God’s Introduction: The Christian Creation Story

This free Bible lesson, God’s Introduction: The Story of Creation, will teach preschool and elementary students about the true story of Creation and how God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days to be a perfect paradise.

FOCUS BIBLE PASSAGE: Genesis 1

This lesson comes from the Seeds of Truth Elementary Bible Curriculum that is free to anyone looking for ideas to "plant seeds" into the hearts of children as they are learning about Jesus. Find more details HERE.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeds of Truth podcast, where seeds of biblical truth are planted into the hearts and minds of listeners so they can grow into a relationship with Jesus. I'm your host, Miss Dana. Thank you for joining me today. Let's get started. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the podcast. Today's lesson is called God's Introduction, and it is about how God created everything. So I want you to imagine a perfect world. What does the perfect world look like? What does it feel like? What can you smell and what can you hear? Genesis chapter one, verse one says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Who created the heavens and the earth? God. How do we know that God created the heavens and the earth? Because the Bible tells us we believe every word the Bible teaches us. So this verse is found in the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis is in the Old Testament at the very beginning of the Bible. It's the first book of the Bible. In fact, this verse is the very first verse in Genesis, the very first verse in the Bible. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So I asked you to imagine a perfect world. Did you know that when God created the world in the beginning, it was perfect? It may not have been just like you imagined earlier, but the world was perfect. And what happened to cause the world to become imperfect or not perfect? God created the world and it was perfect. But sometime after he created Adam and Eve, the first people, they disobeyed God and they brought sin into the world. Now we live in a world that is full of sin, sadness, and pain. But the world won't always be the way that it is now. Did you know that? God made a plan to save us from the sin that we live in. God sent Jesus to live on the earth and die on the cross to take the punishment for our sins. Someday Jesus will come back to the earth and he will make everything perfect again. The people who have trusted in Jesus and asked him to save them from their sins will get to live with Jesus forever on a new perfect earth. Today we are going to learn about how God created everything in six days and it was perfect in the beginning. So, starting in the book of Genesis, I am going to be reading from the NIRV translation of the Bible. So remember, if you are following along with me and you are not reading from the NIRV, some of the words may be a little bit different, but they will mean the same thing. So I'm going to be reading from the book and I'm going to be stopping every once in a while to discuss. So the Bible says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth didn't have any shape and it was empty. There was darkness over the surface of the waves. At that time, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. God said, Let there be light and there was light. God saw that the light was good. He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, he called the darkness night. There was evening and there was morning. It was day one. That gets us through verse five. So this part of creation is different from when God created the sun, moon, and stars. He created these lights on day four. The light that God created on day one may refer to his glory, or it may refer to the pattern of day and night. So continuing in verse six, God said, Let there be a huge space between the waters. Let it separate water from water. And that's exactly what happened. God made the huge space between the waters. He separated separated the water under the space from the water above it. God called the huge space sky. There was evening and there was morning. It was day two. That is the end of verse eight. So God created the sky. At this time in the history of the earth, there were waters below the sky and waters above the sky. Continuing in verse nine, God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place. Let dry ground appear. And that's exactly what happened. God called the dry ground land. He called all the water that was gathered together seas, and God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let the land produce plants, let them produce their own seeds, and let there be trees on the land that grow fruit with seeds in it. Let each kind of plant or tree have its own kind of seeds, and that's exactly what happened. So the land produced plants. Each kind of plant had its own kind of seeds, and the land produced trees that grew fruit fruit with seeds in it. Each kind of tree had its own kind of seeds. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning. It was day three. And that's the end of verse 13. So God gathered the waters below the sky together to create the seas. And this allowed the dry ground or the land to appear. Then God created plants and fruit trees on the land. The different kinds of plants and trees had their own seeds to produce new plants and trees. Continuing in verse 14. God said, Let there be lights in the huge space of the sky. Let them separate the day from the night. Let the lights set the times for the holy celebrations and the days and the years. Let them be lights in the huge space of the sky to give light on the earth. And that's exactly what happened. God made two great lights. He made the larger light to rule over the day and the smaller light to rule over the night. He also made the stars. God put the lights in the huge space of the sky to give light on the earth. He put them there to rule over the day and the night. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning. It was day four. That is the end of verse 19. So God created the sun, moon, and stars in the sky. The sun, moon, and stars were created to separate the day from the night and to show signs, seasons, days, and years. Verse 20. God said, Let the seas be filled with living things. Let birds fly above the earth across the huge space of the sky. So God created the great sea creatures. He created every kind of living thing that fills the seas and moves about in them. He created every kind of bird that flies. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them. He said, Have little ones so that there will be many of you. Fill the water in the seas. Let there be more and more birds on the earth. There was evening and there was morning. It was day five. And that's through verse 23. So God created the sea creatures and the birds. He told the sea creatures and the birds to multiply and produce more of their own kind to fill the seas and the skies with more sea creatures and birds. Continuing in verse 24. God said, Let the land produce every kind of living creature. Let there be livestock and creatures that move along the ground and wild animals. And that's exactly what happened. God made every kind of wild animal. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let us make human beings so that they are like us. Let them rule over the fish in the seas and the birds in the sky. Let them rule over the livestock and all the wild animals, and let them rule over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created human beings in his own likeness. He created them to be like himself. God blessed them. He said to them, Have children so that there will be many of you. Fill the earth and bring it under your control. Rule over the fish in the seas and the birds in the sky. Rule over every living creature that moves along the ground. Now you may have noticed in these verses that the text says, Let us make human beings so that they are like us. Our God is three persons in one. And we call our God the Trinity. This is the first obvious mention of the Trinity in the Bible. The Trinity is actually present in the very first verse of the Bible, but this is the first obvious mention. Our God is three persons in one. There is only one God. Each person of the Trinity is fully God, and the three persons work together as one. So our God exists as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So that is what it means whenever it says, Let us make human beings so that they are like us. Continuing in verse 29. Then God said, I am giving you every plant on the face of the whole earth that produces its own seeds. I am giving you every tree that has fruit with seeds in it. All of them will be given to you for food. I am giving every green plant as food for all the land animals and for all the birds in the sky. I am also giving the plants to all the creatures that move along the ground. I am giving them to every living thing that breathes, and that's exactly what happened. God saw everything he had made, and it was very good. There was evening and there was morning. It was day six, and that is the end of verse 31 of chapter one. So God created all of the land animals, including livestock, creatures that move along the ground and wild animals. Then God created human beings as male and female in his image to rule over all of the other creatures. Being created in God's image means that we are given God's nature and his character or his love, creativity, compassion, goodness, morality. He gave a special blessing to humans and told them to multiply or have more children and rule over all of the other creatures. So what do you notice throughout this passage about when God says something? When God says something, it happens just like he says it will. Throughout this passage in Genesis 1, everything that God says, the Bible tells us that is exactly what happened. In other translations of the Bible, the wording is a bit different, but it means the same thing. In other translations of the Bible, you might see, and it was so every time God says something. From this, we know that everything God says will happen will happen, just like he said it would. Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3 says, So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing. So on that day he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. He blessed it because on that day he rested from all the work he had done. On day seven, God rested from all of his work of creation. The seventh day was made holy, which means special and set apart from the rest of the days. God didn't need to rest, he chose to rest because his work of creation was complete. So we learn from this passage in the Bible that God created everything in six days. Remember, at the time of creation, everything was perfect. Sin had not yet entered into the world. Eventually, Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan and they chose to disobey God, which brought sin and death into the world. Before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve lived with God and they had a close relationship and friendship with him. But since God is perfect and sin is imperfect or not perfect, God can't even be in the presence of sin. So the sin that is in our hearts separates us from God. But the great news is that God knew this was going to happen and he already had a plan to save us from the sin that we are born with. He sent Jesus to earth to live a perfect life and die on the cross to receive the punishment for our sin. When we accept the free gift that Jesus offers us, we can be saved from our sins and have a relationship and friendship with God just like He wanted us to in the very beginning. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for the true story of the creation of everything. We know from reading the Bible that you created everything, and we pray that you will help us to understand the lessons that you want us to learn from the Bible, especially that Jesus came to live, die, and raise back to life to save us from our sins. Help us to be bold enough to ask questions if we don't understand. We love you and we pray all of these things in Jesus' sweet name. Amen. I hope that you enjoyed today's lesson about the creation of everything. Until next time, God bless. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Seeds of Truth Podcast. For more free Bible resources, visit Seeds of Truth Ministries dot com.