God Places An Importance On All Life! Series

Alpha and Omega, Part 4

God places an importance on all life!

Genesis 1:20-25

Introduction

- We’ve begun the year with “one purpose”: Knowing there is a God!

-- Just as a building requires a builder, a creation must have a Creator

- Continuing our series, “Alpha and Omega”; looking at the beginning to the end

-- Studying two critical questions: How did we get here? How does it end?

- Last week’s big ideas (v9-19):

1. God directed the seas, the land, the sun, the moon, & the stars for one purpose

-- Get this: To show us His glory, the majesty of what He has done

2. Incredible authority spoke to the land and vegetation to grow

-- BIG: When God speaks, even the seeds in the ground obey – Why?

-- They don’t have a choice! As their Creator, they responded to His voice

3. We considered the question: “How great is our God?”

- Imagine the hand of God at work … for example: to mold the sun!!!

-- King Davis records this: Psalm 8:3-4, “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers the moon and the stars you set in place, what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?”

- Before we can truly know Jesus, we must BELIEVE in the work of His Father

-- We must worship him in everything that we do – He is worthy of our faith

- Let’s look at our passage for today … Read Genesis 1:20-25 / Pray

- Few things to talk about this morning, beginning with the truth that …

Point 1 – God intentionally creates conscious life

- The first conscious beings are created on day 5 (plants/vegetation aren’t living)

-- They are organisms, but they are not considered things that are conscious

- What does this mean? It means they are not thinking, living, cognizant beings

-- Hebrew: chay; alive (this is different from asah; yield, do (what plants do)

- There are two important concepts to grasp WHAT is being created on Day 5

1. Conscious Life = Living creatures created with intelligence

2. Reproductive Life = for life cycle to continue they must reproduce

- The first thing we see God do is that He fills the waters with “life”

-- His creation of the creatures in the sea is done all at once

-- Let’s try to wrap our minds around this concept and see just what God does …

- He does not create one being that evolves into others

-- Hebrew word is bara; means to create from nothing

-- Notice, there is nothing else added to this verse; no historical chart; no timeline

- God does the same thing regarding the birds: He speaks, and they live

-- The first list exists in the seas, where there was just water previously

-- The second exists in the sky, that place we saw created on Day 2 (v6)

-- Hebrew word panim; on the face of heaven (or consider: in front of)

- What I really love is the creation of what is in the sea (v21)

-- KJV: And God created great whales

-- NIV: God created the great creatures of the sea

-- NLT: God created great sea creatures - different trans, same words used:

-- Hebrew: gadol; great

-- Hebrew: tannin; sea creatures

- What is the importance of mentioning these creatures specifically?

-- When God created vegetation, He didn’t describe redwood vs. spruce vs. maple

- The OT is filled with references to large sea creatures … bible specifically uses:

-- Hebrew: livyathan; means serpent, monster, or dragon

-- Could this be first reference to what we know as dinosaurs? (more later)

- But even with its size, God’s word gives clarity to its place in creation

-- Isaiah 27:1, “In that day (the day of God’s redemption, see Isaiah Ch 26) the Lord will take his terrible, swift sword and punish Leviathan, the swiftly moving serpent, the coiling, writhing serpent. He will kill the dragon of the sea.”

- Ancient mythology began to develop its own explanations of these sea creatures

-- They became god-like to the people to avoid worshiping the TRUE God

-- Why? Because admitting there is a God means we aren’t in control; it is SIN

- Incredible how we can take something beautiful and pervert it, isn’t it?

-- APP: This is where we often find ourselves: struggling to add to / take away

-- We must always be conscious of this … see who is really in charge

- TR: So with conscious life created – God decrees these should continue!

Point 2 – God gives a command to multiply

- Notice the critical phrase, “each producing offspring of the same kind”