Series: Early Genesis Portraits of God

Well, good morning, my friends, and welcome to the Heritage Hour. I’m Mark Gonzales, your pastoral and soul care encourager here in Southwest Florida, and I’m so delighted to be with you on air, online, and in media ministry for 35 years now.

So thank you for sitting with me at the feet of the Lord to listen for his heart to touch our hearts. Well, I’m very excited because we’re starting a brand new series today. I don’t know how long this one will be. Could be six, could be eight, could be 10 weeks.

We’ll just see what the Lord puts on my heart as we go along.

But I’m calling it the early Genesis portraits of God. If you’ve been with me, you know that I see portraits of God throughout the scripture. and in the last year or so, I’ve been putting them in thematic categories. This one is the early Genesis portraits of God. And actually I’m going to be sharing with you additional insights beyond my 62 portraits of God devotional series.

It’s a three minute devotional series that’s on my website. And these three minute videos are just little glimpses of these portraits.

But this broadcast series, this audio series. I’m going to expand on a few of those. I did kind of a Genesis series within the series of these portraits. By the way, it’s number 48.

If you want to go take a peek at the videos at my website at markpg.org. Also, you can hear these broadcasts. They’re 27 minutes long that I’ve been doing for many years there, along with some articles I’ve published and some little info guides that I’ve created for quick glimpses at deep themes. Anyway, it’s all at markpg.org.

And yeah, I got excited as I was praying about the next series to just kind of highlight these video devotionals I did back in the COVID era at a time when we really needed to see God in so many ways. And that is why I do the broadcast the way I do it, given you as many portraits of God as I can so we can see his heart, his character, his ways unfold before our very eyes. Today, as we look at starting Genesis 1, the portrait I’m going to cover is how he is our creative trinity. That sounds a little unusual and that’s my intention.

I want us to really see the magnificent ways in which God reveals himself to us and I do it through these portraits I have five sub portraits to this one to really let us see the Lord in a way that encouraging to us. And I just got to tell you, I have had a week. I mean, this is my birthday week. Today’s my birthday.

But I and I’ve had some wonderful celebrations started a couple of weeks ago when our one of our sons and his family and three kids came to visit us on that particular weekend, two weekends ago.

So we had a little early celebration. And then we had another celebration with my son and his family that lived nearby last Sunday. And then two really good friends of ours, the couples that go all the way back, you know, 30 years together, came by. We had a little birthday lunch.

My wife is so festive. She’s doing this in the context of recovering from some major surgery too, and it’s going very slowly, but she just loves to do what she can to bless others. And we’ve been inching along together with her recovery. And then as we’re approaching my birthday today, there’s a leak in the refrigerator.

And now we’ve got some, you know, laminate that’s, you know, bubbling up and stuff that’s been, you know, building for quite some time. And that’s been having glitches and trying to get it all fixed.

So it’s been quite the day today, all the more reason to be able to take a deep breath and sit with you and share with you what I have been communing with God about all week, this new series today, how he is our creative trinity. And oh, how it just encourages me to hang out with the Lord and get a fresh, big deep glimpse of who he is how much he loves us and how many ways he’s there for us and today how he is our creative trinity so if you have your bibles we’re going to be starting off in in genesis chapter one we’ll take a peek at matthew three spend some time in john one as we take a journey in discovering the lord in this first of a new series i’m calling the early Genesis portraits of God. And as we get started, that is our custom. Let’s just go before the Lord and ask him to speak.

And by the way, quick reminder, markpg.org is that website for all of these tools to help you hear God. markpg.org. Oh, let’s pray together. Well, Lord, yeah, it’s been quite the week and boy, quite the recovery and, you know, three hospital stays and three surgeries for my sweet wife and the long recovery we going through right now together and all the rest of life that happening all around us Wow What a joy it is to be able to take deep breaths and stop and be still and just meditate muse savor How wonderful you are. How creative you are.

How much you love us. How you’re always there with us.

So I pray you’ll help me just share this particular portrait today and the sub-portraits in a way that will encourage us all.

Because I know everybody’s going through some tough times. It’s quite the world we’re living in now, Lord. It is just so topsy-turvy.

So unexpected and unpredictable.

So thank you for being our guide. And in this case, today, how you are our creative trinity. Thank you, Lord. We love you, Lord, and we pray this in the powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by his precious cleansing and healing, transforming, empowering, and forgiving blood.

Amen. Amen and amen. All right, my friends. Well, if you have your Bibles or device, let’s look at Genesis chapter 1.

Of course, it begins this way, that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And by the way, the first portrait I have in my Bible of God is right there. He’s our eternal creator. And then he talks about how creation unfolded, how the earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the surface of the watery depths and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters and God said, let there be light and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good. And of course the passage goes on to give us this marvelous, marvelous glimpse of the creation of the universe, of our eternal creator.

But that’s not the portrait I’m selecting or felt led to start with today. It’s how he is our creative trinity.

Because as we see the different accounts of God saying in verse 9, like let there be water under the sky and all, and then let the earth produce vegetation in verse 11, and let there be light in the expanse of the sky in verse 14, and then let the water swarm with living creatures and birds. In verse 20, anyway, it goes on and it says in verse 26, Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Our first glimpse at the Holy Trinity And in this case our creative trinity he goes on to say in verse the rest of the verse let us make man in our image according to our likeness and they will rule the fish of the sea the birds of the sky the animals all the earth the creatures that cross on the earth and so verse 27 god created man in his own image he created him in the image of God. He created them male and female and God blessed them.

He is our creative trinity. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

So let’s unpack that. Let’s get a deeper glimpse of how that is manifested in our lives. I want to start then with the first sub-portrait. I call it how he is our manifested trinity.

Our creative trinity is our manifested Trinity. Matthew 3, 16 through 17, gives us a wonderful passage of how he chose to manifest the Holy Trinity on that day. The Bible says this, it was at the time when Jesus was baptized, and the scripture says after he was baptized, this is Matthew 3, 16, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending as a dove, not a dove, but as a dove, like a dove and settling on him. And behold, a voice from the heavens said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

Okay. This is one of the clearest and most picturesque portraits of God. In this case, there’s our manifested Trinity, the voice of the Father, the beloved Son in the flesh being baptized and the Spirit who descended and settled on him as a dove or like a dove. And there you have it.

A marvelous, marvelous illustration. Portrait. picture, representation of the reality of our creative trinity manifested in this way at that time. Oh, I love that. Hey, you ever feeling discouraged or overwhelmed, anything like that?

Man, we have the holy God of the ages, the creative trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that resides within us. It’s the mystery of the triune God. And I love this. And it’s not just a doctrinal treatise here.

It’s something to experience in how he manifests his Creative Trinity ways, in so many ways. Via the ordinances, this baptism that we’re seeing here became an ordinance that the Lord raised up and the ordinance of believers, baptism. Ceremonies that give pictures of the manifest of Trinity or the reality of God or the presence of God. In this passage, we saw how the heavens were opened.

Creation itself manifests the Trinity of God in creative ways through the sun and the moon and the stars and the skies and the clouds. We call it general revelation and Romans 1 talks about that. We see the Lord manifest himself through metaphors. Metaphorically we get to see him like we see in this particular passage and so many metaphors throughout scripture.

Voices, accounts throughout the scriptures of voices, whether they’re in heart and inner voices or sometimes literal voices that God would do on rare occasions, but he does it. Same thing with miracles. It manifests the creative trinity through healings and resurrections and all kinds of things, through the blessings of God, through the stories of the scripture. I mean, my friend, we’ve been given the Bible, the love letters to us that have so many different kinds of literature doing so many things to manifest the reality of our creative trinity that is astonishing.

And when I think about that, my heart just swells with joy. What a God we have, a creative trinity who is a manifested trinity in so many ways.

But secondly, if you’re a note taker, here’s the second of five sub-portraits to the main portrait of how he’s our creative trinity. He’s our pre-time trinity.

Now, I’ve talked about this frequently because it is so important. It is so encouraging, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed. The Lord’s got you. The Lord’s got this.

And he’s perfectly capable. John 1, verses 1 through 2. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God.

The Word was God. We’re talking about the logos in the Greek. Translated word, in some cases, conversation. We’ll talk about that later.

And he was in the beginning with God.

So he was the pre-time trinity.

Sometimes when we think about time, we think about our point. When we were born, we draw a line on a whiteboard to the right with a big arrow that signifies eternity. And that’s where we get to be when we die and go to heaven and turn eternity with him We talk about that a little later as well But time goes the other way as well There pre An arrow to the left It goes to before the universe was created Before time began. The Holy Trinity existed.

And apparently they talked with one another. Just like we saw in the opening theme verse. When they said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. the pre-time Trinity. He is infinite.

He lived in the infinity past. He lives in the infinity future. He invites us into infinity or eternity future. And He’s the God who is with us.

He’s the God who loves us. He’s the God who holds us. When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I just I just try to remember that He is our pre-time trinity, our manifestor trinity, our creative trinity and he is with me.

But he’s also not just a creative trinity, he’s a creator trinity. We saw this in the opening chapter of Genesis. We also see it in John chapter 1 verse 3 where it says all things came into being through him and apart from him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.

Okay, I really love this one too. It’s amazing how much the Lord packs into one verse in the scriptures that you can just chew on and savor because what he’s talking about here that everything came into being by him. He’s our creator trinity, that the Holy Trinity created things, everything visible and invisible. Have you ever thought about invisible things he created?

The angels, we can’t see them.

Sometimes they have physical form. That’s up to God to allow. Satan and his demons that were at one time angelic beings that went bad. I mean, all things visible and invisible.

As far as the visible, the universe. The scripture says he spoke. The Trinity spoke and created, poof, the universe. This could be a series in and of itself to talk about the planets, planets, the solar system, the galaxies, the enormity of the universe itself.

And God holds the universe in his hands. What? Yeah. The creator trinity.

He holds the earth in his hands. He holds mankind He created mankind And when we think about this male and female he created them the way he created us in his image is stunning That another series in and of itself Let me just give you a nutshell version But let me start by asking you this. Hey, do you ever feel like the fifth wheel, the odd man out, the odd duck, not useless, not very important? Yeah, we’re the body of Christ, but I’m just the little toe.

You ever feel that way?

And sometimes I do. And then the Lord reminds me, hey, I’m created you. I’m the one who created you. The creative creator trinity.

You are unique, son. And if you’re listening to this, you are unique, son. You are unique, daughter. created in the image of God with intelligence and the ability to oversee the wildlife of the earth. He also gave us a spirit which died at the fall of mankind, but when we get saved, he makes it come alive and resurrected.

We have a new spirit. You feel like a fifth wheel, a little finger? no. A little toe? no. You’re unique in the image of God. You’re intelligent. You’re bright.

You’ve been trusted by him. You have a brand new spirit. You have gifts of the spirit. That’s another series that’s just phenomenal.

You have talents. You might be able to sing. You might have athletic prowess. You might have a great mechanical aptitude.

You may know mathematics extraordinarily. You may be able to write with wonderful words of grace and truth and beauty. We all have different personality types. We all even have certain physical conditions that make us unique.

Oh, my friend, he’s the creator trinity that made you who you are and what you’re like. I hope you savor that. And even the things that you think are a liability, God turns them into an asset. He’s amazing.

All things came into being through him. And apart from him, not even one thing came into being that has come into being. This is our creative trinity. Trinity.

This is our God who is with you. All right, so we’ve done three so far. Manifestor Trinity, Pre-Time Trinity, Creator Trinity. Here’s a fourth way our Creative Trinity is manifested, as a conversational Trinity.

This is one of my favorites. You hear it from me fairly frequently because it’s a phenomenal truth that the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the creator of the universe, the infinite one, the holy one, the creator trinity loves to converse not just with each other in the holy trinity but with us Genesis 1 again Let us make man in our own image conversing among himself his triune being.

But, still in John 1, when we talked about how in the beginning was the logos, or the word, or the conversation, it can be translated all those ways, The word or conversation was with God. The word or conversation was God. And then verse 14. I love this.

It’s astounding. And the word, the logos, the conversation, became flesh. Took on the form of a man. Born of a virgin in Bethlehem.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory. glory as the only son of the father full of grace and truth and he loves to converse with us have you heard in previous series he likes to talk in whispers the articles i’ve published over 25 years are called whispers of god musings of god in life that goes out to the general community here in southwest Florida, just trying to woo them closer to seeing the heart and character of God. Do you listen for those whispers, my friend? Do you ever feel lonely?

Nobody to talk to? All alone in this world? Well, the Lord is with you. He is whispers.

He whispers and whispers and whispers. He loves to converse with us because he loves us. And then in that context, he also often sends someone to us or he sends us to someone because we do need conversation with skin on, so to speak. Like a little boy said to his daddy when the dad was trying to encourage him about the loneliness and said, oh, the Lord’s with you.

Well, yeah, I know the Lord’s with me, Lord, but sometimes I need love with skin on. okay yeah we need the body of christ we need friends we need confidants we need soul care partners and prayer partners and mentors and all and learn to listen because he is a conversational trinity and he became flesh to converse with us and he wants us to learn to have conversations with each other, not fix each other, not manage each other, not dominate each other, to converse with each other. By the way, helpful hint to parents. Best thing you can do with your kids is have constant conversation with them. Just chat with them.

I know they can ask a million questions. I know you’re busy, but my friend, it is gold when you look them in the eye and you have conversation with them regularly. You give them good answers, not just off the cup answers without even looking at them. I’m telling you, those kids who grow up with having a healthy conversational lifestyle with parents, they’re the ones that turn out well.

But the ones who get neglected, forgotten, put off, put down, hurt, wounded, neglected, that’s where the problems come. The Lord, our creative trinity, is a conversational trinity, and one has to be conversational as well. Well, as we’re winding this down, again, this amplification of that three-minute video, you can see number 48 at 62 Portraits of God on my website. We seeing that our creative trinity is not only our manifested trinity and pre trinity and creator trinity and conversational trinity But then that arrow I talked about earlier going to the right to the future eternity future He’s our eternal trinity.

Ephesians 2, 18 through 19 puts it this way. For through him, we both have our access in one spirit to the Father.

Now there’s a Trinity right there through him. Who’s that? Jesus, second person of the Godhead. We both have our access in one spirit.

There’s the third person to the father. There’s a first person. There’s your Holy Trinity for through him. We both have our access in one spirit to the father.

So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are, and I love this, You are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God’s household. Is that just phenomenal or what? My friends, when we come to Christ, when the Lord opens up our eyes to see our desperate need for the Savior, and we come to him and we give our lives to him everything we have all that we are we give to him We get born again We get saved We enter covenant with him The Bible puts it so many ways We become family with God We are in God household Another metaphor talks about us as the bride and he is the bridegroom. Another one, we are sons and daughters that are born again to him.

And another metaphor, we are adopted sons and daughters. The Bible just uses a number of ways to describe how we are part of its household. And we have an additional metaphor here talking about how we are fellow citizens with the saints. Citizens of heaven.

Where we’ll spend an eternity with the eternal trinity. That eternal trinity having those pre-time conversations among themselves or among himself. You can say it both ways because the trinity is not 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 3. It’s 1 times 1 times 1 still equals 1.

Another classic illustration. It’s like H2O. Well, what is H2O? some would say water some would say steam one would say ice Those are three different distinct things but guess what They all H2O So at the same time they three separate things but they also the same thing. And I know every analogy has its weaknesses, but that gives us a little closer to the reality of how the Trinity is still one, and He is an eternal Trinity.

And whenever you’re feeling discouraged. Just remember, you are citizens of heaven, fellow citizens with many others. You are of God’s households, one sense a bride, one sense a son or daughter, one sense adopted unto Him.

So many ways. And He prepared a place for us to be with Him for eternity. He is our eternal Trinity. And this is just a glimpse of how he is, our creative trinity.

Well, Lord, we do thank you for this. Thank you for being the kind of God who loves us more than we can possibly imagine. We receive this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, I’m Mark Gonzales, and I hope you will check out that website at markpg.org for more. Until next time, fall in love with Jesus, our creative trinity.