The Secret That Is Hidden in Plain Sight
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I introduced you to our Bible School in the last lesson. In these lessons we want to find out about God and what He has to say about us and about our relationship to Him.
For our first lesson we want to look in Genesis chapter one. Open your Bible so you can follow along and understand what God has for you. We want to look at the secret that’s hidden in plain sight.
So many people get lost in Genesis chapter one, because they are looking for the wrong things. They are not seeing what God has put there that is so very plain, so very evident, so very easy to see. But they are ignoring it. If we study this chapter carefully, we can learn many things about our God.
God is Eternal
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
Notice that in the beginning, God was already there. It does not say: God began in the beginning. No, God already existed in the beginning.
There is a Bible word that we often use to talk about God: eternal. God is eternal. Now, what do we mean by that? We mean that God has no beginning and God has no ending. He is eternal.
Often people will ask the question: When did God begin? God had no beginning. He already was there in the beginning. He already existed.
Why is that so important for us to understand? God wants us to know who He is. This is the secret in Genesis chapter one. God wants you to know who He is.
Can you love someone that you do not know? Can you trust someone that you do not know? You will not fully trust them, and you will not fully love them unless you get to know them. That is the purpose of Genesis chapter one—to begin to understand who our great God is. 2
God has always existed, even before the beginning. He was there in the beginning. He is the One who started everything. We could listen to scientists, but they were not there in the beginning.
God was there in the beginning and can explain what happened. That is why we study the Bible—not just to find out what happened but more important to find out who God is.
God is Self-Sufficient
The second thing we see here about God is that He created the heavens and the earth. Everything in the world that we see today was not here until God created it. God made it all.
What does that teach us about God? It teaches us that God is self-sufficient. God did not need the world so that He could exist. He did not need food or air or the stars or the sun. God needs nothing to exist.
Now think about this for a moment. God was here before the world ever began, before all the things on earth were ever created. And God was quite well. God was okay. He did not need anything.
Why is that important to you? If God was able to exist without depending on anything, then when God makes a promise, He will fulfill that promise. God can bring it about because God doesn’t depend on anybody else. He does not need anything else to be able to fulfill His promises like you and I do. God is self-sufficient.
God is All-Powerful
God created the heaven and the earth. The word created means that He made it out of nothing. I can take a tree, cut it down, fix the wood, and then I can build a chair. That is making something.
But creating something means to speak and have it appear. That is how God made the heaven and the earth. I cannot do that. I cannot make a chair just appear. I must start with some materials that already exist.
What does that teach us about God? God is all powerful—He can do anything. God is not limited like we are. God can make things happen out of nothing.
That is what that word create means—to call it out of nothing; to bring it out of nothing. Everything that exists is here because God began it. He created it. He spoke and it appeared.
God is a God of Order and Design
“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)
The Bible says that the earth was without form or shapeless. It was void or empty, and it was dark and covered with water. So, what did God do? The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. God began to bring order and design to this world.
God is a God of order and design. When God gets involved in anything, He always puts it in order. When things are out of order or there is confusion, we know that Satan is involved.
The confusion that comes in our life does not come because of God. It comes because we are not listening to God. God is a God of order and design.
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:3-5)
Here we see the creative power of God. God spoke and it happened! On the first day of creation, God created the light and He divided it from the darkness.
“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was do. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” (Genesis 1:6-8)
The waters below the firmament are the waters on this earth. The waters above the firmament are the rain clouds with the rain that falls upon us. In between the two is the firmament, which God called heaven.
This is not talking about the third heaven where God dwells. This is the first heaven, where the air is that we breathe, the place where the birds fly. That is the firmament. This happened on the second day of creation.
“And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 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 God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.” (Genesis 1:9-13)
On the third day of creation, God gathered the waters under the heaven together and put them into the seas and into the lakes. The dry land, which God called Earth, appeared. God saw that it was good.
Then God made the grass and the trees and the herbs on the Earth. God made them all with seeds in them to produce after their kind. If you go to a mango tree, you will find mangoes growing on it. If you go to an orange tree, you will find oranges growing on it.
Inside the fruit that the tree produces are seeds. If you plant the seeds, you will produce another tree of the very same kind. This is how God designed it. God is a God of design. He prepared everything.
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” (Genesis 1:14-19)
On the fourth day of creation, God made the sun and the moon. They were to mark the seasons, and to divide the day from the night. They give light on the earth and help us to count time.
God made the stars also. The Bible tells us that we cannot number the stars. In fact, scientists today are finding out that there are even more stars than what they thought before.
We see God’s order and design: day and night, evening and morning, 24-hour days. And when God finished with what He made on this day, He said it was good. God is a God of design.
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” (Genesis 1:20-23)
On the fifth day, God created all the creatures that live in the waters—fish, whales, turtles, crabs, and sharks. On the fifth day, God also created all the birds that fly in the sky.
God told them all to multiply after their kind and fill the sky and the seas. Again we see day and night, evening and morning, and a 24 hour day. And God said it was good. What an amazing God!
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so…And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:24-26)
On the sixth day of creation, God created all the animals that live on the earth. God made all these animals to produce after their kind. In other words, cows produce cows, sheep produced sheep, a gecko produces a gecko, and a pig produces a pig. And God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God also made man. We will learn more about that in our next lesson.
Again, we see our good God, designing this world. We see day and night, evening and morning, 24-hour days, and God said it was good.
What have we just learned about God? We have learned that God is eternal. There has never been a time when God did not exist. There will never be a time when God will not exist. We can trust that whatever God says, He will do. God always keep His promises.
God is self-sufficient. He does not need anybody or anything else. He will always be able to fulfill what He promises to do. We make promises all the time that we do not keep. But that never happens with God.
God is powerful. In fact, God is all-powerful. He can do anything. In six literal days, God created the whole world and everything in it. And because God is eternal, He was there. We can believe His story of creation because He is an eyewitness.
God is also a God of design. As He created the earth, He was designing it perfectly. He put everything in order and in its place. And at the end of each day, God said it was good. Nothing that God did was bad.
In our next lesson, we are going to be talking about your life purpose. Your life purpose can only be found in God’s design. If you don’t find out how God designed you, you cannot know what God purpose is for your life.
Here are the questions for this lesson:
1. List three things we have learned about God.
2. What is the most important thing you learned about God?
3. Why did you pick that one as the most important truth?
Why is it important to you?
Why do you think it matters to you?