, remember too that you are not God.

[31:27] So this comforts the hurting and it also confronts the proud. And that leads us to ask a question. Who gets to define you?

[31:42] Who gets to say what is good and what is bad? It means that, friends, that we don't define who we are. Now, when I say something like that, in this cultural moment, it might sound like it was directed squarely at, say, like the transgender movement.

[31:55] And certainly that is a point of application. But it's not just about that. It's about every person on the planet. Every person in this room.

[32:07] Everybody tries to define ourselves in one way or another. There's a religious version of this. There's an irreligious version of this. If you listen to our culture, being true to yourself, self-actualization, being honest or transparent, that is the ultimate goal.

[32:27] Is it not to express your true self? You decide what is right or wrong for you. You decide what is or isn't admirable to you.

[32:39] You decide what human flourishing looks like for you. But for people in the church, it's often another kind of godlike status, defining reality.

[32:54] this version of the kind of put-together Christian, right? The goal here is to express your holiness in front of other people. To be authentic to that, expressing that.

[33:08] It might look like showing service, but forgetting to serve our families. A show of well-behaved kids, but not really looking very closely at how we got them that way.

[33:20] It might show off a good Puritan work ethic. Trust me, I love the Puritans, but we amuse ourselves in ways that grieve the Lord.

[33:31] There's always a way to look good on the surface, but actually be transformed. Now, don't hear from this that God doesn't like holiness, or that God doesn't like individuals.

[33:45] You are a snowflake, and I honestly never thought I would say that without sarcasm. But your personality, your passions, your unique spirits are part of God's good creation.

[34:02] Man, that was hard. So, I mean, you do, in a way, define your interests and your pursuits, and God is glorified by that. He is.

[34:13] But you don't define what a human being is, or what a human being is for. You are not God. I am not God.

[34:24] You did not create yourself. You do not get to write the instruction manual. You and I, we don't set the rubric for what constitutes human flourishing.

[34:38] So, yes, you may not define yourself, but I also want to tell you that you don't have to define yourself. See, both the religious person and the irreligious person, who, we're trying to act like God and define ourselves and express what it is to be human.

[35:01] There are two real problems with that. The first is, it's just exhausting. Right? How do you know when you're done being authentic to yourself? And once you've found the authentic you, now you need to express it, right?

[35:16] Now, how do you do that? how do you know when you self-actualize enough? There's no end to it. And for the religious person, there's always more holiness to put in front of people.

[35:30] There's more service, more things your kids could do or behave better. There is no end on any front to playing God. It's not possible. You will find no rest there and no joy.

[35:42] Dr. Michael Horton said, grace is God's refusal to allow us to define ourselves or to have the last word.

[35:55] Friends, it's exhausting. Not only is it exhausting, but it's radically self-centered. And we shouldn't call a relentless focus on self, either pretentious shows of religion or on pretentious shows of self-actualization.

[36:14] We shouldn't call that healthy. We should call it neurosis. If your whole world is filled with a view of self and your self-actualization, whatever that looks like, we call that neurosis.

[36:29] Let's take a clue from Genesis chapter 1. Where is the focus of this passage? Is it on the world? Certainly there are long descriptions of the creation of the world.

[36:41] But the focus is more on the creator, not the creation. Is it on the creatures that fill the world? Well, no, they don't even have agency in this story, but their creator certainly does.

[36:56] Is it on the people? People are definitely really important to this narrative. They're the crowning jewel of creation, but they're actually defined in terms of another.

[37:08] God, made in his likeness. God speaks, God creates, God makes them in the way that he decides.

[37:21] And so if we take this passage as a guide, our focus needs to shift every day from self to God. His ways are higher than our ways.

[37:31] His wisdom is greater than our foolishness. God, we were created by God, after the image of God, for God. See, you won't have success using a screwdriver as a spoon, or a toothbrush, or a pencil.

[37:51] It's for driving screws. You won't have success with yourself, your very being, if you are aimed at yourself, because you were made to be aimed at God.

[38:06] You only work right when you are pointed at him, because you're patterned after him, fashioned for him, with an eternity and transcendence stamped on your heart. And friends, we are not transcendent, so if we fill our view with self, we will always be dissatisfied.

[38:26] St. Augustine said, our hearts, Lord, are restless until they rest, in you. We'll find freedom only when God fills our view.

[38:42] If you fill your own view, you will always be captive to your own whims. Friends, if you haven't noticed lately, we are fickle creatures.

[38:54] Going this way and that way, we are never satisfied. Moving outward a little bit, if other people fill your view, you'll be captive to their opinions, peer pressure, keeping up with the Joneses.

[39:07] But if God fills your view, if you've been reconciled to him, you won't need to be validated by your own fickle heart, or by your critics, or by anything else in the world.

[39:22] Friend, you're in Christ. Christ. And that means there is a better way. See, for those who are trying to be honest and true to themselves, whatever that means, what if you didn't have to self-actualize?

[39:44] God has kind of given us a better identity, right, than we could ever hope to create for ourselves. John chapter 1 says, the true light, and that's Jesus, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

[39:57] He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and 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 the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

[40:19] Like, really, can you top that? If you're trying to define yourself today, stop. Run to that instead.

[40:33] And if you're kind of that religious mindset, what if you didn't have to prove yourself? He's in the business of blessing you, but if you keep trying to earn your position with him, or before his people, you're always going to keep him at arm's length, and you're never going to know his blessing.

[40:57] What kind of blessing are we talking about? Well, in short, the big picture of the Bible is we sinned, and that separates us from God and earned us punishment, but he bore that punishment on his own shoulders.

[41:19] we've been thinking a lot about that in the day of the doctrine of creation. And it's interesting that the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of our reconciliation to God go hand in hand.

[41:38] It's incredible to remember that the Lord created us knowing that the cross was necessary. Why would he want to create us? If he knew we would have to go to the cross. The creation and the cross are actually so connected.

[41:50] Octavius Winslow said, so completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of himself. That's our reconciliation. That, here, listen to this creation, he created the tree upon which he was to die and nurtured from infancy the men who were to nail him to the accursed wood.

[42:15] Friends, our redemption is built into the creation of this world. He made us.

[42:26] He made us in his own image, not only so we could obey him, but so we could share in his life together. We've made that impossible because of our sin, living for ourselves, living against him.

[42:41] This God is not scared of the impossible. He's the God who spoke the universe into being because of Jesus' sin bearing crucifixion and his life-giving resurrection.

[42:55] I'll say one more time the words from John 1, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Friends, if you haven't ever received Jesus, believed in his name, I invite you to do so tonight.

[43:11] this chapter closes in verses 28 through 30 with a job description. Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

[43:24] Have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. I want to quickly point out two places of application. First, vocation and second mission.

[43:35] vocation just means employment, right? Work. Genesis 1 comes before Genesis 3.

[43:46] That's pretty obvious, but that means that work, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, heavens of the earth, over everything that moves on the earth.

[43:57] This role of ours, work, actually predates the fall, which means that work isn't a bad thing. In fact, it is a good thing.

[44:07] Laundry, however, right? They didn't get clothes until after the fall. But what that means is that the work that you do to advance this world, if your work involves stewardship, or improvement, or development, or maintenance, or education, or protecting, that is a worthy and God-honoring thing.

[44:39] The work that you do, the work itself, is a good thing. And God cares about even the menial tasks in this world. If you mop floors, you're preventing disease.

[44:51] I don't see any fourth-class cadets here, but when they run mother buckets, right? They're making living spaces, I won't call it a home, but they're making living spaces livable, protecting life.

[45:02] If you serve food, you sustain and nourish, and if your food's any good, you delight people. If you work retail, you get people the things they need.

[45:13] If you drive a truck, you deliver gifts, deliver medicine, you deliver a builder's tools. And so I want to tell you that the work that you do, the work itself, is a valuable thing to the Lord.

[45:29] And that's a message I think everybody needs to hear, including state-owned parents, things like that. So that's the first point of application in this dominion mandate.

[45:43] And the second thing is mission. See, Adam and Eve weren't meant to stay in the garden, fill the earth, and subdue it. They were designed to spread God- glorifying image bearers to the ends of the earth.

[45:59] And ever since Genesis 3, when we kind of turned ourselves into not-so-God glorifying image bearers, that mandate still stands. It just means that we're reconciling image bearers back to God.

[46:15] And I'm going to connect this missionary task to the last verse. Verse 31 says, 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.

[46:28] Wait, aren't there seven days in a week? Next Sunday, we're going to look at Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, where God will rest. And I want to help you this week, because everyone here is a missionary.

[46:44] Everyone is a missionary. We can connect this mission and this rest together. Here's how.

[46:56] This week, you're going to say, how are you? How many times? How many times are you going to say that? Probably a dozen times a day, right?

[47:07] At least. Someone is going to answer that question with busy, or tired, or I'm making it, or keeping my head above water.

[47:22] You can simply turn to that person and say, hey, you know what? we're going to be talking about rest at church this week.

[47:34] Would you like to come? That's it. There you go. The missionary task is not a challenge. It's not a complicated one. It's just inviting people to come find rest in Christ.

[47:46] And we're going to be talking about that next week. So just ask someone, how are you doing? that could be the beginning of missions for you this week. And friends, as we all invite our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors to explore God's rest, I invite you also to rest in this powerful and good God.

[48:10] Let's pray. Father, you made the heavens and the earth. love us. Not because you needed anything from us, but because you wanted to love us.

[48:28] You wanted to bless us. Lord, forgive us for seeking after lesser things as ultimate. Help us, Lord, to live every day in light of who you are as you've revealed yourself.

[48:48] in this beautiful passage of scripture. Thank you, Father, for simply who you are. We pray that in the matchless name of Jesus Christ, our King.

[49:02] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.