The diversity of life on our planet is astounding; from the diversity of life in the sea and in the air to the diversity of land creatures as well. Each creature helps do its part to put the glory of God on display and sets the stage for our delight in our Creator. For the first four days of Creation, our good and loving Creator sets up a world where living things can thrive and where the crown of His creation, humanity, can live and thrive in His plan and purpose. Now on Day 5, He begins to fill His world with those living creatures, and on Day 5 we see two firsts. The first “First” is that God creates what the Hebrew calls “Nephesh” or a living soul; something with life in it. Vegetation is technically alive, but it isn’t animated by the breath of life like a creature is; this is new, this is divine CPR.  Placing the spark of a heartbeat and the spark of desire and the breath of life into creatures of dust. That word for life is used for all creatures, whether in the water, in the air, on the land or for a human being. We can look at the living creatures around us and we are made of the same stuff. We are animated by the life and breath of our Creator, and that makes us want to treat our fellow creatures with value, be they animal or human. So in one way we have a lot in common with all living creatures. But in a greater and more significant way, we are not at all the same. As G.K. Chesterton said, “Camels are endowed with the finest camel hair brushes and yet they do not paint.” Why? God makes all living creatures on Days 5 and 6, but the crucial difference is that only humanity is made in His image, after His likeness. And as a result, every human being, unlike the animals, has a craving not ultimately for earthly things but a craving for God. The animals relate to God as Creator; human beings relate to God as Creator and Father. Animals are satisfied with basic desires; we were made to only be fully satisfied in God. And when we give our life only to pursuing the basest desires of our flesh as the animals do, we give up our unique place in Creation to glorify God and we take our place as just another animal. These first creature God makes tells us a lot about His plans and purposes for our world.

Colorado has some great rock formations: Horsetooth Rock, Castle Rock, Kissing Camels, Two Faced Rock. When you look at them from a distance and a certain angle, they look like someone carved out a horse’s tooth, a camelor two faces. But when you finally reach the rock at the end of your hike, you realize that upon closer examination it looks nothing like those things. And really it’s just wind, erosion and your mind connecting the dots that gave it the appearance of a shape. But imagine that you are a hiker who has no idea about American history or landmarks, or maybe a teenager who only hangs out in the basement and didn’t pay attention in history class, and you were hiking in South Dakota and came across Mt. Rushmore with its carved faces of four Presidents. Just from observing them from afar, and not even exploring the tunnels and staircases within, you would have to conclude that they were made by an intelligent designer. So what do we conclude when we look at a human being? Can we say that the design is only apparent and that even upon closer examination a human being is nothing more than something formed by accident? We will be talking about human life on day 6, but even looking at the seemingly ordinary parts of our world that our text shows us this morning—a firmament that regulates sunlight and climate, the balance of the ratio of water to land, plants and fruit bearing trees able to sustain generation upon generation of life, and heavenly bodies to regulate gravity, light, tides and time—all those things intricately working together for one purpose: so that life can flourish here where it cannot flourish anywhere else. Could it all just be here by chance? Or is there a Designer behind it all? Maybe you aren't sure about that yet. But if you are a follower of Christ, you believe that there is a Designer and you know who that Designer is. But the danger is that we don’t let His Design inform any other area of our life. Design seems like it only relates to Creation but design deeply points us to Christ as well; it creates in us a hope and a glory that far outweighs anything this life can throw at us.

Genesis 1 claims that God created a universe of both space and matter, heavens and earth, bound in time with a beginning. And on what would be the first day, God adds the way that we would measure time and great distances: He creates light. It’s easy to imagine in the modern age that we know most of what there is to know about the universe. But in just five verses the Bible reveals how little we actually know. Senior NASA astrophysicist Dr. Deb Haarsma who is a Christian and former president of the BioLogos Institute says, “data from the W-MAP and Planck satellites has shown that 27 percent of the universe is dark matter, a scientific mystery that does not emit, reflect or absorb any light. We can detect it only by its gravitational effect on visible matter.” Dark matter is what holds galaxies and large cosmic structures together by providing the extra mass needed for them to form and spin without flying apart. But that’s just dark matter; the greatest part of the universe—68 percent of it—is what we call dark energy, an even more mysterious substance that drives how the universe expands. “For all our advances in physics and chemistry,” she says, “what we can see and know can only describe 5 percent of the universe. For the remaining 95 percent of the universe, we have no current explanation.” It turns out we understand light way better than we understand the darkness. But Genesis says that God understands them both, that He separates them for the blessing of His creation and that He names them both. And ultimately, the fact that God names them both shows us that God has authority over both light and dark; what He has made He has control over.

Last week we learned that Genesis 1 is all about authority. If God made all things, then He is in authority over all things. He tells us how to best use the things He has made, and in humility we submit to His design. And that humility, that comes from the authority and majesty of God in creation, is what leads us into wonder at God’s creation. When was the last time something in God’s Creation led you into wonder? The universe contains enough wonder to captivate us all and it is wonder that drives us to remember our place in it. In Job 38, God uses the creation to remind Job that he has forgotten both authority and wonder. Later on Job responds in wonder at God’s authority which leads him into wonder at creation itself. Throughout the first part of our Genesis series we will talk about science and creation. When properly used, studying God’s creation through science leads us into wonder which is good. But science was never meant to be our ultimate authority. Those who misuse science say that human reason alone is to be our ultimate authority. But Genesis 1 says that God alone, the One who gave human beings our reason, is to be our highest authority. It’s a tragedy that science and Genesis 1 have been pitted against each other, that they are seen as competing narratives where only one is possible. Science can never fully prove or disprove the Bible, and the Bible was not written to counter and disprove science. But as we will see this morning, it is the Bible itself that launches, grounds and sanctifies science. It is Genesis 1 that makes science even possible. The Bible is not a science book but it is not an unscientific book. It calls us to get wisdom, to get knowledge and to get understanding not just of spiritual things but of the world our Father created. The Bible invites us to observe and to wonder in humility; Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes are all scientific in their nature. They call us to observe and catalog how things are made and how they work, and from that observation to come to the right conclusion of why we were made and how life works.

We are starting a new series through the book of Genesis. Genesis isn’t just book one in a series of 66 books in the Bible; Genesis is the foundation of every idea, every promise, every instruction, hope and truth found in all the books that come after it. We cannot fully understand ourselves without understanding Genesis 1:1. We cannot fully understand God without understanding Genesis 1:1. Nor can we truly understand sin or redemption or brokenness or identity or purpose or wisdom or goodness or justice or anything else. It is vitally important, if we are to ever really fully understand anything in the Bible or in the world in general, that we first understand the full meaning of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”