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This is the third time in the past few weeks that we have read our text of the first five verses of the Bible. And let me begin this sermon by mentioning that sometimes we get so programmed to think about a passage of scripture a certain way, that we forget that there are other truths placed there by God. I think the 1st chapter of the Bible is one of those places. It's easy to write off this chapter and say "that's about Creation" and that's if we want to talk about "evolution" and we forget that evolution is a theory that has -- pardon the pun -- only evolved in the last few years of history. When God moved upon Moses to write Genesis chapter 1, certainly He wanted us to know that He alone created the heavens and the earth, but in the description of how He did it, many truths and principles are revealed about how God works. Since God does not change, the way He moved and worked in the beginning is still the same way that He moves and works in our lives today. And so that it why Paul said in Romans 1:20 that "since creation God's attributes have been clearly seen." And so not only have we discovered that the first few verses contain truths about how God works in our life today, but we have also realized that these verses contain the first things that God would have us know about Him.

What have we learned so far? A quick review of what these verses have taught us is:

Before we existed, God existed and had a plan for our life. We tend to think of God only getting involved when we can see that He is involved, but He was always involved in our life and our situation in the beginning; well before we could see any evidence of His work. He had a plan for our life before we had a life and He knew us before we could have a brain to know Him. Furthermore, God transcends time and knows of what we need before we ask and has the answer waiting before we ask. He only waits until we ask, so that we will realize where the blessing has come from.

Not heaven as the KJV has, but heavenS -- plural. The principle learned is that the depths of God always goes beyond what we can see on earth. He always has a further level of His plan in place. No matter how bad your situation is, He always has already planned further. When you think that you have reached the end, God is just getting started. And when you have reached the highest in the Spirit Kingdom that you have ever been, God has a greater anointing and level for you to climb into. Man cannot exhaust the supplies and blessings of God. He created the "heavens and the earth." His ways far exceed our ways.

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And so we come to the second verse of the Bible, which in the King James reads:

Gen 1:2 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.

This is a bleak picture being painted here. God created the heavens and the earth, but the earth is nothing of which to be proud. If you and I were standing there beside God during this time, we would probably have the attitude of "um, God, this doesn't look all that great." In fact, it looks more like a mess than anything else. "A mess" is a good description of the earth at this stage of scripture. The earth was "without form," which literally in the Hebrew means "barren." The Hebrew word for "void" means "to be empty" or "an undistinguishable ruin." And then we come to that word "darkness." Darkness is all around. So the earth started out as a forbidding bundle of darkness and shapelessness with no clear purpose and no clear design. It was "a mess."

And then we come to another unfortunate KJV translation because it says that "the Spirit of God moved upon." The word for "moved" in the Hebrew literally means "to hover." As in "hover" like a helicopter hanging in the air over one spot about to land. The idea is not that God's Spirit was doing anything, but that it was suspended over the earth, ready to work. The English Standard Version, the New King James and most other literal English translations put the verse similar to this:

This whole verse is really remarkable when you think about it. We are talking about the Almighty here. The Omnipotent God. There is nothing too hard for Him and nothing that is impossible. That means that He could have created the earth anyway that He wanted. He's God, so He could have snapped His fingers and the earth would have been instantly and perfectly formed into what it is today. He didn't have to take six days to create it, but rather He chose to. Why? Obviously, He was trying to teach us a principle that for things to be changed on earth, there is a process involved. You are not going to be touched by the hand of God and be perfect after one service. If you want to be everything that you should be, then you must press toward the "high mark of the high calling of Jesus Christ." Understand why it is this way though. It's not that God cannot make you perfect suddenly, it's that He chooses not to because He made you a free will moral agent which means that you are not a robot and can choose to do what you want to do. God knew that this creature that was coming on earth -- if sin got involved -- would need time and a process to be changed and shaped by His hand again and so God created the heavens and the earth in six days rather than instantly to teach us that as long as God is working, keep walking with Him!

There's a children's song that says it best:

Some people see somebody else get the Holy Ghost and expect them to suddenly be "perfect Christian" with a cape and a cross. Some people get the Holy Ghost and expect all their old desires to go away automatically. It doesn't work that way. Jesus said that you have to "deny yourself" and then take up your cross and follow Him! Think about it: we have God's Word at work and His Spirit here at creation and still it is a process of gradual development until the creation is what He wanted it to be. God was teaching us a principle -- actually several principles -- that ought to be priority in our little brains.

First, don't judge others after they get the Holy Ghost and yet don't instantly become the super-model prayer warrior that you envision them. Don't give up on them just because they do something dumb and make a mistake. Don't get frustrated and question whether or not they really have the Holy Ghost just because they fall a few times. Remember -- just as with you -- He's still working on them!

The second principle is to those whom God is working on. Don't get frustrated at your faults or failures so that you quit allowing God to work on you. Understand that God's Word is active and His Spirit is here, but the earth doesn't look anything like what it should. But it will! As long as the Word and the Spirit keep working, then God cannot fail, and it will become what it needs to be. The only way you can not become what God wants you to be is to remove yourself from the process. If creation had stopped here on the first day, then we wouldn't be here! And God's will would have never been done. But we must continue to let God work until He decides it's time to rest from His labors on us! But too many times, it is us that decides when God should be done. Things get a little too tight or a little too right and God begins to work on "that area" and we are going through a little persecution and we decide that "God take a rest will you?" But why don't you let God decide when He will rest!? Why don't you let God do what He wants to do? Don't stop God from working, just because you haven't seen the finished result yet. Give Him time and your life, and it will become something that it should be!

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But we must get back to verse 2 of our text! The earth is void and dark and "a mess." And God's Spirit is "hovering" over the mess. Why in the world did God tell Moses to write this verse? Why on earth -- no pun intended -- did God decide to create everything this way? Why speak a mess into existence and then just hover over it before you continue creation? It must be that God is trying to teach us something. And so here we go:

It was when everything looked the worst and everything was the blackest that God's Spirit was hovering over the situation just ready to work! Just looking for an opening and an opportunity to get involved in the mess.

And so the lesson learned is this: It's the times that your marriage is falling apart and you've lost your job and your life seems the darkest; when your future seems a bleak void and everything seems to be imperfect and barren; it's that time that God's Spirit is hovering over you ready to do a work that will blow your mind! Surely you've had a time in your life when it just seemed like giving up was the answer and that there was no ray of hope shining anywhere and nothing but dark void and a deep pit staring at you! You need to remember that when everything looks the worst, look up! You may be shocked to see the Spirit of God hovering over you, waiting. Catch this now: God views our worst situations simply as an opportunity to get involved in your life.

I'm preaching to some people that if it had not been for God allowing a huge mess in your life, you would have never met Him and served Him. For the most part, all of us have emerged to where we are in God because of a dark time in our life that caused us to finally stop leaning on our own understanding and to look up! And when we finally did look to God for the answers, we were astonished that His Spirit was there ready and willing to work in our mess. You see, it had really been there all the time, but you just realized it when you got desperate enough to call upon Him! It is in the biggest messes, that God is just waiting -- yearning -- to work. What we call a mess, God calls an opportunity to create something beautiful! In the darkest night, look up: God's Spirit is hovering over the situation just wanting to get involved!

Remember ol' Job who was going through the trial of trials? Talk about somebody's life being a mess! He went from being the wealthiest man in the land to the poorest in one day. He lost all of his children to a freak accident. He loses his health and gets painful boils all over his body. His best four friends turn against him and accuse him of wrongdoing. His one friend that believes in him waits until twenty chapters of accusations before he opens his big mouth and defends Job. His wife turns against him and encourages him with those uplifting words: "curse God and die." And in it all, Job cannot see God. In one passage, he said this:

Job said "he's not forward and he's not behind me. He's not on the left and He's not on the right." And it's almost like you want to scream at Job: "Look up!" Up is the one place that Job forgot to look!

How true this speaks of our own behavior today! We get in a situation that's dark and a mess and we try to find God in the situation. But God's not in the situation, but rather above the situation! Waiting for you to ask Him to get involved! Stop looking all around you at the void and look up and you will see that God has not changed; His Spirit will be there hovering over the circumstance, just wanting to do something about it! "Job, stop trying to figure out the mess, and look up to where the One who can really do something about it is waiting patiently just wishing you would ask His help! God's Spirit hovers over the dark situations in our life!

Since I'm here, let me say this. It's funny to look at how dumb people act when they are going through a situation. That is, it's funny until you are the one going through it. And the tendency in the storm is to forget who we've got on board the boat with us and start freakin' out! And one of the dumbest attitudes and actions that we sometimes get into is that we tend to think that God forget us or that He is intimidated by the situations and our problems -- don't kid yourself. You are thinking of yourself a little more than you ought to think. There are over six billion people on this big ball that we call the earth. Six billion people and "one God." And listen to how personal our God is with each one. Jesus said:

Not counted, mind you, but numbered. Now I realize that some of us present more of a challenge to God than others. But realize what God is saying. He does not just keep a total count of the number of hairs on every person on this globe, but He has the hairs numbered. "Oops, there went Bro. Sibley's hair number 6,542,741!" "Ahh, we've got a little color transformation from brown to gray on the side here: alright, update the God knowledge: hair number 3, 467, 331 is now gray." He has your hairs numbered and you don't think that He can keep track of when you are in a major mess? If you can't see God in your situation, then understand that God hasn't forgotten you, you just aren't looking in the right spot. "Well where is He, preacher?" Job, if you are in a mess, try looking up!

And you can forget the idea of God being intimidated by your problems. You are one little spot of dirt on a big planet, and in our text, the whole earth was void and covered with darkness, and God is not intimidated, but rather His Spirit is poised to move and change that void! If that's true, then what is one person's problems to God!? Don't tell me that you've got too big an issue for God to work. Even over the biggest mess of your own creation, if you would stop believing the lie of hell and look up, you would see God's Spirit hovering just waiting for an opportunity to work!

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Moving to the next verse, reveals even more about how God's Spirit works in our life. The very next verse reads:

"And God said." The Word of God gets involved here in the creation process, and when the Word of God gets involved, then things start happening. Within seventy-two hours, the dark and shapeless void that was the earth will be a place of oceans and land and the land will have fruit trees and vegetation and plants sprouting from it! But it does not happen until "God said."

Understand that in verse 2, God's spirit is "hovering" over the waters, but nothing is happening. God's Spirit is there over the circumstance, but it is not active in changing the circumstance, until the Word of God come forth. The key to getting God's Spirit to move within and create something great in your situation is to activate the Word of God in your life.

Many Christians tend to think of the Word of God and the Spirit of God as competing forces or something. But they work together to try to bring the will of God within your life. The Word of God. The Spirit of God. Each alone without the other is useless in your life. Let me prove it to you scripturally.

The Word of God alone without the Spirit of God working will not produce the results that God desires. Paul told the church in Corinth:

Did he preach? yes. But his preaching was effective not just because of the Word of God going forth, but because when the Word of God went forth, there was a demonstration of the Spirit and God's power. In another place, Paul wrote:

Both actions are needed in a church service. The Word of God kills things in your life. The Word of God knocks off attitudes and identifies sins that need to be annilated in repentance. It reveals your fleshly desires as something that doesn't need to be there and that needs to be in submission. The letter kills. And the Spirit brings life. The Spirit brings the new joy in Christ Jesus. The Spirit moves in and reforms you and resurrects you into a new creature.

There are some churches where the Word of God is preached and they quench or forbid the moving of the Spirit of God. They don't want people receiving the Holy Ghost. They don't want people worshipping in the Spirit. They don't want emotional response to a very real God. They don't want or encourage a true spirit-filled experience. And as a result, their church services are "dead." The people in them are not really excited about God. There is not a joy and a peace and power that supersedes everything else. There is a lack of a demonstration of the healing and life-changing power of Jesus Christ. Why? Because they give Word, Word, Word, and never allow the Spirit to move. The letter killeth and the Spirit bringeth life. The death is important because it's impossible to have a resurrection without first dying. But the object is not to repent and die out to our old man and stay dead, but to be resurrected to a new life through the power of Jesus Christ!

We can apply this to our own services and lives. The Word of God is preached and hits home. You feel dead and convicted and "non-lively!" That's good because that means the Word of God has done what it is supposed to do. It's the two-sided sword of the Spirit remember? A sword does not bring life but death and surgery. The Word of God is cutting some things out of your life and identifying some things that need to die. The worst thing that you can do is to walk out without repenting and then letting the joy of the Spirit of God to fill that void. People who get offended or condemned take the Word of God but do not let the Spirit do what it wants to do. Remember: if there is something dying in your life because of the Word of God, then it means that God wants to bring a resurrection!

Therefore an altar of repentance and a hard sermon should always end with a joy and a release in the Holy Ghost. You should start out repenting, but as you yield to God, you should allow the Spirit to work in your life. An altar of repentance should leave you with a "burden lifted" feeling. In the Old Testament, if a sacrifice was a trespass offering, it had to be totally consumed on the altar until nothing was left. If you get up from that altar still carrying condemnation and the weight of sin with you, then you did not let the Spirit do what it wanted to do! Sure the letter identified something in your life that needed to die and brought on the altar, but it should end with the operation of the Spirit of God bringing liberty and life!

But just as much as the Word of God alone without the Spirit is useless, then so is the Spirit of God without the Word of God. In our other text, we read a verse from the mouth of Jesus, which often misquoted and misused. Jesus told His disciples:

People misquote this verse by not quoting the whole thing. Usually they quote it saying: "the Holy Ghost will teach you all things." And they say "if something is important then the Spirit of God will deal with me about it." That's true, to an extent, but let's take the whole verse. The Holy Ghost will "teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." Ahh, the point is that the Holy Ghost will teach you and convict you and bring to remembrance "what I have said unto you." Get this now, because it's an important point: the Holy Ghost can only convict you on what the Word of God has taught you. You can not be convicted of something for which you do not have the Word of God instructing you.

Let me plug away here a little bit. Paul said that "calling on the name of Lord would save you," and then said this:

To call upon the Lord means that they had to believe in the Lord. To believe in the Lord means that they had to hear about the Lord. And to hear about the Lord takes a preacher! Without the Word of God, there can be no belief and therefore no salvation and no change. Paul went on to say this:

Without faith, it is impossible to please God! And faith comes by hearing, so without hearing the Word of God spoken into your life, it is impossible to have faith!

Listen to this preacher: you can only believe God for a promise that you have heard about through the Word. You can only be convicted of something for which the Word of God has identified in your life. If somebody says "well, I know the Word of God says that, but I'm not going to do it and I'll just ignore it until the Spirit convicts me of it," then you'd better mark them, because in ignoring the Word of God, the Spirit will never convict them of what it was supposed to. Because the Spirit of God can only bring back in remembrance of what the Word of God has already spoken. If you ignore the Word of God, then you have shut up the Spirit operating in your life. It will never speak to you about that, but that doesn't mean that the teaching of the Word of God isn't important, but rather that you have quenched the working of the Spirit in your life by ignoring the command of scripture. We need the Spirit of God, but we must have the Word of God with it. Without both, either is useless to do what God wants to accomplish in our life!

God could have poured out His Spirit anytime He wanted to, but He did not pour out the Holy Ghost until Jesus Christ -- the Living Word according to John chapter 1 -- had come! It was the Word in flesh that made it possible for the Spirit to be activated as God desired it be!

There are some churches that focus on worshipping in the Spirit and on "spiritual experiences" and yet really do not hunger and thirst after the righteousness of the Word of God. They rely on what they feel rather than what the Word of God says. And so experience some of God, but they do so never really having a conviction of sin in their life or separating themselves from the world. When someone can dance and talk in tongues on Sunday and live like the devil and treat their fellow brother like scum on Monday, then it is a sign of someone who has the Spirit but does not have the Word active in their life. The Spirit by itself will not bring about God's will in your life, but only with the Word of God will it be what it should be!

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God's Spirit was hovering over the mess, and really nothing was happening until "God said!" The Word of God is the catalyst that releases the Spirit of God to do the work. A church will not have people receive the Holy Ghost unless somebody proclaims the Word of God that the Holy Ghost can be received. A church will not have revival unless someone preaches that revival can come. A church will not see healings unless someone grabs hold and speaks the Word of faith that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! For the Spirit to be active, we must release and activate the Word of God!

And notice, that the Bible does not say that "God wrote down," but rather "God said." You can have the biggest family Bible that you can find sitting on your coffee table and yet live in hell and fear because you never activated the Word of God by speaking it! "God said!" The Bible only begins to do what it wants to do when it the scriptures are spoken and then lived out in your life!

When you are in the worst mess of a situation that you could be in, then understand that if you will look up, you will see God's Spirit hovering there wanting to work. But it will not bring about a change in your life until you release it by obeying the Word of God. Do what God's Word commands in the situation and obey what it says and you will find the Spirit of God active in your life. Be faithful to what has been written, and you will see God's Spirit at work making something great of the mess. But refuse to obey the Word of God, and stop letting God work on you and His Spirit will only hover there -- wishing and desiring to do a great work -- but just a testament of what could have been if you had only activated it through obedience! The Spirit of God and the Word of God are the creative force that can turn any shattered life into what God desires, but only when you allow them both to do their job! God's spirit hovered, and then God said!