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South Bay SDA Church

Genesis

Jeremy Arnall

02 Day 2 of Creation: Under Heaven’s Quilt

04 Let There Be Time

01 The Creation Account: Let There Be Light

03 Day 3 of Creation

It's been said that to realize the value of 1 year, you can ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of 1 month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of 1 week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of 1 hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of just 1 minute, ask the person who missed the train.

To realize the value of 1 second, ask the person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of 1 second, asks the person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of 1 millisecond, asks the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

When you are little, you wish you were older.

But when you are older, you wish you were younger.

It's been said that time is a talent, youth waste it, because it seems there to be such an abundant supply.

The elderly hoard it because there seems to be so little.

As we age, we come to appreciate time more, don't we?

We appreciate it more as it begins to slip more quickly away.

It's much like watching the sun crawl across the sky.

As it lowers near the horizon, it appears to what?

To accelerate with excitement as though something exciting lies just below the edge of earth.

And so it quickly flees away, leaving us behind in the thickening darkness that surrounds us.

Like when the kids leave home off to explore something akin to what we've seen before, but now because of time they flee so quickly and because of time and age we are left behind.

No sooner did the sun appear than that morning than that evening it is gone on to another adventure.

And so it was that in order for us to appreciate this gift from God he gave us time pieces, something by which we could measure and appreciate time.

We think about it, we are known for counting money.

We often measure our own body weight, or should, and thus we measure time.

What we spend things on determines their value in relation to what was spent.

Again, we spend things on what we spend things on determines their value in relation to what was spent.

If I spend a lot of money on a device or a trip, that implies that thing or experience was more valuable than the money that was spent for it.

If I eat a large slice of cake or pizza, that implies I believe the experience was more valuable to me than the weight that it will leave behind, making it real.

So how I spend my time demonstrates both the value I place upon time and also the value I place upon any given experience I have.

When people say I don't have time, it's simply another way of saying I don't value this as I value as much as I value that.

Because after all we all have the same amount of time.

Where we spend our time determines what we value, and what we value, we measure.

Title of the message is, and God said, let there be time.

Dear Lord, please speak to our hearts this morning.

We bow before you not because of our worthiness but because of Jesus and the provision that he made for us, the time that he took out for us.

Because of this Lord we bow before you asking for your presence.

Please wash us, cleanse us, and fill us with your glory, that we might be vessels by which your glory can shine into the hearts of others.

Our current basis for time dates back to the Sumerian civilization, approximately 2000 BC.

This is known as the Sumerian sexagesimal system based on the number 60.

60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and possibly a calendar with 360 days in a year.

12 also features prominently with roughly 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night, of course 12 hours in a month, 360 days in a year.

So it is that today, man has created various devices to measure time.

From the ancient sundial to the atomic clock, we desire to keep track of time.

If you're like me, you like to keep up with time.

I know that even before there were the phones in our pockets, I would still see people going around without a watch.

And it's always boggled me, from when I was very young, even though the watch didn't work at the very start, I have always tried to wear a watch because I can't stand to not know the time.

It's not as though it stops or pauses because of your disinterest.

Evidently God saw time as something worth keeping track of as well.

I guess that's why he decided to hang time pieces in the sky on day 4.

We call them the sun, the moon, and the stars, by which we are able to measure time.

And Genesis 1 tells us the story of how he did this on day 4.

And like with everything else he did in those first 5 days, it simply says, and God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs, seasons, and for days and years.

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and it was so.

Then God made 2 great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.

God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness.

So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

So it is that just as on day 3 he divided the waters with the land.

And on day 2 he divided the water so that there was water above and there was water below.

So on day 4 God separates the light from the darkness.

And so it is that ever since day 4 of creation week, we have had illustrated to us day and night, evening and morning.

Before this, light could frolic about late into the day.

It had no bedtime in those days, those 2 days, 3 days.

But on day 4, light was informed of when it was to go to bed.

And so it is that each evening it slips behind the covers of the horizon and it is put to sleep.

Sometimes the best way to value something is simply to notice it.

Thus each day we have this linear intangible thing called time illustrated for us with the Sun the Moon and the stars.

You might say in some ways it could seem that God prefers day to night.

For instance, Jesus said in John 9, 4, you remember, I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day, for the night is coming when no man, when no 1 can work.

Before our spot in the universe was touched by God there was darkness we understand and when there was chaos when there was darkness.

It's interesting how many wicked people will slumber during the day and they will frolic at night.

It's interesting to note too that though Jesus spent many a night awake he was awake talking with his father.

Yes God has given us time for both work and play, but he's also given us time for rest.

He did all of this simply by hanging timepieces, objects in the sky.

The day before, he had made a small, delicate flower with petals that are so fragile and elegant in their simplicity and yet peer closer and you're wowed by its intricacy.

And yet on the very next day the same word of God that spoke the flower in its delicate nature into existence.

On day 4, he speaks the sun into existence that is so hot you dare not get to.

Evidently this was something that God deemed important for man to understand and appreciate.

God gave us time pieces not to just count seconds but to help us recognize precious moments.

We've all gone on trips before, and often we pack things we think we might need or want, some thinking they want much, when in reality they get home and realize they really desired little.

Well Jesus knew better and Jesus came to this earth with nothing.

He had to borrow a blanket when he was born.

Jesus would only have just over 33 and a half, would have 33 and a half years of life here on earth.

And yet, he spent most of that 33 and a half years growing up in a carpenter shop.

And then when things got hectic in those last 3 and a half years, he seemed to still measure time differently than everyone else, at least by man's standards.

Series

Genesis

04 Let There Be Time

Transcript

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