Creation and Christian Progress

Text: Romans 1:20 and Genesis 1

The creation of Genesis 1 is a picture of our conversion and Christian experience and the progress the Lord would have us to make as a son of God

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
   • Outside of God’s holy word, there is nothing on this planet quite as precious and miraculous and pure as a newborn baby.
   • Billy Graham/Larry King
   • David let us know in the 51^st Psalm that ‘In sin did my mother conceive me.’ We all come into the world with the taint of original sin, but of course a small child is outside of the judgment of God because you don’t have they don’t have the knowledge of sin.
   • Paul said, sin is not imputed when there is no law.
   • As a child begins to grow older and he begins to understand right and wrong, his conscience begins to grow older he begins to understand right and wrong, his conscience begins to convict him of sin and begins to realize that there is a God that must judge sin.
   • When this transformation takes place you’re no longer an innocent child, now you’re a lost sinner.
   • You start off just like that original earth in Gen 1:1 pure and innocent, and then suddenly your without spiritual form and direction and void of spiritual understanding, captive to utter spiritual darkness.
   •  Read 1:2. That’s a pretty good description of a lost man’s condition.

2. The description of the earth in Genesis 1:2 is one of chaos and confusion and darkness and such is the condition of unregenerate mankind.
   • Man preaching with his mother present
   • 1 Cor 14:33 declares that God is not the author of confusion.
   • Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Ephesians 4:18
   • Your foolish heart was darkened.
   • But no need to despair for such a hopeless condition. In verse two the Lord put in one of those providential conjunctions, ‘And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water.’ There are two things that are absolutely necessary in communicating the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God and the Word of God.
   • It is the Spirit of God that is sent into the world to reprove the world of sin, judgment, and righteousness and then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (see verse 2 and 3).

3. So if you’ve ever been saved there you were dead in trespasses and sin, lost and alone in the world without God, walking about to and fro in utter darkness. Then the Spirit of Almighty God calls your name, and moves your heart, and the word of God brings conviction that you need a Saviour and as soon as you say yes Jesus God says, Let there be light!

§         Now most people try to identify this light as the sun, but the sun doesn’t show up until day 4. You might have to wonder what this light was if the word of God didn’t tell you that:

§         That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

§         You might have to guess if Jesus Christ didn’t tell you up front the He is the Light of the World.

§         For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor 4:6

§         Notice that this is the first day. I want you to know your life does not begin until the light of Jesus Christ comes in and saves your soul.

§         So that’s day one.

§         But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 1 Peter 2:9

4. Now Day 2: In the second day of Creation the Lord divides the waters from the waters with a firmament and called the firmament Heaven.
   • In terms of your Christian progress this represents separation. Notice you don’t get separated to get saved, you get saved to get separated. You don’t have the root in you that will let you genuinely repent from your wicked ways until you get saved.
   • An average bunch of Baptists knows less about separation than the tie I’ve got on. ‘I’m saved by grace.’ Amen. ‘Not of works lest any man should boast.’ Amen. Don’t you think it’s about time you learned verse ten of the same passage.
   • For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Eph 2:10
   • The concept of separation is Biblical and it’s for New Testament Believers.
   • Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 2 Corinthians 6:14-17
   • The average Christian today has the world by one hand and the church in the other. If you’re in that boat this morning you should know a testimony like that will condemn more people to hell than if you never showed up to church and just cursed God.
   • I’m not saying you need to get right to show up to church, but once you identify yourself with any church please don’t frustrate to grace of God and cause the chastening of God to come upon you.
   • Don’t come in here on Sunday and sing O How I Love Jesus, and go right back to the world Monday to take your Christianity of like some kind of worn coat, just to talk the same as you always have, and think the same way you always have and participate in the same dirty jokes you always have.
   • The heart of discipleship and sanctification is captured in the words Jesus Christ in Luke 9:23
   • And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. Luke 9:23
   • Some of you just as sincerely as you know how have prostrated yourself before the Saviour and said Lord whatever you want from me, just take me and use me for your will, and yet in your heart of hearts you’ve told the Lord that nothing is off limits, except for the cigarettes Lord, don’t bother them. And Lord you can have it all, just don’t ask me to give up the snuff. And Lord I’m available to you just don’t ask me to get rid of my premium channels, just don’t ask me to give up my best friend Lord, just don’t ask me to do this or that.

1. What about day 3. The scripture says (in verse 11)

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:11-12

• Following separation the Lord expects you to bear fruit. Now that the Spirit of God lives inside of you the fruit of the Spirit ought to emanate from you: love joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.
• If I look out here in the parking lot and see that great big oak producing pine cones I’m going to know something is wrong.
• John 15:5
• So other than the fruit of the Spirit, if an Orange tree produces oranges, and an apple tree produces apples, and a pear tree produces pears what do you think a child of God ought to be producing.
• For a Christian, fruit-bearing means soul-winning.

2. Day 4 is the day in which the Sun and the moon and the stars are created at the hand of God.
   • The scene is a picture of Christ and the church. The Lord Jesus is referred to in Malachi 4 as the Sun of Righteousness.
   • Didn’t he say in John 11:9-10 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.
   • If Christ is the Sun of Righteousness then the church is the moon. It is the role of the church to reflect the light of Jesus Christ. Period.
   • Daniel 12:3 describes individual believers as stars. A star is a light in and of itself. There are literally millions of stars. They’re innumerable, and yet you can’t see them all. The further they get away the less likely you are to see them. And at the same time the darker it gets the brighter a star shines.

3. Day 5, The Lord brings forth living creatures from the waters and from the sky. Fish and birds. Now what could that mean to you and I?
   • Did you realize a fish when it gets real hot they sometimes go real deep. In spite of going deeper and deeper they are able to overcome the pressure. The same is true for you and I. When the pressures of life come to bear, if we’ll just lean into the depths of God’s Word we’ll be able to overcome the pressure. Most Christians are like a thermometer. You can study them and they’ll tell you the temperature. But the Lord wants us to be like thermostats and set the temperature around us.
   • Birds need wind to fly. The wind provides the air pressure that they need to take off. Wind is a type of the Holy Spirit in John 3:8 and what’s true for that bird is true for you, the more you depend of the Holy Spirit the less flapping you’ll have to do.
   • That’s how you can mount up with wings as eagles; run and not be weary; walk and not faint.

4. Day 6 is all about bearing the image of God. (vs. 26)
   • And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Genesis 1:26-27
   • This is God’s ultimate plan in the life of the believer. Every Christian experience that you have, whether it be going through the valley or a mountaintop experiencing. It should all serve to mold and make you into the image of Jesus Christ.
   • Predestination: Not to salvation but to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ and to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
   • According to Col 3:10 you got back the image that Adam lost and yet it’s incomplete.
   • And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 1 Corinthians 15:49
   • Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2
5. Day 7: Our eternal rest!