SS: Day three of creation

What did God create on the first day of creation?  Heavens, earth, light

What did God create on the second day of creation? The sky to separate the water

What is the difference between ‘making’ and ‘creating’? To make something is to already have the ingredients.  To create is to make from nothing.

Did God create or make the world?  Create…He didn’t have anything to start with

What did you have for breakfast today?  Cereal, doughnuts, toast, bacon, eggs.  Let’s think of cereal and doughnuts.  They were made from wheat or corn or rice which is grown on farms as plants.  Have you stopped to thank God for plants today?

Have you stopped to thank God for the ground you walk on today?  Did you know that God didn’t have to give us land to walk on?  But he did because he is loving and kind.  Let’s stop and thank God for making the land and the plants that give food.  Pray.

Genesis 1:9-13

God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.”  And it was so.  God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.”  And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.  The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit according to their kinds.  And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening, and there was morning – the third day.

* God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.”  And it was so.  Pull out a dish and pour water into it.  Put a rock in the middle of the dish.

God created the dry ground!  Why did he create dry ground?  He created dry ground because not everything that he was going to create would be able to live in water.  So now he made dry ground appear so that the earth wouldn’t just be covered with water.

* God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.”

God is naming things again.  He named the land and the water.

* And God saw that it was good.

God is pleased with his work.  He sees that what he has done is good.  This shows that God has feelings and that he thinks about things.  He made dry ground and stood back to admire what he did.  He looked at it and saw that it was good.

* Then God said, “let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants. Place pants and flowers on the side of the dish.

This is the first living thing on the earth that God has created.  Up until now he had been preparing the earth for living things.  He makes sure that plants have their own seeds.  Why would plants need seeds?  God needed the plants to make more plants, so he gave them seeds.  The food would not run out.

* and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” Have an apple somewhere on there. 

So not only did God create plants with seeds. He now creates trees with fruit.  The fruit also needed to have seeds.

* And it was so.  The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit according to their kinds.

This is actually repetitive and annoying simply because we needed to know that it happened exactly the way God wanted.

* And God saw that it was good. 

God looks at his creation to admire it and call it good.  Everything he made was good.

*And there was evening, and there was morning – the third day.

A lot happened on day three.  He made both the land and its food that grows from plants. 

Did you know there was a time when God took away the land?  When God flooded the whole earth because of man’s wickedness, he saved on only Noah and his family.  And then the flood ended and God brought the land back.

Then, after God rescued Israel from Egyptian slavery, but before they came to the promised land, they were hungry, so God send bread from the sky for them to eat, and the people called it manna.  God did that for 40 years.

And then one time, Jesus was teaching people in the land of Israel in a land far from food.  In John 6:1-13, we read…

Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee, and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick.  Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.  The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”  He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”  There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there).  Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted.  He did the same with the fish.

When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over.  Let nothing be wasted.”  So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces left over by those who had eaten.

After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 

Did you know that this is the only miracle besides Jesus coming back from the dead that is told in all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?  That generation thought it was Jesus’s most significant miracle second to his resurrection because it showed that he is God, the same one who gave the Israelites manna in the wilderness, and the same one who created land and plants that give food on the third day of creation.