Tower of Babel
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bible. Go to Genesis chapter 11. Genesis is the first book of the Bible.
If you are new to your Bible or new to here, grab one of the blue Bibles. It'll be on page 5 in that Bible. We're going to look at the story of the Tower of Babel today. Now, we've been walking through the book of Genesis, and we're going to spend a good bit of time walking through the book of Genesis because the book of Genesis is a big book. We think that it is good for us to just study through whole books of Scripture. We believe that all of the Bible is breathed out by God, that it's beneficial to us.
One of the things that may be a danger for us as we walk through the book of Genesis is that it's easier for us to start thinking, kind of, what? That's neat, but what does that have to do with me? It's easier for us to kind of sit in here and go, yeah, that's a cool, cool story, bro. Nice, nice Job, preacher man. But I got, like, kids that won't listen to me, and I got job issues, and I got relationship issues, and to kind of act as if the book of Genesis is a little bit separate from us because there are other sections in the Bible that are just like, do this, don't do this.
If you do this, things will work out. Like, there's more coaching involved in the book of Genesis. It's like, here's a thing that happened. You want to hear another thing that happened? And it just kind of keeps walking through. It doesn't coach us up.
It doesn't tell us how to think about a lot of the stuff that it says happened. And so I just wanted to say that I think for us to approach the book of Genesis, we have to understand a few things about how God works, how the Bible works, and kind of how humanity works for us to get as much out of it as we need to. First of all, the story of the world does not have you as its main character. Now, in your life, you feel like the main character. I understand that. We're designed that way.
But the story of the world does not have you as its main character, that God formed this world, and God is actively at work interacting with humanity. And the story of the Bible is the story of the world, which is that God is the main character, and that we get to play a part in that story, but that we do ourselves a great service by understanding who God is, and what he does, and how he Acts, so that we might interact with him, and enjoy him, and appreciate him, and know him, and love him. And so when we come to Genesis, it's very helpful for us to understand that we're looking at the story of God as he interacts with human history. And that to just look at things through our own life-centered, our own kind of narrow perspective, that we actually miss out on the point of the world, and therefore we miss out on a lot that does directly affect us.
And so it's helpful for us to study all of God's Word, to look at Genesis, because Genesis is not just the beginning of the Bible. It sets the stage for all that we're going to see in the rest of the Gospels, and in the rest of the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, and everything. It lays all that out for us. It's hard to read the New Testament and not know who Abraham is. It's hard to read the New Testament and not see what happened when we made it through to the Exodus and all of that. But it's the Genesis of the world.
It's how human history started. The other thing that I think we run into when we read things, especially like Genesis, is that we're really far removed from them time-wise. So these are people roaming around, watching sheep, living in tents, and there's a tendency for us to think that we're not like them, or that they're not as smart as we are. Like, I feel really smart because I have Google. I'm actually not that smart, but I feel really smart because I can figure things out really quickly, because someone else figured out something that makes me seem smart, and I get to carry that around in my pocket.
And so we just kind of look at these people, and we think that we're different from them, but we aren't. And what we're going to see is that their sin, their struggles, their pain is a lot like ours, and it's very helpful for us to understand how God interacts with them so that we can understand how He interacts with us. And today, we're looking at the Tower of Babel. Now, if you grew up in Sunday school, you've probably heard about this. Even if you didn't grow up in church, you've probably heard references to this. And it is an interesting story, and I'm excited that we're going to get to walk through it.
So let's pray, and then we're going to study this together. God, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that You actively, directly interact with humanity, that You pay attention to us, that You care for us in how our lives play out. And we pray that as we study Your Word today, we would grow in an appreciation for who You are and what You've done, and Your plan for the world. And we love You and we praise You in Jesus' name. Amen.
Genesis chapter 11, verse 1. Now, the whole earth had one language and the same words. So, the whole earth had one language and the same words. Now, if you had been reading and paying attention, Genesis chapter 1 through 10. Spencer, do you mind turning that light on in the back? Well, Genesis chapter 1 through 10.
Spencer, carry everyone. Thank you. All right. Genesis chapter 1 through 10. You would realize that chapter 11, verse 1, causes some problems for us. Because Genesis chapter 10 says things like, From these, the coastland people spread their lands, each with his own language, by their clans in their nations.
Two verses before this one, it says, their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. So, Genesis chapter 10 is telling us what happens when people get off of, when Noah gets off the ark. If you remember, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. Spencer walked through it. Noah gets on the ark. God's wrath is poured out.
Noah gets off the ark. God looks at him and says, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. That's in chapter 9. Pull it up. That's in chapter 9. And, Nope.
Nope. God blessed Noah's son and said, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That's the command as soon as Noah gets off the ark. That's what God tells him. And so we hit chapter 10 in Genesis, and it seems like we're doing it. They spread out.
They're covering the earth. It says they moved out by their clans. It gives us this long genealogy in chapter 10. And then as soon as we hit the first verse in chapter 11, it's like, wait a second. Something has happened here. Now, we are right to assume that Moses, who wrote this, did not forget what he had written two verses before when he said there was a bunch of languages.
That he intentionally told this story out of chronological order to make a point. So we have, Noah gets off the ark. God says, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Genesis chapter 10 says, Here's how that started to play out. And we're like, finally. Finally, humanity is getting it together.
Finally, we're doing what God told us to. Because God made humanity, and this is the first command he gives them, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, have dominion over it. He wants that humanity would spread out to display his glory over the whole earth. That they would be humans everywhere who related to God and displayed his glory over the whole earth. And then they don't do it. They rebel against God.
And so the flood comes because they're sinful. They're running away from God. They're hateful. They're harming each other. And then as soon as Noah gets off the ark, God looks at him and says, The exact same thing he said to Adam and Eve. Be fruitful.
Multiply. Fill the earth. We read Genesis 10, and we're like, yes. We're really getting it together. And then Moses starts Genesis chapter 11 with, Not so fast. I'm going back to before there were languages to tell you a story about how this happened.
And he did it to M. Night, Shamel Amos, and have a twist on the end there. And he stuck it in here to mess with us. So here it is. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
And as the people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. That's Mesopotamia. Is that area it's modern day? Iraq. And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar.
Now, what that's telling us, they say, come let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. It sounds like some of y'all, when you go to cook a meal, you're like, come, let me make spaghetti and burn it thoroughly. What it's telling us is that they learned how to make bricks, that they figured this out. It's showing ingenuity. It's showing creativity that they had designed. They moved to a plane where they would have usually made stone.
That's what they say. Let's make bricks for stone. They would usually use stone to build things, and they figured out a way to make bricks. And bitumen or bitumen is asphalt. So they would have been big.
If you've ever heard of tar pits, it's actually an asphalt pit. And so that's what they would have had. So they figured out a way creatively to design things really well. So so far, the story is going well. They're doing what they're supposed to. They're spreading out.
And they're using what God has poured in them as image bearers to display his glory. And so that's what they say. Come, let us do this. And then it says this. And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. We're in verse four.
Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. OK, so this next slide is laying that out. It says, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. OK, so let's kind of lay out their thinking here.
They said, let us build ourselves a city with a tower as tops in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves. So build a tower. So they're going to build a city and a tower. With its tops in the heavens. So that's their plan.
They figure out how to make the get creative. They figure out how to make stuff. And they say, we're going to build a city and a tower so far. No problems. We're doing good. Then what's it say?
And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. OK, now we have a problem. Because if you've been reading Genesis, what did God command humanity to do? Genesis 1. Be fruitful. Multiply.
Fill the earth. What did he command Noah twice when he gets off the ark? Be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the earth. We get to chapter 11.
And what did they say? Nope. Not doing that. Their whole plan is to glorify themselves and not be dispersed. So God says, I've poured myself into you.
I've made humanity in my own image. I want you to spread out for my glory over the face of the earth. And they say, how about we come together for our glory? How's that sound? That's their plan. It is an exact opposite of what God has called.
It is a complete rejection of his call on humanity. That's the issue with the Tower of Babel. Not that they built a tower. Not that they built a city. Those things are celebrated. Like God, it designed humans to create things.
He meant for us to do that. Whenever we make stuff. Like I have a three-year-old and he'll say, did Jesus make this basketball goal? And I'm like, he made people. And he made them smart. And he made all the things that we've created and we're able to make it.
So yes, but he likes to do it through us figuring things out. That's how God designed it. Nobody reads this and goes, oh, they built a tower. God's going to get them. He hates towers, you guys. Everybody knows God hates towers.
That's not what's happening here. The truth is what they're doing doesn't matter. They could have come together and said, we're going to dig a big hole and become mole people. It's the reasoning behind it. It's the goal behind it. It's them saying, we don't want to be dispersed.
We want to praise our own name. We want to make our own glory. So it's for their glory, their name, and their will. So if you think about how Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, he says, our father in heaven, honored to be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. The Babylonians, the tower of Babel, these people who came together, their plan is let my name be honored. Let my will be done.
It is the opposite of God's call on humanity, which means that their heart is far from God. This is very interesting for us because often we think that sin is just the action. We want to think that sin is doing a bad thing. But the truth is you can do really beautiful things. They had a super nice tower, you guys. But they did it for a bad reason.
When we sing, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why. So we're training our children, you need to behave for greed. You need to so love stuff that you can control yourself. Now I understand that when you're training children, you have to start with a lot of law. You have to start with a lot of regulations. You have to be pretty hemmed in.
I think my son behaves a lot of times because when he does, good things happen. And when he doesn't, bad things happen. That's how it's supposed to work. He's a child. I can't explain to him a lot of these things. But at some point we have to realize that there are ways to train ourselves to do the right actions for the wrong motive.
And it works for a con man who's tricking your grandmother into getting her savings by being really nice to her and driving her around and tending to her house. And then suddenly he's moved in. He's taken over right to a lawyer and all that kind of stuff. You know what I'm saying? Like how this works where he's done a lot of really good actions but all of a sudden for a really bad reason. And that some of us try to con God by having all the right actions.
But our goal, my name, my will. There are many people. We live in the south. There are many people right now on a Sunday morning. Some in here. Many in other places.
Who are very moral. Who show up to church. Who give. Who do a lot of things. And their only goal is to behave well enough that Jesus leaves them alone. Because if they sin, they're in his debt.
But if they can behave well enough, they can hold him far away and he owes them. It's a con game. Because their heart isn't in it. It's not for his glory. It's not for his will. It's if I do these things, this will work out.
And that's what they did. They said we're going to do really good things that God poured in us. We're going to be inventive. We're going to be creative. All things that God would celebrate. That the Bible does celebrate.
That even the book of Genesis celebrates. But they do it for sinful reasons. So let's see how God responds. So they say, verse 4. Let's read that again.
Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves. Lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. I love this verse. The Bible mocks them.
I love two things that happened in this verse. First is, where was their tower going to go? Do you all remember when they built it? It's going to go into heaven. And then the next verse says, God came down to see it. It didn't shoot through the floor of where he lived, you guys.
They didn't quite accomplish what they wanted. Now the point isn't that God couldn't see it. That God can't tell what's going on over the face of the earth. It does indicate that God chooses to be intimate with humanity when he doesn't have to be. He chooses to be close when he doesn't have to be. We see that throughout Scripture.
But it's also meant to be some nice scorn. God was like, hey, I heard they built a tower that's stabbing up into where we live. Y'all want to go down and see it? He went down and he was like, this is cute, you guys. It's meant to mock it, that God comes down to see this tower. And then it says this, that the children of man had built.
That phrase, children of man, it's a Hebrew phrase that the word children can also be sons. The word man is also Adam. So it could just be the sons of Adam, the children of man. All it means was not that these people that lived in Babel were particularly amazing sinners. They were just people. You see, a lot of times we read the Bible and we like to think, those people were bad.
I'm one of the good ones. Those are the people who messed things up. I'm glad God went down there and fixed them. I'm so happy that he went and did that. That's neat. And we miss the fact that what it's saying is this is what humans do.
This is the natural bent of our heart is to, for our name and our will and our glory, to live our lives in a way that God really doesn't mess with us and we get to do what we want. They're just humans. So he goes down to see it. And then he pays them a great honor and he pays humanity a great honor. Let's see what he says.
And the Lord said, behold, they are one people and they have all one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth and they left off building the city.
Okay, so here's what he says. He comes down, he looks at the tower and he says, they're not going to spread out. They're just going to keep doing stuff. And he pays humanity a great compliment. I mean, he poured himself into humanity. He made us in his image and he says, they're just going to keep creating.
They're going to keep making things. They're not really going to be able to, there's nothing standing in the way of them just sitting here for their own glory forever. And so then he just says, I'm going to make it to where they don't understand what each other are saying. And that'll fix the problem. Which it did. I don't know if y'all know this, but we have historically humans have not gotten along with people that look and speak differently than themselves.
Did y'all know that? We draw little lines. We say, your eyes and skin color are different. The way you talk is funny. We're going to kill you. That's what humans have done.
It wasn't always said in English, but it has pretty much always been said. That's what God did was he just said, I'm going to make it to where they don't get along the same way. And we still, as far as humanity has gone, we've accomplished a lot of things. We have a space station that we have to work out with other people because we speak different languages. We have to translate from standard measurements to metric measurements. We have to do all these kind of things.
I mean, there's two different types of countries in the world. Those who use the metric system and those who've been to the moon. And we have to work that out. We have to overcome these differences. This was God's plan here. And I want you to see how gracious this is.
We just read about the flood. Humanity gets off and immediately rebels against God. I mean, thumbing their nose at him. We're going to build a tower into heaven. We're going to be awesome and we're not going to do what you say. That was their plan.
I told my son something one time and he said, nah. I said, buddy, you don't say nah to me. He said, daddy, daddy, daddy. I said, what? He said, the reason I said nah was that that was not a good idea. I said, brother, that's not how this works.
That's what they did. God said, here's my plan for humanity. You're going to spread out. You're going to display my glory. You're going to have dominion. And humanity went, nah.
We're going to cluster together. We're going to have glory. We're going to do what we want. God could have crushed them. He could have destroyed this city. We just saw his act of wrath in a flood.
By the time you read this, you would think, oh no, here it comes again. He said he wasn't going to flood it, but he's got other stuff, you guys. Ain't just water that kills people. But he doesn't. He also, this is gracious what he does. You see, God has active wrath and passive wrath.
Active wrath is where we pay the direct penalty for our sin. You see that throughout scripture. Passive wrath is when he gives us exactly what we want. And we discover that it is extremely lacking because what we needed was him. I had a buddy of mine ask one time, he's like, why does bad stuff happen to people? Why do they?
If you're, he's like, you're a Christian. You believe in God. Why do people get cancer? Why do people get sick? I said, honestly, man, the biggest issue that humanity has is sin. And a lot of times we don't realize that we need God as long as our bank account's full, our belly is full, and our health's rocking and rolling.
The truth is, a lot of times circumstantial pain leads us to a beautiful savior. Because it's God's wrath on you if everything works out swimmingly until you stand before him and you realize you lived your whole life for your name and your will. And that's a problem because that's not how the world was designed to work. So what God does is gracious and, I think, kind of funny. Because this had to be pretty hilarious. If you were God.
It's pretty stressful for everybody involved, I think. Here's why. You ever been somewhere and you hear people speaking and it takes you a second to realize, oh, wait, that's a different language? Like you didn't realize you were trying to eavesdrop, but then you got annoyed because you're like, I don't know what they're saying. And then you're like, wait a second, that's because I'll never know what they're saying because I'm pretty sure that's Portuguese. And nobody's trying to learn Portuguese.
No offense if you speak Portuguese. A little bit, but that wasn't intended. Or you're watching a movie or you're hearing a song, like you're riding on the road and you're like, I don't understand those lyrics. And you turn it up and you're like, oh, that's a different language. But see, you understand different languages exist.
There was a day when they didn't. And then the next day they did. So if you walked outside and you saw someone and you said hello and they said bonjour, you'd be like, well, that's French. And unless you know English, we're not going to talk much. But if you didn't know other languages exist, you wouldn't recognize it as a French word.
It would be noises. Strange noises. Now, it's possible you woke up and noticed that you were thinking in a different language and you spoke strange noises. But we've seen people who have gone into like car accidents and stuff. They get hit in the head. They wake up from a coma and they speak a different language.
And they don't realize they're speaking a different language. That's just language to them now. We've seen this happen, which is a crazy thing, which makes me think that when you woke up and started speaking a different language, you didn't notice it was a different language. So you walked outside. You said hello to your neighbor. And they went, glee-blank.
Because you wouldn't have recognized it as anything other than sounds. And you were like, what? They said, skeetle-deedle. And everybody did this all day long. Nobody spoke. If you woke up, I'm assuming there maybe were a few people who were still speaking the same language, but can you imagine you walk outside, you look at the street you live on, and it's just symbols that you don't understand?
If you just walked outside and every sign now is in Arabic, and you were just like, that's a heck of a prank for someone to pull off overnight. Do you see why they all left the city? It didn't work anymore, you guys. I guess at some point, I'm assuming he made little patches of people that did speak the same language, so eventually you were just walking around going, does anybody know what I am saying? And you heard someone yell, I do! And you were like, we're best friends now!
Because it's just us! That's what happened! God said, y'all don't want to spread out and invent culture. That's actually what God's desire was. That there would be culture. That they would spread out.
Because most of culture, a lot of culture, comes from not your language, but your location. You know why we have high fructose corn syrup? Because we had corn. We didn't have sugar. We figured out how to make corn taste like sugar, and we've never looked back. We were like, this is what corn is for from now on.
Alright, we'll allow grits and cornbread. But that's it. Don't eat corn. Drink it. It tastes like magic. If you think about it, we speak the same language, mostly, as people from Australia and people from England.
But the culture is different. We're not on the same page. He designed it. He wanted them to spread out and create culture. Because God wants people who look and act and think differently to worship Him and love Him and display His glory. Because there's something about every culture that points back to God.
And they weren't going to do it, so He created language and therefore created culture. And here's what happens. You read it. He says, Come let us go down. This is verse 7. Come let us go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth. And they left off building the city. Therefore, its name was called Babel. I'm going to get back to that. That's important. Because there the Lord confused.
That in Hebrew sounds similar to Babel. So it's not as clever in English. Babel and confused. The language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. They said, Let's come together.
We're going to build a tower. We're going to build a city. And we will not be dispersed. And then it says God dispersed them. Their plan did not work out. I want to ask you a question.
Did God destroy the tower? No. What was the purpose of the tower? It was to make a name for themselves. It was for them to get glory. Glory.
Whenever anyone sees the tower of Babel. Or speaks about the tower of Babel. Who gets the glory? God does. Because that's the point of the world. Is that God would get glory from his creation.
I want to make something really clear to you. That's how glory works. You can spend your whole life trying to figure out how to develop your name. And make much of your name. And glorify your name. But your life at the end of the day will glorify God.
You will either glorify God intentionally or unintentionally. We will either glorify God by being so enraptured by his glory and his goodness and his love. That we pour our lives out for him and his mission and his will. Or we will reject God. We will run from God. And we will suffer the glorious wrath of God.
But he will get glory from our lives. Either by us paying the penalty for our sin. Either by us standing on our own merit and seeing how woefully short it falls. Or by displaying his glory intentionally. But that's how it works.
The tower does not make much of them. It makes much of God. But he's gracious to them. He does not. He creates culture. Now.
They spread out. And here's what's beautiful about this. As we get to read the rest of the story. As we get to see where God goes from here. Oh. I said that I would come back to this.
Babel is translated everywhere else as Babylon. So it's setting up this kind of dichotomy that's going to play out through the rest of scripture. Where Babylon is kind of the seat of rebellion against God. Even by the time we get to the book of Revelation. It's going to be talking about God making a city. And crushing the city of Babylon.
So that's just the theme that runs throughout. We're not going to keep talking about it this morning. But I just wanted to point that out for you. That's where that begins. Okay. Here's what God does from this.
He calls Abraham in the next chapter. We're going to look at that next week. He just calls a guy and says. I'm going to make a nation out of you. And then he's promised to him immediately. It's through you.
All the families of the earth will be blessed. So he promises. Bless Abraham. To bless everybody else. Then. He makes nation.
Out of Abraham. He brings them out of slavery in Egypt. After they go to Egypt and become slaves. He brings them out. He eventually continues to promise. That I'm going to bless everybody through you.
And he brings Christ through Abraham. And the goal. Is not just to make one nation. But that all peoples. And all languages. And all nations.
Would worship and love God. And so he does this through Jesus. Jesus comes. Lives a perfect sinless life. Dies on behalf of sinners. Which is the children of man.
He even tells people. As he's doing this. He says. I'm going to rescue the house of Israel. But I've got sheep.
That don't belong to this house. That are going to be mine. He keeps saying. Like this is for everybody. This is going to be for everybody. As soon as he rises from the grave.
Having conquered sin on our behalf. He grabs his disciples. And he says. Go and make disciples. Of all ethnicities. You see that God is reversing.
What happened in Babel. Through the gospel. Because he is going to have a world. Covered. By people. Of different cultures.
Who love him. And worship him. He will accomplish that. Pentecost. Is the reverse of Babel. Where they.
The Holy Spirit falls. They begin to speak a language. That everybody understands. Because God is going to have a world. Covered with people who know. Love.
And worship him. And then he sends them out. First to the Jews. Then to the Gentiles. Then to everybody.
Which is the Gentiles. But just further away. And we see in the book of Revelation. That it says. John stands up. And he says.
I see them gathered around the throne. Worshipping him. Worshipping God the Father. And Christ. And it says. This is Revelation 5.9.
They sing a new song. Saying. Worthy are you to take the scroll. And to open its seals. For you were slain. And by your blood.
You ransomed people for God. From every tribe. And language. And people. And nation. And he says.
I look. This is 7.9. Two chapters away. After this I looked. And behold. A great multitude.
That no one could number. From every nation. From all tribes. And peoples. And languages. Standing before the throne.
And before the God. Clothed in white robes. When Christ redeems peoples. He does not make them one culture. He does not wipe away their skin color. Or their language.
He brings them together. And he makes them one family in him. But when John looks around the throne. He says. I see everybody speaking different languages. But they're all saying the same thing.
I see a multitude of peoples. And nations and languages. But they're all saying the same thing. Worthy is Jesus. That's God's plan. He enacts it in Babel.
And he overcomes it. In the gospel. That the world will be covered with people who worship him. And he mixes up the languages. And then he says. Everybody's still going to belong to me.
Not everybody in the world. Because that's not how this works out. But people from every tribe. And language and nation. Will follow Jesus. At least one.
Somebody's singing in French. Somebody's singing in Yoruba. There are people groups on the face of the planet right now. We have not translated the Bible in their language. We have not reached those people group. And I will guarantee you one thing.
Somebody from that people group is coming out. And they will be around that throne. And they will be making much of Jesus. Because that's God's plan. Now. How do we read this story.
And respond. Now. In 2018. Knowing all that we know. Well. I got a few quick things.
First of all. We know God's will for us. So God told. Adam and Eve. Then he told Noah.
Be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the earth. Okay. Done. That's not.
That's not the thing for us anymore. We are still supposed to have dominion over the earth. Which means you need to care for the peace of earth that you have. You need to care for those around you. We're supposed to work jobs. We're supposed to do that.
But then. In the cross. He sends out his disciples. Those who follow him. And he says. Make disciples.
Of all the people. Of the earth. That God has given his church a mission. That we know. His will for us. Now.
You may make disciples. In your neighborhood. You may make your disciples. As a mechanic. Working at a shop. Who gets to know the people he works with.
You might make your disciples. Working at Blockbuster. And then they closed it down. So you start working at Sears. And then they closed it down. And now you work for a call center.
But you're making disciples somewhere. Wherever you are. That all people would come to know him. That all people would worship him. That all people would follow him. And here's what happens though.
Much of our life is not the prayer. Our father in heaven. Honored be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. Much of our life is spent with.
Our father in heaven. May my name be honored. May my kingdom come. May my will be done. We spend a lot of our time. Not caring about what God has put in front of us.
To love. To serve. To have a mission for. We spend a lot of time caring about our bank account. Our name. Our glory.
Our will. Guys. I'm a pastor. Father. And it's really easy for me. To not want to preach sermons for God's glory.
But for mine. It's really easy for me. To when we have baptisms. Want to see a lot of people get baptized. Not because that means somebody new. Is going to be around the throne.
Praising Jesus. But because it helps indicate. That we're doing a good job here. It's really easy for us. To do good actions. For wrong reasons.
Where we want our will. And our glory. And that is written. Into the heart of humanity. And we need God to save us from it. I had a friend of mine.
He's a pastor. And he said. That there are times. Where he thinks. He cares more about his dynasty on Madden. Some of y'all.
Understand what those words are. Some of you don't. Than he does about the mission of God. But you can replace dynasty on Madden. With your garden. Your promotion.
Your 401k. Your car collection. Your children. You can replace it with anything. Even really. Really good things.
That we care more about. What God's called us to do. And the mission he's given us. See the truth is. Many of us. Will never have a tower.
That reaches to heaven. But we will have something. That we spent. All of our energy. All of our time. All of our intelligence on.
And often. Far too often. It was for our name. And our will. So that we could be comfortable.
So that we could be successful. So that we could be. Given glory. And it was in complete. And utter rejection. Of what God's called us to do.
So I think the way we respond. Is twofold. I think we need to ask the question. We need to look in our heart. We need to ask the Holy Spirit. To tell us.
Where am I living. For my will. And my glory. Secondly. The way that we respond. To this story.
Of the Tower of Babel. Is we get to know people. Who look differently. Speak differently. Act differently. Than us.
I remember the day. That I went. My cousin came here. He is. First generation. Nigerian American.
I've told this story before. We went. He wanted to know. Kind of some good food around here. So we went to a restaurant.
That's closed now. But it was very good. Mexican food. I got horchata. Which is. It tastes like.
The bottom of the bowl. Of cinnamon toast crunch. It's amazing. And then we went. To another place. That had churros.
And I remember sitting with him. And I was eating a churro. And I thought. I've never thought about this. But churros are going to be in heaven.
I know biscuits will be there. But I had never thought about churros. And I know. Like it was. It just dawned on me. That there's going to be.
Culture in heaven. And that we ought to display. That so beautifully here. That we don't just hang out. With the people who look like us. Think like us.
Act like us. We don't just hang out. With people who like spicy food. Or don't like spicy food. But that we.
We look like the kingdom of God. Which is a bunch of people. Who look and act. And think differently. And so what that means for us. How we respond to the story.
Is that we love God's mission. And we love it enough. To be made uncomfortable for it. For the sake of people. Who don't know him. And for some of us.
That means you are supposed to. Quit your job. Be an international missionary. Go someplace. Or maybe they don't speak. The way you speak.
And maybe nobody there. Loves Jesus. And it's possible. That there are churches. Around the globe. That will consistently.
Send Christians to. The reason that unreached places. Are unreached right now. Is because they are hard to reach. They don't want to be reached. And so there are going to be people.
Who have to die there. For the sake of the gospel. And we're going to send in somebody. And we're going to send in somebody. And we're going to send in somebody. And Christians are going to shed their blood there.
And we're going to do it. Because we know at some point. Somebody's coming out. Somebody's going to be around the throne. Some of you it means. Getting to know someone you've worked with.
For a long time. But you've never really talked to. Because y'all don't see eye to eye. Or you don't act the same way. Or you don't like the same music. Some of you it's going to mean.
Walking across the street. And getting to know your neighbors. Some of you it's going to mean. Stop inviting them to everything. But accept the invitation they've given you.
You go be the only person. With your skin color. You go be the only person. Who doesn't understand the references. You go be mad. Uncomfortable for the gospel.
The band's going to come back up. And I want us to ask the question. God do I care more about your glory or mine? Do I care more about my name? Do I care more about what I want in life? Do I care more about what I think is best.
Most comfortable. Most enjoyable. Or do I care about what you care about? And we're going to repent. We're going to ask Jesus to change our hearts. We're going to ask him to use us.
Through his Holy Spirit. We're going to take communion here in a second. Which is for Christians. Who have repented of sin. And placed their faith in Jesus. Who died for sinners.
The truth is. That we are all going to mess this up. We are all going to fall short. None of us are going to live perfectly. Or be on mission perfectly. Or love God's mission.
In his name. In his glory. More than ours. And that's why we trust Jesus. That he saves sinners. That he loves failures.
That he's strong enough where we are weak. And that we continually get to follow after him in repentance. But that ultimately we're going to stand before him. Not because we were the best at mission. And not because we were the best at diversity. And not because we were the best at loving people.
But because he was. And we're going to stand in him. And so if you are a Christian. I would invite you to take a moment to ask him. Where do I need to change? Where do I need to grow?
Where do you need to purge from me? The fact that I would have fit in so perfectly in Babel. And where do you need to change my circumstances? For your grace. And for your glory. And for your name.
And then I invite you to take communion. If you are not a Christian. Communion is not for you. Christ is. And you can repent of your sin. And have Christ.
But Christians partake in communion. To remind themselves. That they've placed their faith in Christ. And what he's done for them. So let's pray.
The band's going to sing here in a moment. And during that song. After you've prayed. And when you feel ready. You'll come take communion. If you have a celiac disease.
Or a gluten allergy.
Noah Part II
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We are in part two of Noah this week. We're in Genesis 8 and 9. Last week was a heavy week.
We walked through God pouring out His judgment in the flood on the earth. And this week is a big shift into redemption. It's going to feel like a big shift. Every now and then, my wife and I, right before we have friends come over, we decide that that is the time that we're going to have an argument. We just think, what an opportune moment, five minutes before our friends come in the door. And so it starts with a comment, and then it goes back and forth, and then we kind of have this look like, are we going to do this right now?
And then we do, and then it gets a little heated, and all of a sudden the doorbell rings. Or they knock on the door, and we invite them in, and they immediately realize, wait a second, we've just stepped into something. Mostly, mostly because my wife is not a poker player. Like, she's one of the ones I love her. She's one of the most genuine people I've ever met. What you see is what you get.
Like, sometimes she stumbles in on a Sunday morning, and everyone's like, is she okay? She looks mad. It's like, yeah, she is. She had to take two small children, put them in a car by herself this morning. One of them is an emotional three-year-old. And yes, she's not doing well, but she's here.
And our friends will walk in the door, and they'll realize that the mood is a little heavy, and we have to make the shift from, okay, we will settle this later. There's a lot of emotions still in this, but we'll deal with this later. Our friends are here. This is exciting. Let's eat a meal.
Let's hang out. Let's have fun. And that's kind of the shift that we're making this week. There's going to be some lingering kind of thoughts, some lingering discussions, some lingering emotions from last week, but it shifts really hard into hope. And that's where the text starts today. So as we walk through Genesis 8 and 9, we're going to see kind of four movements.
We're going to see God's redemption and restart. That's the first thing we're going to see, his redemptive work and the restart of creation. We're going to see, secondly, sin's cost. That God is going to remind them that sin still has a cost. Thirdly, we're going to see that sin still remains, that the flood didn't fix sin. And then lastly, we're going to see God's covenant of grace.
So let me pray, and then we'll jump into the text. Father, thank you so much for your word. God, I pray that you would help us be present this morning, that wherever we came in this morning, that you would help block everything out. Help us be present. Speak your word to us. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, so we're in chapter 8, first five verses. It says, But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the water subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed. The rains in the heavens were restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days, the water had abated.
And in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month. And the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. So we see a hard shift right out the gate in the beginning of chapter 8 when it says, But God remembered Noah. That's the shift that happens. They've been in a season of waiting after seeing God's judgment poured out on the earth, and then God remembers.
That term that's used in Genesis and used throughout the Old Testament is a euphemism. It's a term that is used for, but God is going to fulfill His promise. He remembers what He had promised to Noah, that redemption is coming. We're going to see it show up again in Abraham, in the story of Abraham and Sarah. It is God remembering His promise. So, as hope enters this scene, there's some interesting language in this passage.
It says, And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the water subsided. So that phrase, And God made a wind blow over the earth, that is meant to catch your attention. That is meant to draw you back. In the same way that if I were to say, if I were to sing a song, which I won't do this morning, if I were to sing one line that said, She's got a smile, it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories, for some of you, that's going to take you back to acid-washed jeans, and big hair, and where you were in the 80s when you got to listen to Guns and Roses. If I were to sing, I'm such a baby, yeah, the dolphins make me cry, that's going to take some of you back to where you were in the 90s, when you were listening to Hootie, when you got to listen to Crack Rearview Mirror, and the whole album, and just all of the 90s, it's going to draw you back.
If I were to say, I go on too many dates, but I can't make them stay, some of you are going to have some memories of how you had a cathartic experience with Taylor Swift, to get over your ex, right? Like, these phrases, these verses draw you back, and that is what the Bible does over and over again. And this is meant to draw you back to Genesis 1. Wind hovering over the earth, just as in Genesis 1, as we talked about last week, God's work was pulling the waters back in creation to make way for land. His judgment was releasing the waters to come back, and now God is recreating, going back to Genesis 1.
If you skip down to verse 15, it says this, Then God said to Noah, Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, birds and animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And hear this, That they may swarm on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. That is language that goes back to Genesis 1. The picture here is God is recreating. He is restarting in this new world as the waters are ceasing.
So then you go back to verse 4, and I love this, the detail here. It says, In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat, and the waters continued to abate until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. I love the detail that is in this passage. I mean, it's wordy. It's giving you specific time.
And then it doesn't just say generally where the ark rested. It says, In the mountains of Ararat. And I love this because the Bible isn't folklore. The Bible is history. It's telling a historical account of what happened. That's one of the reasons that C.S.
Lewis, when he was an atheist, had to come to terms with the Bible. He understood. He had a Ph.D. in folklore literature. And he goes, No, this is different. The Bible is actually presenting itself as history. It wasn't just somewhere.
It landed in the mountains of Ararat. That is northwestern Assyria in the kingdom. That's modern day, somewhere between Armenia and eastern Turkey. This is, I love the detail as it walks through this. This is historical retelling of this account. And then it gives us some more details.
It says in verse 6, At the end of forty days, Noah opened a window of the ark that he had made and he sent forth a raven. Now, we don't really have, from the text, we can't tell exactly why he sent out a raven. We just know that he did. But I had to think, because if you read on, the raven is sent out and it just doesn't come back, I like to think it was probably a little bit disappointing. He's, after a year of being on the ark, he sends out a raven and it just never comes back. They're getting ready for this restart.
And oftentimes, in life, when you restart, when you turn over a new leaf, some people will get, like a puppy, or they'll get a dog, or they'll get an animal. And I feel like the situation had to be like, if you were restarting and you went and you got a puppy from the store and you brought home the puppy and you put it out in the backyard and you're just so excited that you brought it home and then it sees an opening in the fence and it looks back at you and it looks at the fence and it bolts and it never comes back. Like, I feel like that, that's got to be a little bit disappointing. He sends out the raven, it never comes back.
And then the text picks back up and it picks up in verse 8 and it says, he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. So we get a little more detail here. The dove was sent out to see if the water had subsided. Now, a dove is an interesting choice. He could have chosen anything. He could have chosen an eagle or a falcon, but he chose a tiny dove to accomplish this mission.
And that is significant because in ancient Near Eastern culture, a dove represents purity. It represents cleanliness. So it's supposed to be drawing you in to this restart, this theme of a new creation. Now, it should be noted that there are contemporary, there's a contemporary story that is about as old as some of the writings of the Bible. It's called the Epic of Gilgamesh. Alright, so in the Epic of Gilgamesh, there's a, I know some of you love reading old Akkadian literature, but really quickly, let me just tell you what the Epic of Gilgamesh is about.
All kinds of things. And in the middle of, or towards the end of the Epic of Gilgamesh, there is a flood narrative. And it's very similar in some ways to this flood narrative. They sent out a raven, they sent out a dove and a swallow. And what skeptics will do is they'll say, see, this is all just blended stories. The Bible isn't true.
This is all just blended folklore together. Now, aside from the reasons we just stated, this is, this reads way differently than the Epic of Gilgamesh, that it's telling history. What, what, what I don't understand and what logic has been hijacked when it comes to this, is that that doesn't actually, that makes a better case for the Bible because when you have multiple stories that are drawing from the same thing, it's way more likely there is an original source material. And it's way more likely that it's pulling from, the Akkadian people actually came from Noah. So they're going to have glimpses of, of the story.
And what we are saying is the Bible speaks truthfully and this is the original source material and that the Epic of Gilgamesh is pulling from this. So for the three of you that love Akkadian literature, you're welcome. For the rest of you, you need to have a little bit of a working knowledge of how to answer skeptics when they come at you with stuff like this. So, in this story, he sends out a dove and two attempts it finally comes back. It comes back with an olive branch. An olive branch is also symbolic.
An olive branch in ancient Near Eastern culture, it symbolizes fertility and beauty. So all, if you are listening to this with ancient Near Eastern ears, what you are picking up on is that hope has come. The mood has shifted and that God is recreating the world. And you pick up in verse 19. It says, Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by families from the ark. So after a year on the ark, they disembark.
They leave. And as they leave, the first thing the text tells us is that they need to be reminded that sin costs. That's God's first lesson when they get off the ark that sin costs. It picks up in verse 20. It says, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings to the Lord. Now, as we talked about last week, they boarded one male, one female of all the animals, but they added some extra animals in chapter 7 for this purpose, for animal sacrifice to happen.
Now, it is easy for us to look at passages like this and to go, that's weird. For most of us, animal sacrifice is foreign to us. Some of you may spend Friday nights doing that, but I'd be willing to bet the majority of us say, no, this is actually pretty foreign from us. Now, it is easy for us to pass judgment on things that are so culturally distant from us. In college, I got to study abroad and some of my best friends on my study abroad trip were from New England and they were women and what would happen is we'd go travel together and I would open doors for them and they were thrown off by this.
They go, oh no, is that a power play? Is it because you're a man? I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Ha ha. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, animal sacrifice that you're going to see. And in the Old Testament law, it makes a system of it. And it does two things.
We look at it from the book of Hebrews and the New Testament back at the Old Testament. Firstly, animal sacrifice was meant to give a vivid display of what rebellion looks like. As we talked about last week and the week before, it is cosmic treason when you sin against God. You've sinned against the God of the universe and they needed a visual reminder that said, this is rebellion and this is the cost. It costs blood. And it was a grotesque, I mean, the whole process was gross because it's meant to show the grotesque nature of sin.
So it's a visual reminder of what rebellion looks like. But ultimately what it does is it points forward to the final sacrifice in Jesus, that he was the perfect sacrifice that came. So this is the early workings of what's happening here in the Old Testament and accomplishing those two things. And when Noah and his family get off of the ark, they need this lesson. It's been a year since they saw God's wrath poured out on the earth. They need to be reminded of God's judgment.
They need to be reminded of the cost of sin. They need to feel the weight of it. And then in verse 21, we see why. Picks up in verse 21, it says, and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever strike down every living creature as I have done.
So we mentioned this last week, that sin still remains. The flood did not fix the problem of sin. There is a sinful nature buried underneath the surface. Regularly at my house in my backyard, I have a war with weeds. Like my front yard is really thick, luscious grass. And the backyard is like five types of grass and other things.
And I mean, it's a regular battle for me. And I will go scorch earth on it. I will put roundup out and all of a sudden I'll see more weeds sprout up. I'll get intentional and I'll find them and I will pull them up individually and deroot them. And eventually a little bit longer, it'll pop back up. Because what's happening is underneath the surface, there's an entire root system that I have not pulled up from underneath the surface.
And that is so true of our sin. You can go scorched earth on it. You can have, you can change behaviors, you can change patterns, you can, you can spray roundup all over it and it still creeps up. You can go after root idols, which is something that we talk about regularly in our church. We tackle idols. The reason why that you sin is because there's idols beneath the surface.
There are things we worship in the place of God. So you don't just get angry. There's something underneath the surface. For me, one of my root idols is I have an idol of control. Like I want to be like God. And when things don't go my way, I get angry.
So regularly in my house, when my emotional three-year-old goes off the rails, I get angry. And what's being revealed there is a control issue that I want to control the behavior of my three-year-old. And I get angry. So it's good. I want to go to work on that root idol. But here's the deal.
Underneath the root is a whole sin nature. And it's important that we go after root idols. It's important that we address sin. But we need to have the understanding that ultimately, there's a sin nature underneath. And that is something we're going to have to continue to go to war with because we have inherited that all the way back to Noah, all the way back to Adam. It is underneath the surface.
And it shows up in a very vivid picture here. If you skip over to chapter 9, we're going to see the sinful nature show up first. Over in chapter 9, verse 18 and following. It says, The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah.
And from these people, the whole earth was dispersed. Noah began to be a man of the soil. He planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both of their shoulders, walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.
Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be to his brothers. And the story keeps going and he gives blessings to the other brothers. Now, in typical Genesis form, it gets weird. His story just, it just, it's a little bit weird. So as you walk through it, what you first see is that Noah, when he gets off the ark, he plants a vineyard, which is good.
If I was on the ark for the year, I probably would have planted a vineyard. And he harvests the grapes and then he makes wine. And then we see what happens. He twists the good gift that God has given him in wine and he gets wasted. He gets drunk and he passes out naked. In humiliating fashion, the sinful nature is on display.
So he passes out drunk, naked in his tent. And then the story gets a little bit weirder. His son Ham walks in, sees that he's naked. And then the text tells us he walks out and he talks to his brothers. His brothers, they walk in, they take a covering, they make sure they don't see him, they cover him up and they don't look at him and they walk back out. And then after this, Noah wakes up and Noah gets angry and he curses the line of Ham, which is Canaan.
And that's why it mentions the father of Canaan multiple times in this passage, that the Canaanites who will come from Ham, if you read the rest of the Old Testament, they end up being the enemies of God. And you read this and you're like, what in the world is going on? That seems like it might be a little bit of an overreaction. What is happening here? Commentators have looked at this for a very long time to figure out what's happening. And here's one thing that is clear from this passage, that the actions of Ham were dishonoring.
They were dishonoring towards his father. We don't know if he was making fun of him, if he was joking, if he came out. We don't know if he was just making a mockery of his father. We can tell from the text that his brothers take a completely different approach. They go out of their way to make sure they walk backwards, that they don't look at their father, that they cover him up, they cover up his shame, and then they walk out. So we don't know the full extent of what happens, but we do know from the context that what they did was dishonoring towards, that what he did was dishonoring towards his father.
And that is significant. You see, we read that and we don't think it's that big of a deal because we are so far removed from what the Bible teaches on honoring your parents. Some of us, if our father passed out naked, we would probably take pictures. We would make light of it. And that's just the reality. Because we don't have an honor culture when it comes to honoring our parents.
And the Bible takes a way different tone. From Old Testament to New, it is a big deal to dishonor your parents. It's a huge deal. And we don't take that seriously. We make all kinds of excuses why we shouldn't do that. Well, that's not that big of a deal.
That maybe our parents don't deserve it. That we didn't, maybe they weren't the greatest parents in the world. So, I don't want to make light of that. I would encourage you, if you are struggling with that concept, to honor your parents. We did preach on this, this spring. We walked through Ephesians 6.
Chet walked through this. And I would encourage you to go back and listen to it because it is a very significant sin that the Bible takes very seriously, that you are called to honor your parents. So, there are two big sins that come out of this story. Noah's drunkenness, Ham's dishonoring of his parents. And what we see here is the flood did not fix sin. That sinful nature is still on display.
It is going to take more than a flood to fix the problem of sin. And that is what is pointed to in the last part of this story. We see God's covenant of grace. It picks up in verse 11 of chapter 9. I establish my covenant with you. This is God talking.
That never again shall any flesh be cut off from the waters and from the flood, the waters of the flood. And never again shall there be any flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring the clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. So God establishes a covenant and then he gives a sign for the covenant, which is helpful. And we still have this today. The most comparative thing we have for us today is marriage. Yesterday in our church family, I got to perform a wedding ceremony and there were rings that were exchanged.
And the ring is significant because what the ring says is that I have covenanted to have life together, to be one flesh with somebody else. And that is the sign of it. Years ago, when I got married, I chose this ring that was bigger and that was gold for two reasons. I like the classic look. I think graphite was pretty big at the time. But more importantly, I wanted something that was big that would stand out because I want people to see that, no, I belong to somebody, that I've covenanted to life together with my wife.
And it came in handy in the first year of our marriage. I worked at a coffee shop and and there's there's a few times that that women would come up and they would be flirting and they'd start to hit on me. And what I love to do is I would take my hand from behind the bar and I'd say, oh, that's great. And I would just twist my ring. And eventually they got the message. And what I've learned is and what I've noticed is that over the years, as I've gotten older, that girls are a lot better at noticing this.
They haven't been hit on in years because they're really good at really good at picking up on that. It's a sign of the covenant that I have in marriage and God establishes a covenant and he gives a sign for it, a sign that they would remember. Now, covenant relationships by nature are relationships of favor. We're going to get into that more in Abraham and the covenant that he makes coming up in the next month. But is God specifically looking at another party and finding favor on that specific party?
And that God's covenants, what he covenants here in this passage is that he's never going to destroy the earth again by flood. That is not what he is going to do. And it's not just a covenant that he makes with Noah. He makes it with Noah, all future generations, all living creatures, everyone. And the sign of the covenant is a rainbow. It says in verse 16, when the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.
I personally, I love the symbol here. I love that God shows the rainbow to teach us grace. That after the storms, that after the darkness, that after everything they had been through, God puts a rainbow in the sky. And what the rainbow gets to be is it gets to be the backdrop of God's grace. Because here's the deal. You don't find a rainbow on a sunny day.
That's not typically how it works. You find a rainbow after a storm has passed through. And what's happening in this text is that ultimately the rainbow, it points forward to Christ. The word for rainbow here, for bow in this passage, is also the same word that is used for a battle bow in the Hebrew. And what is being said here, and Charles Spurgeon, the pastor from the 19th century, he makes this point, that ultimately the rainbow points to Christ, that a rainbow itself is pointed upward. And what he is making the point is, is that it's pointing up to the one who is going to come down and actually accomplish the problem of sin.
He makes this point, he says, God's rainbow is hung over the cloud of our sins, our sorrow, and our woes to prophesy deliverance. And that deliverance of the battle bow that the rainbow was pointing to is the cross. That is where the battle with sin and evil is going to be won. But as we talked about last week, on the cross, Jesus takes the flood. He takes the flood of God's wrath that is poured out on him, and that we get the ark. And that Noah gets the ark, that like Noah, we get and receive grace.
Tim Keller, another pastor, he puts it this way. He says, on the cross, the storm of eternal justice and the son of God's love comes together. And that's why you have a rainbow. And every time you look into the heart of the storm and you see the rainbow of grace, you see that's where Jesus went. He went into the heart of the storm so that we could get the rainbow, so that we could get grace. And that's the reality, that never do you see God's grace at work without seeing your sin, without seeing grace as the backdrop to the storm.
Some of you came into here in a lot of different places. Maybe some of you are in a season that is really dark. Maybe some of you are in a season where you are tempted by unbelief. Like you've been coming, you've been preaching the gospel to yourself, you've been trying to be in community group, and it's been really difficult. You are just tempted by unbelief. You're like, what is the point?
This season is so dark. I don't know if I'm going to get to the other side. Maybe some of you, it is hard for you right now to talk to God. Like you want to pray, but you are just tempted by believing, does he even care? Is he even listening? Is this even worth it?
Maybe some of you in a really dark season of temptation with sin, that in the darkest parts of the night, in the darkest parts of your soul, you are tempted, whether it's lust, whether it's pride, whether it's bitterness, that sin is crouching at the door. And in this dark season, it is hard for you to see through the other side. Maybe some of you are just generally struggling through depression, that there's this physical darkness that is weighing over you, and it is hard for you to see hope on the other side. The reality is that in seasons, we will come into seasons of darkness, seasons of trials, season of storms, seasons of hopelessness.
And what God is trying to say to you through this story, like a father who looks at his child and with a child whose head is just looking down, he's looking at you and he says, pick up your head. Do you see it? Do you see the rainbow? I know it is hard, but do you see grace? It's behind the storm. In this season, it is difficult, but my grace is still sufficient.
My grace is still there. You don't have to earn my favor. I'm here. I gave you faith. I will carry it through to completion, and I'm not going anywhere. You have to trust me in this season.
We will get to the other side. My grace still remains. Do you see it? That's the hope that we have in this story, that in a season of darkness, you can look past the storm and you can see God's grace, that his redemption is there. And that is the hope that we have in the gospel.
Noah Part I
Transcript
So if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and flip there. If you don't have a Bible, there should be a blue one nearby. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That is our gift to you. In the blue Bibles, it will be page three. My wife and I, we have in movies a guilty pleasure.
We love disaster movies. So like 2012, Day After Tomorrow, classics. We love it. The more over the top, the more ridiculous it can get, we're all about it. There was a movie that came out this year called Geostorm about a satellite system that made the weather turn on the whole globe. And it was amazing.
It was way over the top. It was ridiculous. And we love it. We love movies like that. I feel like we're not alone because America watches them because they keep making them. And I feel like one of the reasons why that we can enjoy those kind of disaster movies is because we are so far removed from the subject matter.
And if we are face-to-face with an actual disaster, we wouldn't be able to enjoy it. We don't appreciate the full kind of horror of the event until we're up close with it. And I feel like that we have done that a little bit with the story of Noah. That we've distanced ourselves from the story. And because of that, we don't want to stare at it. We don't want to wade into it and understand it.
We want to distance ourselves because it's a little bit scary and it deals with the judgment of God. And I think this happens at a very young age. That if you grew up in the church, if you grew up around church, if you had any type of Christian church background, at a young age, you heard this story told as kind of a cute tale with cute pictures. And everyone was kind of happy. Now, I looked at the internet and I found some pictures that I think captured this. I just got three of them.
There's thousands of them for children's ministry. This is the classic Noah selfie. And everyone's happy. Noah's happy. The animals are happy. If this is after the flood, it's severely inappropriate.
But everyone, this is kind of like, this is kind of the pictures you get. Everyone's really happy. I found another one. This one's called Noah's Ark. The white, clean storybook. It has a heavy sense of irony in the title.
That they would make a white, clean storybook to tell the story of Noah. If you didn't get it, it'll come in a second. It's ironic. It's a little bit dark. This third one is classic funny picture you get out of Noah. You got Noah.
He's taking a shower, having a good old time. His wife's doing the laundry. You got some animals that are fishing. There's a nice Titanic moment happening up front. And there are tons, there are tons and tons of pictures that are just like this. That kind of reduce Noah to this cute story.
And that is so far removed from what it actually is. We are uncomfortable with this story. And we have sanitized it. We've sanitized the judgment of it. We've sanitized the horror of it. And that's not the way this story is meant to be read.
It's not a cute story. It is a story that is meant to shock you. It is a story that shows the judgment of God. Now this story today is going to be really heavy. We're in part one of the story and the flood. There's going to be a silver lining of redemption that we'll see at the end.
And it will be more as we focus on next week. But this week is heavy. And as we work through the flood story, there's four things we're going to see. We're going to see the corruption of man, which is how we got to this scene. We're going to see God's sorrow over man's sin. We're going to see that followed by God's response to sin, which is judgment.
And then we're going to see God's promise of redemption kept. So today is going to be heavy. But the more that we weighed into this story, the more that we understand it, the better the redemption is that we have in Jesus. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to dive in. God, thank you so much for your word, even when it is difficult to read, even when it's difficult to understand and absorb. God, I pray that today that we would be present, that if we immediately are opposed to this story, that we would be willing to listen and that you would speak to us.
In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we are working through Genesis, which means as you work through Genesis, there's going to be these landmines that just pop up. We could avoid them, but that would be avoiding whole sections of the Bible. We're not going to do that. So before we even get to Noah, there's a setup.
And within the setup that gets to Noah, there's a couple landmines. The first one is found in the genealogy in Genesis 5. Genesis 5 is a genealogy, and like most genealogies, this is where your annual Bible reading plans go to die. I mean, they can be really long. They can be kind of boring. But there's actually some good stuff in this genealogy.
And I just want to read the first three verses. I'm not going to read the whole chapter. I just want to get the first three verses to get a feel for what's happening in this genealogy. Start us out in verse 1. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
Male and female, he created them. And he blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. Now, if you read that, and then you keep reading, you're going to, if you are naturally skeptical, you're going to raise your hand, and you're going to wonder, wait a second, he had a kid at 130 years old, and then it says that he died at 930 years old, and that Methuselah, another character, died at 969 years old. So if you are naturally skeptical, or you're just inquisitive, you're going to raise your hand, you're going to be like, what is your Bible saying?
Are you serious? The Bible is serious. All right? There's two ways to explain this. Chet hinted at one of them last week. There are some theories that help explain why people live so long early on in the Bible.
The first theory, and Chet hinted at this last week, is that early on in the gene pool, the original design for man was that man would not be corrupted by, that man would live forever, and they were not corrupted by sin. So they were created to live forever, and then slowly, as sin started to wade through the gene pools, it started to corrupt man, slowly, you see lifespans, they start to get to where they are today. Now that's a theory, and there's a couple of them that are like that, but here's the more important way of understanding this. When you come to situations like this in the Bible, time and time again, you're going to wonder what is happening, because we live in a world with a natural worldview.
And you're going to see stuff that happens, it's outside of that natural worldview, it's outside, and it's supernatural. The Bible does this over and over again. Our whole faith hinges on the fact that God became man by way of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died the death on the cross, was dead and buried, and raised from the grave, and then floated into heaven at the ascension. That doesn't happen in everyday life. It's outside of the natural. And over and over again, you're going to see in the Bible that there are situations that go outside the natural, and this is one of them.
That early on, this is God's design. And while it is foreign to us, the Bible speaks truthfully. So if you work through that landmine, then you can actually start to see a little bit of what's happening in this genealogy. I'll just make a few quick points on Genesis 5. Firstly, the fact that in all genealogies, people are named show that God cares about our story. That each of these individuals has a story.
That God values humanity. Even in this genealogy, in the front end, it says, he links it to these people that descended from Adam being made in the image of God. Showing that each of them has value. Each of them has worth. God values humanity. What you see after this as well is that each one of these people died.
And it shows, genealogies show the effect of sin. That death is present. Everyone dies. The third thing that we can see about this genealogy is that this is the line of Seth. This is the line of Seth that God has chosen through Seth to bring the seed of Eve, the rescuer, Jesus, who will come. And through Seth, we get to Noah.
So we're about to start. We're in chapter 6. We're about to start Noah. And then the second landmine shows up in chapter 6 in the first four verses. It says, When man began to multiply on the face of the lamb, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took them as their wives, any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.
His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Now, for thousands of years, believers have looked at this and said, What in the world is going on? Why is this story even here?
It is very hard to understand. There are two prevailing theories, two prevailing interpretations that have come out of this text over the last few thousand years. And it deals with, Who are the sons of God? Who are the sons of God? The first view, and this is the more historic view, is that the sons of God in this passage refer to angels. That angels came down, and laid with the daughters of men, and had children.
Yes. Genesis got weird. Alright, that's the first view. And we see that in the Old Testament, you look in the book of Job, you look at the book of Daniel, that the sons of God is how it refers to angels in those passages. So there's some textual way to that actually being true.
That angels came down, and lay with women, and they had children. The second view, is that this is simply the line of Seth. That the line of Seth, these are different from the line of Cana. They came, and this seems to be, on its face, sexual sin. So something was happening here, that was not good.
And that view kind of avoids the weirdness of what, of the first view. But honestly, there's no need to avoid the weirdness, because of what follows next. Because of who the children that they actually had, were called. They were called the Nephilim. The Nephilim is an English word, that went from Latin to Greek, back to Hebrew. And all it means, is giants.
Very large peoples. So they had these children, and they were giants. They were the mighty men of old. And it gets weirder. So I'm like, I don't think you need to avoid, the view of this being weird, because it already is weird.
And I think that, I lean towards, I don't go hard on this, but I lean towards, the historic view, that this is referring to angels. Angels came down, committed sexual sin with humans, and produced giant people. And that gets, you read that, and you're like, that, okay, what's going on here? Here's the point. Why was this even here, in the first place? This is here to show, that the world has gone off the rails.
This is not the way, it is supposed to be. We just saw, in chapter 4, how the world has been ruined by violence. And now we see sexual sin, is all over the world at this point. This is not the way, it is supposed to be. The world has gone off the rails. Corruption has spread everywhere.
And that is the lead in, to Noah. So we're going to be in verses 5 through 8, of chapter 6, for a little bit. This is kind of a header, that explains the whole story, as a whole. And we're going to work through it, starting in verse 5. The Lord saw the wickedness of man, was great in the earth. And that every intention, of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually.
That every intention, of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually. That's the picture of humanity. It's not just a few bad apples. The whole tree, is rotten down the roots. Every thought and intention, of the heart, is corrupted by evil. And that is why, there's rampant violence, that's why there's rampant, sexual sin.
Now you might think, that's being, is that being overstated? Like every single thought, every intention of the heart, is that hyperbole? And I would say, I don't think so. Think about your own thoughts. How quickly, do good thoughts, get corrupted, and turn to bad? How quickly, in a situation, like maybe you have a friend, or someone in our church family, they get a job promotion, or they get, they level up in a new tax bracket.
And our, our, our Jesus-centered response is, I am so thankful, that God has provided for them. How quickly, does that turn to, but what about me? God, why haven't I moved up? How did I get passed over, for the promotion? How quickly, do we turn, to jealousy? This happens with kids.
You might have, kids, and if you have children, there's always going to be children, that are better at, whether it's grades, your kids might make, good grades, that your friends' kids, will probably make, better grades. Your kid might be good at sports, your kid, their, your friends' kids, are going to be, better at sports. And we get, we go from, celebrating our friends, and their families, and what's going on, to like, moving into a Tanya Harding mode, that we want to take out, other children. Our kid has got to be the best. Our kid's going to advance. Everyone move out of the way.
We do this with lust. You can't just notice, that somebody is beautiful, or somebody is handsome. It quickly goes from that, to I wonder what's underneath. I wonder what it's like, to be with them. We do this with, so many thoughts, that we think are pure. They are actually, there's sin attached to them.
That we are corrupt. And the picture of humanity here, is it is corrupt. It is rotten to the core. And this grieves God. It grieves God. We pick up in verse 6.
It says, And the Lord regretted, that he had made man, on the earth. And it grieved him, to his heart. He regretted, that he made man, and it grieved him. This reminds me, there's a, there's a movie called, American History X. It came out in the late 90's. It was Edward Norton's, big breakout film.
And, and it's about, a guy who grows up, and as, at an early age, he starts getting exposed, to racism, and to prejudice. And, it starts to grow in him, like a cancer. And then eventually, he starts, he gets introduced, to neo-Nazism. He starts to learn more, about that. And the cancer starts to spread. And he starts to, adopt neo-Nazi views.
He eventually gets, a swastika tattoo. And then it goes, so far down the line, that he's a, he's a full, fledged neo-Nazi, that he commits, a hate crime. And in the midst, of his downward spiral, in the midst of this cancer, growing within him, his mother, is watching this happen. And this isn't, the son that she raised. This isn't, who she brought, into this world. And he slowly, starts to get corrupted.
And finally, there's this scene, in the movie, where everything, is unraveling. They had this huge argument. And in the midst, of her grief, she says, I am ashamed, that you came, out of my body. And that is so, picturesque, of what is happening, here in Genesis. That the cancer, of sin has spread. It has corrupted man, so deeply, that God, regrets that he, even made man.
Man who he placed, his image in. That he placed, value and worth, and beauty, and goodness in. Has taken that good gift, and has corrupted it. And corrupted the rest, of creation. That he regrets it. And it also says, that it grieved him, to his heart.
And that might seem, foreign to some of us. Because some of us, grow up with this world view, that God is this, distant deity, in the sky. That he doesn't have emotions, that he isn't really involved, that he doesn't really care. And that is so, far from the view, that we have in the scriptures. That God is intimately involved, that he deeply cares, and he has emotions. And that he is grieved, by our sin.
He is grieved by, the corruption, of humanity. And that grief, is followed up by, a picture of judgment. That follows in verse 7 and 8. So the Lord said, I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the land. Man, and animals, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens. For I am sorry, that I have made them.
But Noah found favor, in the eyes of the Lord. Now for the rest of our time, the rest of this story, these are the two pictures. A picture of judgment, and a picture of redemption. And we'll get more, to the picture of redemption, next week. The rest of our story, mostly sits in, this picture of judgment. Which is something, that our culture, is greatly, they're greatly against.
We naturally, just don't, we don't like, the idea of judgment. In this story, there's two things, that stick out, that our culture, is very much opposed to. The first one, is that, he Judges all of creation. It's not just humanity. He Judges, everything. And that animals, go down with the flood.
That is something, that our culture has, a problem with. But the bigger problem, that our culture has, is that God, that God would judge sinners. That he would bring judgment, on humanity. I'll tackle that first one, fairly quickly. I don't have a lot of time, to spend on it. The reason why, God Judges all of creation, including the animals, is because God has given humanity, dominion over animals.
And that our actions, affect everything. And the same way, that nowadays, corporate greed, can affect, drinking water, and rivers, that has for the last, hundred years, our actions, on this world, affect all of creation, because God has given, that to us. So that when God, is going to wipe clean, the earth, he's going to wipe clean, everything, and start fresh. Everyone gets, the judgment. The second cultural objection, that we have, and this is natural to us, in our culture, is that we don't like, the idea that God Judges, sinners. We don't like the God, we don't like the idea of judgment, period.
And this is mostly, I would say, hear this, it's mostly a western objection, that us as westerners, are the ones who mostly, have a problem with God, being a judge. And I would even argue, and push a little farther, it's mostly white westerners, that have a problem, with judgment. And the reason why, is because we are, largely, shielded from injustice. That we have, as a culture, really experienced, the kind of injustice, that the rest of the world does. Because when the rest of the world, comes across, pictures of judgment, like in, in cultures, where towns, and villages, where there are people that come in, the government doesn't stop them, and they come and take away children, and sell them into slavery, they come and kill people, they read passages like this, they read the judgment of God, not as something, that they don't like, but as a comfort.
Because it is comforting, that God checks sin, that He Judges, those who do evil. So it's a natural objection, that we have, that the rest of the world, just doesn't have, that God Judges sinners. Now I think there's a part of us, that really gets on board with this. I think that, being part of, being made in the image of God, there's a little bit in us, that has an objection, or at least has, that at least supports, God judging sin. I think for mostly, the one sin in our culture, that people are on board with, that should be judged, is murder. Currently there's a case, in Colorado, where it looks like, it's alleged, but it looks like a guy, killed his wife, his pregnant wife, and then also killed, his two daughters.
And as this case, is starting to get momentum, people are getting enraged. There's a part of them, that wants justice. And that comes from, being made in the image of God. That if you actually, don't believe in God, there's not really a grounds, for justice, it's survival of the fittest. But in this, in this, this aspect, that we're made, in the image of God, that has not been, stamped out by our culture, we actually, want justice to happen.
The problem is, is we just limit it to that. We just take murder seriously, we don't take, everything else seriously. We largely don't take, sin as a whole, seriously. But God does. Because sin, corrupts. It corrupts our relationship, with God, it corrupts one another.
Take jealousy, and envy, that I talked about earlier. When you are envious, of your neighbor, what you have done, in those moments, is you have questioned, the goodness of God. God has provided for us, richly, he has given us life. And what you are saying is, what you've given me, is not enough. So much so, that I'm, I'm angered with you, and I am jealous of my neighbor.
And there's hatred towards God, and there's hatred towards neighbor, in that moment. And God does not take that lightly. That corruption spreads, in often really, evil ways. That lust is a big deal. Because what you were doing, when you were lusting, is that you were saying, God, you don't satisfy enough. Union with you, is not enough.
I need someone else. Or maybe you're married, and it's like, the spouse you've given me, she's not enough. He's not enough. I want to unite myself, with someone else. We do this over, and over, and over again. If you actually look at, the sin that is deep within us, and you follow, and trace it out, there is corruption everywhere, against God, and against man.
And God is not indifferent towards that. But in those moments, we have to see that we are, committing cosmic treason, as Chet said last week. We are sinning against, a holy and perfect king. And sin has to be, paid for. And that is where, this picture of judgment comes from. Picks up in verse 11, of chapter 6, says, Now the earth was corrupt, in God's sight.
And the earth was filled, with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh, had corrupted their way, on the earth. And God said to Noah, I am determined, to make an end, of all flesh. For the earth is filled, with violence through them. Let's pause for a second.
I've been thinking, through this. This is an undeveloped thought, so I'm not hanging, a ton of stuff on this. The more I have read Genesis, and the more that I'm studying it, this time around, the more I'm starting to realize, God hates violence. Hates it. And it shows up here, and it shows up throughout, the Old Testament. I don't have anything, to hang that on right now.
I don't have a complete thought, on that. I'm just noticing, that he hates it. And that I'm trying to, I'm trying to, as I'm studying this, and I hope as a church family, we can do the same thing, and looking at this, and seeing the implications of that, and what stirs in us, that we might, what stirs violence in us, what isn't good. I think that's something, that we should wait into. Like I said, not a complete thought, I just want you to feel the weight, of what the text is actually saying. He says, behold, I will destroy them, with the earth.
You skip down to verse 17. He says, for behold, I will bring a flood of waters, upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, in which is the breath of life, under heaven. Everything, that is on the earth, shall die. So he makes this pronouncement, and then he tells Noah, to build an ark. An ark, is a giant ship. This is going to weather the floods, that are coming.
And the picture of judgment, that is happening here, is a reversal, of what happened at creation. That in Genesis 1, God pulls back the waters, and land appears. And what he is doing is, is he's releasing the waters, and bringing judgment on the earth. And when this comes, he wants Noah to be ready. So Noah builds an ark.
And he gives the rest of chapter 6, some instructions, on how to build this ark, in measurements that we understand. It's about 510 feet long. It's 51 feet tall. It's 84 feet wide. It's going to be three decks. He tells them specifically, make it out of gopher wood.
We don't know what gopher wood is, but it was good enough for the ship. Then he tells them, that Noah and his wife, and his sons, and their wives, their family, can board this ark. And then he has a plan, to preserve animal lines. He says in 619, and every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort, in the ark, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. So he tells them, take one male, one female of every animal, and they're going to, board the ark with you.
In chapter 7, we get some additional instructions, where he's going to give some extra animals, they can use, because they're going to have, some sacrifice that happens, when they get off the ark. But we'll cover that, next week. Then he tells them, to store as much food, as you're going to need, because you're going to be on this, ark for quite a while. They're on the ark, for about a year. And then it's time. Picks up, and chapter 6 ends, with Noah did this, he did all the Lord commanded him, and then we skip to chapter 7, verse 11.
It says, In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of that month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep, burst forth. So all the aquifers, all the water underneath, it burst forth. And the windows of the heavens were opened, and rain fell upon the earth, for forty days, and for forty nights. As the waters underneath, come forth, the waters above, fall. And this is the part of the story, that gets sanitized. This is the part of the story, that we don't want to stare at, that we don't want, we want to ignore.
It is not a happy, and cute picture. It is a picture, of God's judgment, being poured out, on the earth. It is one of the scariest, and saddest moments, of the entire history of the world. It is meant to, it is meant to shock you, at God's wrath being poured out, on the earth. That for forty days, and for forty nights, God drowns the earth, in judgment. And then chapter seven, just ends.
It says, only Noah was left, and those who were with him, on the ark. And the waters prevailed, on the earth, a hundred and fifty days. And it just has, a bleak ending, to part one of the story. It is descriptive, and it is painful. It's a painful picture, of God's judgment. And there's probably, a lot of questions, that are swirling, as you read this.
But I think, there's one question, in particular, that rises to the top. And that is, why Noah? Why was Noah chosen? Why did he, and his family, get to board the ark? The text, answers this, in part, we see it later, answered in full. It says, in chapter six, verse eight, that, but Noah found favor, in the eyes of the Lord.
These are the generations, of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked, with God. And some have looked at this, and they have taken this, to say, well, Noah must have been, the good God. He must have been, the good God. The rest of the world, was evil.
The text says, that he was righteous, that he was blameless. And on its surface, you might get that, but the more, that you dig in this, you see, that's actually not the case. That's not the full picture, of what's happening here. Because Noah was a sinner. Noah, we're going to see that clearly, in the second half of the story, next week. Noah, was a sinner.
Noah, deserved judgment. So why, did Noah get chosen? Why was Noah spared? And the answer that we get, in the Bible, is by grace, through faith. Noah, Noah, was chosen, by grace, through faith. Hebrews 11, 7 says, by faith, this is the New Testament, looking back, by faith, Noah, being warned by God, concerning events, as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark, for the saving, of his household.
Faith, is what set Noah apart. He trusted God, and it was God's grace, in him, and through him, that ultimately, saved him. That ultimately, Noah finds, unmerited favor. He didn't earn this favor. God, shows him favor, that he did not earn. Faith in him, through God, is what saves him.
And this isn't just good news, because it preserves, the seed of Eve, it preserves the line of Jesus, who will come and save the whole world. That is good news. We will talk more about that next week. It is good news for us, right now, because you, and me, everyone in this room, and everyone who's ever lived, we're in the same boat, as Noah. Noah, we deserve God's wrath. We deserve the flood.
But because of Jesus, we get the ark. Jesus became our ark. And the idea that we deserve wrath, that's for some of you, that's going to be frustrating. You might ask the question, why do we deserve wrath? And it's because we have the same picture of humanity, that is true for them, and their time for us. When it says that the Lord saw, that the wickedness of man, was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually, that is us.
That did not stop at Noah. That continues through. We see this next week, as we'll cover it in chapter 8. After they get off the ark, this is what God says. He says, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart, is evil from his youth. That post-flood, this is still true.
We are still corrupted. You see that in the Psalms, when David picks up on this, he says, for there is no truth in their mouth, their inmost self is destruction, their throat is an open grave, they flatter with their tongue. We see this in the New Testament, when Jesus is teaching, on the Sermon on the Mount, when he says, for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander, over and over and over again. We see throughout the whole Bible, that because of Adam and Eve, because they sinned against God, they brought corruption into this world, and we inherit that corruption.
We inherit that nature. It is what we do. It is the reason why, when football started yesterday, that we can't just enjoy the good gift of football, that it has given us. No, we have to actually elevate it to an idol, and worship it. It's the reason why, we can't be happy for others, we get to be, we move into being quickly envious. It's the reason why, that when you get slighted, you want to retaliate immediately, whether it's on Facebook, or it's with your fist, because we are naturally children of violence.
We inherit this sinful nature. It is what we do. We inherit corruption, and that costs two things. We see that it costs God grief, that God grieves over our corruption, and that's not just a Noah's time thing, that's even for the people of God, that somehow, mysteriously, God can look at us, those of us who are in Christ, and see the perfect record of Jesus. We don't have to earn His favor. He can look at us and see Christ, and at the same time, He can look at the church, and in Ephesians 4 say, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
That our sin, emotionally, affects God, still. It costs God grief. Ultimately, it costs judgment. Our sin, costs judgment. Somebody has to foot the bill. And the good news, of Jesus, is that the finished work, of Jesus on the cross, means that we, we get, through faith in Christ, that undeserved favor.
That we, deserve, I want you to feel this, we deserve the flood. That's what we, that's what we deserve, because of our sin, we deserve the flood, of God's wrath, poured out on us. But Jesus, goes to the cross, and He has the full cup, of God's wrath, poured out on Him. And, through His death, and conquering death, through the resurrection, we, get life. We get the ark. That's what 1st Peter, he plays on this picture, and relating to baptism, in 1st Peter 3.
He talks about baptism, and comparing it back to Noah. That because of what Jesus, has done for us, in conquering death, we pass through the ark, safely from death, into life. In about a month, we're going to celebrate baptisms. This is going to be a picture, of people who are dead in sin, and are alive in Christ. And the picture is, is that we were spared, we get the ark, we get Jesus, and we get life with Him. So as we sit in this story, I know it's uncomfortable.
And as we discuss this in groups, I know it's not, this is going to be challenging. But if you are in Christ, you get this picture. You deserve judgment, you get mercy. We deserve wrath, we get the ark. Band's going to come up. I don't want us, to just walk away from this, I want us to sit in it.
And I want you to hear this, that if you, if you are not a Christian, meaning that you have, maybe you've been around church, maybe you've been connected, maybe you've been coming, but you have not given your life, completely over to God. It is Jesus plus the world, it is Jesus plus something else. If that is you, I want you to hear this story. It's uncomfortable, but it's real. He's not going to destroy the earth, with water again, but wrath is coming. And we need to feel that.
And the good news of the gospel, is that we had, the God of the universe, who took on flesh, who came to take that wrath for us. And our plea for you, as a church, is that you would choose the ark. And that you would, have your life hidden in Christ. That you would believe in him, that you would lay down your life. And that you would get to experience, the goodness of the gospel, in Jesus. That is our hope.
If you are a Christian, I want this story to sober us. I want us to feel the weight, of the judgment, because I want us to feel, the weight of our own sin. Because I feel like, some of us get into a mode, of not taking our own sin, seriously. We don't think it's that big of a deal. And the reality is, that sin is a very big deal. But also, so is grace.
So is his mercy, that we get to lean into. And that's what we celebrate, with the Lord's Supper. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread, and he broke it. And he said, this is my body, that was broken for you. He took the cup, which is the cup of the new covenant. And he said, this is my blood shed for you.
He said, as often as you eat, and drink this, you proclaim my death, until I return. So Christian, in this moment, I want you, as the music is playing, just to sit for a moment. I want you to reflect, on the seriousness of our sin.
Cain and Abel
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I want to talk a little bit about H.G. Wells before we get started today. We're walking through the book of Genesis together, and I think this helps us kind of set up our time today.
H.G. Wells was an author who was born in the late 1800s, lived through half of the 1900s, and he wrote a lot of science fiction. He actually kind of envisioned in his writing airplanes, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and something resembling the World Wide Web. I don't know what that something was. I got that from Wikipedia, just trying to give you all background on H.G. Wells.
But he would always write about like a utopian future when he would write science fiction. We always got bigger and better and more wonderful and more amazing. And so this is a quote from his book. He wrote histories as well and kind of social commentary. And this is in a short history of the world. He wrote this in 1937.
Again, he lived in England. He wrote this. He said, Can we doubt that can we doubt that presently our race will more than realize our boldest imaginations, that it will achieve unity and peace, and that our children will live in a world made more splendid and lovely than any palace or garden that we know, going on from strength to strength in an ever-widening circle of achievement? What man has done? The little triumphs of his present state form the prelude to the things that man has yet to do. So he's saying he's looking at the world, he's looking at history, and he's saying, Isn't it just going to get better and better and better and more beautiful?
And the gardens and palaces we know now are nothing compared to where all of our children will live in the future. Now, if you're a student of history, you know that living in England in 1937, this wasn't about to be realized. World War II was about to plunge the world into conflict and pain and strife. And so this is a quote from his book that he wrote in 1946, which is the same year that he died, called A Mind at the End of Its Tether. And a tether is like a leash. So he's saying he's at the end of his rope.
He's about to become completely unhinged. And he says this, So in less than 10 years, this idea that everything would go on from beauty to beauty, and everything would get more wonderful. He sees the world plunged into World War II, and he just says, We're done. I can't believe that this is what humanity does. And as we're looking in Genesis chapter 4 today, and if you want to go ahead and grab your Bibles, it'll be in Genesis chapter 4. We're going to see how this continues.
So what we talked about last week was the fall of humanity, where Adam and Eve rebel against God, and sin enters the world. And we're going to see that it does exactly what H.G. Wells saw. That it goes from a beautiful garden, and it goes from God's good design, all the things that could be, and it turns into ever-increasing evil. That that's kind of as Genesis plays out, there's this two stories that run side by side. That we see that God designed the world beautiful, and all of a sudden there's this current of sin, and the world's descending into chaos, and evil, and hatred, and sexual sin, and violence.
And at the same time, God begins to weave next to that story, this idea that he is going to bring redemption, and he's going to bring hope. And that's what we're seeing beginning in Genesis, and it carries throughout the entire Old Testament. And so what H.G. Wells got to see on a massive scale, we're going to get to see kind of the beginnings of, on a personal scale, in Genesis chapter 4, as we study the story of Cain and Abel. And I have to go ahead and get this out of the way. I have an uncle named Abel, and he has messed me up on being able to call this Cain and Abel.
And so if that bothers you the entire time, I want to preemptively apologize. But I tried. I tried when I was working on this to say Cain and Abel, and I kept going back and forth between Cain and Abel. And there's no telling what's going to come out, but mostly it comes out Abel when I say it, and it's spelled that way, and my uncle talked me into it. So I can't not read Abel when I say it.
So let's pray for our time, and then we'll get started in Genesis chapter 4. God, we ask that as we get to study, in our brief time this morning, these two brothers, and this evil sin that tears this family apart, we pray that you would help us to see ourselves, see our sin, and have you intervene on our behalf before it gets out of control, and before we stand before you, covered by our sin rather than covered by Christ. And so we pray that you would help us to see this clearly today. And we love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Chapter 4, verse 1. It's on page 2. If you have one of the blue Bibles, it's probably very near to page 2 if you have any other Bible whatsoever. But if you don't own a Bible, we got these. We have a pile of them. We want you to take one home.
We want you to read it often. That's our gift to you. So it says, Now Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. Now this is really encouraging to be the way that Genesis chapter 4 starts because Genesis chapter 3 walks us through the story where Adam and Eve sin. They rebel against God. They're cast out of the garden.
And all of the good things that they had have kind of begun to erode and be broken and fall apart. And so it's beautiful to see that they, when Cain is born, she says, No, God helped me. That there's still some faith. There's still some connection to God in this family, even in the midst of sin, that Adam and Eve haven't completely run from God. But she, in faith, responds and says, No, I've gotten a man.
God's blessing me, and humanity is continuing with the help of the Lord. And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. So Cain does what Adam was told to do, which is tend a garden, cultivate, be one who works in the soil. And it says that Abel tends sheep. He's a keeper of sheep.
In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. I want to pause and just give you a little quick thing about the way that Hebrews write, the Jewish people write, when we're getting into these stories in Genesis. And we'll see this throughout. But the way we tend to write stories is we set the stage. We give setting. We give everything's in chronological order.
Or if you do it out of chronological order, when you mention it, you say, Now this happened prior to what I was just telling you about, but we always put it in chronological order. But they don't always do that. They much more often will explain things thematically, and they don't give you information that they don't think really applies to the story. So when it says, In the course of time, we have no clue how old they are, how long this has been. We're told later in Genesis that Adam and Eve lived for about 900 years, which we're going to discuss more because some of you are like, Wait, that sounds made up.
We're going to discuss more, but we believe they were designed perfectly, and that sin hadn't worked its way into the gene pool the way that it has now. So they were designed to live for eternity. They fall into sin, and then sin enters the world and begins to corrode, begins to destroy, but they don't immediately have the shorter lifespans that we see post-flood. So Spencer will get more into that next week. So they had a lot of children.
They had more children. We don't know how long it's been. That's all I'm saying, is that these guys could be like 20. It could be 250. We don't know, and that'll show up later as more characters get added in, and you're suddenly going, Wait, I thought there was just four people. It was Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel.
Abel died, so I thought the character grid got dropped to three, but then there's just other people showing up, and so I'm just trying to help you see like this has been an indeterminate amount of time so that it's less confusing later when we hit some places that are going to be a little confusing. So that was confusing, and I hope it helps. All right. In the course of time, this is verse 3, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. Okay, so we see worship. We see Cain and Abel worshiping the Lord.
They bring to him, and we don't know exactly how they brought it to him, where they brought it. If they can see him, we don't understand exactly how this worked, where God related to them, but they bring to him offerings, that there's this aspect of worship. There's this aspect of them coming to the Lord and acknowledging his place above them. So they bring him an offering, and Cain brings an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. That phrasing is going to be important in a second. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.
So we're told that they both bring an offering, and that God appreciates, has regard for Abel and his offering, but not for Cain and his offering. And I've heard people try to explain this in different ways, as to sheep is better than fruit, and some different things like that. And I don't think that's actually what the text is showing us. I don't think that's what it's highlighting for us, because one of the things that we see is it doesn't say that God had regard for his offering, or his offering. It says for Abel and his offering, for Cain and his offering. The person comes first.
So that God's looking at the person, not just what they brought. He's looking at the inside. And one of the clues that we have in the text is that we're told that Cain brought some of the fruit of the ground. He brought of the fruit of the ground, but that Abel brought the firstborn and their fat portions. Meaning that Abel brought the best he had. That he, as soon as his sheep were born, he brought those to God.
The ones that you would be the most excited about. The first paycheck in the way it goes for sheep keepers. Like the first thing he could have gotten, he brought it to the Lord and said, this is yours. Like without you, none of this happens. And it just kind of says that Cain brought some of what he had. It says that Abel brought the fat portions, meaning the best of what he had.
And so in that, we're getting a clue kind of into Abel's heart and into Cain's heart. And we see that God looks at Abel and he accepts what Abel does. He has regard for what Abel does, but he doesn't have regard for what Cain does. And then we see that God's looking at their heart and we get a clue next as to the fact that Cain's heart is off. It's strayed from what it would seem with him bringing an offering. And I'll show this to you.
It says, verse six, oh, verse five, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. That means he showed it. Some of you, you have a poker face, you have the ability to be angry and look happy. You have the ability to be upset and frustrated. Some of you do not.
Cain did not. Some of you, something bad happens and your face turns bright red. One of the tricks that I've always had is to just always look angry and tell people that you're happy and you can get around it. So Cain's face falls. He looks visibly upset. He is, he's very angry.
He's furious. And so this is a clue as to Cain's heart. So let's just think about this for a second. If Cain was genuinely, I'm here to worship. I'm here because God is glorious. I'm here because he's valuable.
I'm here because he's holy. I'm here because I love him. And when he brought his offering, if God said, Cain, this isn't right. Cain, you haven't done this well. And we don't know exactly how he displayed that he had no regard for it, but he does. You would assume that Cain would be hurt, that he would be sad, that he would be mournful.
But that his desire would be for the relationship with God. His desire would be for this to work well. His desire, so it would draw him closer to God. But what we see is that he's livid. He's furious that this would happen. And so we get a picture as to Cain's heart and that it starts to seem as if Cain really, his offering wasn't a genuine love for God.
His offering wasn't a genuine respect for God, a holiness, holding up his worthiness, but that his offer was something else. That what he really wanted was something else. And actually, I think in Cain and Abel, we see the beginnings of true worship, true faith. We're actually told in Hebrews chapter 11 that Abel has true faith and religious worship, religious faith. And I'll explain the difference there because some of you are like, wait, I thought we were like a religion. The concept behind religion, as we talk about it often here, is I will do these things that God wants me to do and therefore God will love me, God will bless me, God will owe me.
That religion is this idea that I'm going to be a good person, I'm going to do what I'm supposed to, I'm going to show up on Sundays and if those people keep saying join a group, then I'll join a group, but God better make my finances work out, he better make my relationships work out, he better make my kids quit acting like their father. He better, he better, he better, he owes me. That's why when something bad happens to religious people, they'll get so mad. Something bad happened to Cain, he got furious and some of us have seen this in ourselves and in other people where something bad happens, you lose your job and you say, where are you God?
You owe me. How on earth could this happen to me? Because your belief is I did the stuff. I'm one of the good ones. I'm not like those other people that I'm one of the good ones. You owe me and that's what we see in Cain's heart.
I've heard a story to help kind of picture this and I really appreciate this image in my head. And so there's a king who has a beautiful kingdom and on different times he would allow people in his kingdom to come visit him and that sort of thing. And so they announced to him that there's a farmer who lives in his kingdom that's come to see him. And he allows the farmer to come in and the farmer comes in and he says, oh king, my king, I have a farm on your land and because of your kingdom I've been well protected and well guarded and free to farm. I wanted to bring to you this carrot. It's the biggest, prettiest carrot I think I'll ever grow.
I grew it. I was so excited. I just, when I was pulling it out of the dirt it just kept coming and coming and it was so bright orange and so carrot-y that I just wanted to share it with you. I just wanted to give it to you, my king, in appreciation for who you are and what you've done because I don't think I'll ever have another carrot like this one. And the king looks at the man and he sees his heart and he sees his love and he's touched by this and the king says, I actually know where your farm is and I own all the land around it and I want you to go speak with, and he tells him what official to speak with and he says, I want to double your track of land because we need more people like you in our kingdom and the farmer's just blown away.
That's not at all what he was hoping for. It's not at all what he imagined. Well, there's an official of the king who sees this entire interaction and he thinks, double your land for a carrot. So the next day, this official actually breeds horses and he brings in the stallion and he says, oh king, my king, I breed horses and this is the finest horse I think we'll ever sire. This is the finest horse I think I'll ever have. It's the most beautiful horse and I wanted to give it to you, my king, because you're so lovely and wonderful and amazing.
The king looks at his official and he can see right through him. He sees his heart and the king says, thank you. Please take that horse to my stable. And he just waits and the guy's frozen in place and he can see his face turning red and he's like, and the king goes, oh, is this about the carrot? You see, you're confused. The farmer was giving the carrot to me but you were giving yourself the horse.
See, the whole point of turning over the horse was just to receive back. It was just an investment. It was just for what he was going to be owed on the other end of it and I think we see that interaction playing out with Cain and Abel that Abel is overjoyed and appreciative towards God and so he brings his first fruits and he brings the best he has and he just says, God, thank you. Abel doesn't even talk in the story. We just see pictures of what he's like and that Cain was bringing the fruit to God but he wasn't really giving the fruit to God. It wasn't really appreciation for God.
It wasn't really a love for God. It was a desire to receive back, a desire to something. Something in Cain is for his own benefit to Cain's furious. And so we see how God responds. So God has no regard for Cain's offering but he cares about Cain.
So it says, so Cain was very angry and his face fell. Now verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you but you must rule over it.
So God, as best he can, tries to intervene with Cain. And he says, Cain, if you do well, if you change, if your heart changes, won't this work? Won't this be beautiful? Won't this be good? And he says, but if you don't, if you don't do well, if you don't change, sin is crouching at your door. One of the things I want us to see very early on is that God expects Cain.
He says, you must rule over it. God believes that Cain can change. God believes that Cain can master his sin. God believes that Cain is morally responsible for his decisions and his attitude and his heart. We have culturally bought into the idea that this is what I'm like and this is how I was born and people all the time will say things like, well, you know, I'm just the type of person who, and so Cain can say, well, I'm just the type of person who gets really angry when things don't go my way and God steps in and looks and says, yeah, and you're the type of person who needs to change that. You're the type of person who needs to master that.
You're the type of person who needs to not be overcome with that. You're the type of person who needs to know that that will destroy you. Well, I'm Italian, so I yell and you're the type of Italian who needs to stop. Well, I'm this, I'm that, my family just always, my dad, well, you're the type of person who needs to change that, who needs to, who needs to, and God's inviting him to him. It's not just, do it on your own, it's not just be better, try harder, but it's Cain, come on. This can be different.
We can work differently. You can change. And I want you to see the seriousness of sin. He says it's crouching at the door. It's crouching at the door. I am, out my front door, the way it's set up, on a regular basis for a couple weeks there there was a spider, and he was pretty big, but he kept setting up a spider web right in front of my front door.
And I'm really intelligent, so I walked through this like 17 times. Like I just opened the door, and I'd be like, oh God, and I would see the spider the night before, so I'd be like, it's on me. You know, I'm like, I'm sure my neighbors thought there was something wrong with me, because there's nothing that makes you look crazier than you walking through a spider web other people can't see. You know, you open the door, and you're like, peeling at your face and stuff, and it's like, hey, it's good to see y'all. Y'all hunting to work? Me too.
But I can just imagine the spider consistently, like he's hanging out, setting the web up again, and his friend's like, dude, are you doing that again? He's like, yeah, I'm going to eat like a king. If I can just catch one of these things that keeps walking in and out of this house, I won't have to make a web again for years. His spider friend's like, you're an idiot. And it just never worked. He never got me.
But, that's what sin's doing. It's at our door, laying a trap to destroy us, and we think it's like the spider that actually can't get us. Let me tell you something, if that spider was the size of a tiger, I would have remembered that web was there and I wouldn't have been walking out there. And so often, we think that sin is so small, it's so little, it really can't get to us. But sin's desire is against us.
It's contrary to us. It wants to harm us. You ever watch a movie and there's been a bad guy the whole time and then something happens in the movie and they decide to kind of team up with the bad guy? They're going to work together for a little bit? And how many of us when we're watching that are like, hey, moron, that's been the bad guy the whole time. I don't think he's actually joined your team.
That's sin. That we're like, no, no, no, we're cool. We're friends. This will work out well. And it's like, no, it's desire is contrary to you. It wants to destroy you.
But too many of us think we can have sin as a pet. Too many of us think, yeah, well, I'm doing pretty good. I've got all this, but this one, this one, I don't really want Jesus messing with. This one is really kind of, I'm working on it, but you just say that, you're not. And you just kind of feel like, but sin destroys us. Y'all remember a while back when Roy, of Siegfried and Roy, got attacked by a tiger?
It mauled him. And everybody was shocked. But it's like, bro, that was a tiger. That's a tiger. They don't, there's a reason why you can't just have pet tigers. Because they can do that.
Like, the risk reward on owning a tiger is not worth it. I mean, some of y'all got a dog, and it's like a sweet little dog, and you're like, this dog's never bit anybody. It's like, that dog's got teeth. I had, you know how many, every time I've been bitten by a dog, it's been bitten by a dog that doesn't bite people. Helping somebody move, no, this dog never bites anybody. I turned my back on it, it bit the fool out of me.
I was like, I'm suing, everybody's going to penitentiary. And so many of us think we have this pet sin that we're cool with. And God grabs Cain as best he can, and he says, if you don't change this, sin's at your door, and it will destroy you, but you have to rule over it. And so many of you, I hope you can hear that this morning. I hope you can take the moment to see that in God's word and see God looking at you and saying, it's at your door. And if you don't rule over it, it is not your friend.
It is contrary to you. It will destroy you. Verse eight, Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Okay, so when it says Cain spoke to his brother Abel, the best we can guess is that the text put that in there to help us see the premeditation of this. That he was drawing him out.
There's some kind of, he was luring him. That he gets him in the field where nobody is and he just kills him. Now I want to show you something interesting we learn about religious activity. I want to show you something interesting that we learn about what happens when our approach to God is I want you to, I'm doing these things so that you'll love me. I'm doing these things so that we'll be good. Is that if you're approaching God not just for him but for you to be one of the good ones, do you know what that means?
You need some people to be the bad ones. If hard work is what saves you, then you need some people to be lazy because if everybody works as hard as you do, you're not winning. If religious activity is what saves you, then you need some people to be heathens and infidels. You need them. And so what, Cain kills Abel. He doesn't change his heart.
He gets rid of the competition. My offering will be the best offering if Abel doesn't show up. And I also think that for most of us we think this was a really quick turnaround. Cain's very angry and then he just murders somebody. But see, the text told us this is what sin does.
We do things that we don't think we would do quicker than we think we would do them. That we're actually more evil, more quickly than we believe is possible. Sigmund Freud, who will not get quoted often from this stage because he's a nut and most of what he said is slap crazy. There's a quote where he gets this really, really right and he agrees with the Bible and so since he agrees with the Bible we're going to read this. He says this in civilization and its discontents. Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love who simply defend themselves if they are attacked but that of a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as a part of their instinctual endowment.
What he says is there's actually aggression in them. They're not just kind. The result is that their neighbor is to them not only a possible helper or a sexual object but also a temptation to them to gratify their aggressiveness on him. To exploit his capacity for work without recompense that means to have slaves make them work don't pay them to use him sexually without his consent to seize his possessions to humiliate him to cause him pain to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus which is the Latin phrase man is a wolf. And then he says who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life and in history.
Without his consent to seize his possessions to humiliate him to cause him pain to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus which is the Latin phrase man is a wolf. And then he says who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life and in history. He says who on earth could stand up and say that this isn't true given how history works and how your life works. There is sin
In us that once Adam and Eve sinned they delivered it over to their children and that Cain and Abel were not sinless but that it was in them. I also want us to see that what happens with Cain is he has he has anger inside of him and then it leads to actions outside of him that he that he goes from an internal sin
To an external sin and so many of us will say to ourselves well this isn't that bad because I'm not really doing anything I'm just thinking about stuff. Sure I've sat at my desk for the last hour running through what the conversation would be like if I told my boss everything I think about him what he would say what I would say what his little face would look like his beady eyes when little tears came out of it
When he finally heard everything that was true about it like I sure I hadn't really been working I've been doing this I've been nurturing bitterness but I haven't actually acted on it I just thought about choking him I wouldn't ever actually choke him these are just fantasies I'm not actually cheating on my spouse it's all in my head and see it's when it was in his head that God grabbed Cain and said
Change because it goes from here to here way quicker than we think almost everybody who's done big unthinkable sins if you'd have stopped them prior to it and asked them at some point along that road will you ever do this they'd say no I'd never do that and then they do most of us if we're honest
Have things that we've done in our past that we don't fully understand why we did it and that we if you'd asked us beforehand will you ever do that you would say no I would never do that I'm not that kind of person but the truth is we are outside of God intervening on our behalf 1 Peter 2 11 says beloved I urge
You as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions that's desires or lust of the flesh which wage war against your soul James 1 15 says then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death I have two sons and I fight with one of them
The other one's an infant but I could totally take him if we got to fight him I fight with the three year old and if we ever got in a real fight like if he ever just you know pushed it too far and we had to really fight I think I would win you guys here's what James 1 15 just said it says we have desire that conceives and gives birth
To sin and then sin when it's full grown brings death now this is talking on a spiritual level that when we sin the end result of that is death that we deserve punishment but I think it also gives us a picture of the fact that some of us have some baby sins that right now would be way easier to get rid
Of some of us have little sins that are starting to creep up a little bit of bitterness towards somebody a little bit of anger a little bit of frustration a little bit of jealousy a little bit of and we're starting to tell ourselves well it's not that big a deal it's just a little bit I haven't really done anything
Yet a little bit of lust a little bit of temptation you see when it's full grown you're a slave and it's a murder the desire that the desires in us do not always lead us down the right path this is why when people will say things like well I prayed about it and I just don't feel like it's wrong
We'll be something we'll say hey do you see what the Bible says like that's a sin yeah I know the Bible says that I prayed about it I just don't feel bad it's like do you know how far that means you're
Disconnected from the Lord that proved nothing to anyone people are doing something simple and they say it just feels right it's like right because your passions are at war against your soul
Your flesh your desires are contrary to you that sin wants to own you that ultimately what is good for you is that you would have Jesus and that you would have holiness and that you would have love and peace and no sin and that our desires and sin's desire is to destroy
Us and to derail us and we're like it feels good can't be bad it's like that's cute it's not in the bible this is how someone goes from jealousy to lying from covetousness to stealing from anger to abuse to murder from lust to rape
To adultery this is why every time they interview somebody who's just done something ridiculous their friends and family say that wasn't the tina I knew no he was always so quiet and nice so often that happens and it's because sin is at work in
Us and it is growing and if we don't run to the Lord and seek to get rid of it all of us are capable of doing things we never thought we'd be capable of doing Tim Keller explains that one
Of the things that we do with children is we often develop fear and pride in them that we develop it in them that we'll say things to kids like well you don't want to be one
Of those bad people you don't want to be like them and go to the penitentiary and so what we've done right there is we've said we've developed pride you want to be one of and you pick whatever kind of
Little cut down thing you want to use to try to develop fear and pride but this is how we train children so often and he says that for a lot of us fear and pride are our primary motivation not worship
Not love for the Lord not God's grace but fear and pride and he said this is how somebody who for most of their life has behaved really well and been really a good worker suddenly embezzles thousands of dollars because they were operating
On fear and pride and fear and pride for a long time kept them in check but at some point when they were afraid of losing their job or when they were afraid of what was going to happen if they didn't have the money or they
Were prideful to let people know that they were failing suddenly fear and pride took over and led them so far into sin and so many of us have these things that we are just slowly letting grow and then at some point they tip
Over and we run headlong into sin so let's see how God reacts and this plays out so similarly to Genesis 3 and there's brokenness and God shows up to talk God shows up to ask questions and he does he asks questions here even though
God knows the answer it's like your mom when she found out that you snuck out last night or that you went to a different place from where she thought where you told her you were going to go and then she says where were you last
Night and you're like you know we were at Mark's house but where were you were you just at Mark's house oh well she starts asking more questions she already knows the answer and your story starts not making a whole lot
Of sense that's what we're going to have play out with God and Abel no God and Cain I forgot Abel died in the last verse 9 then the Lord said to Cain where is Abel your brother and he said I do not know am I my brother's keeper oh am I
In charge of Abel all of a sudden I thought you liked him better than me anyway now I'm the king of Abel am I my brother's keeper verse 10 and the Lord said what have you done the voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the
Ground and now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand seems as if Cain used his cultivating abilities and tools to bury his brother if not
At least his brother blood has drained into the ground and his body somewhere else 12 when you work for when you work the ground it shall no longer yield to you its strength you
Shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth Cain said to the Lord my punishment is greater than I can bear behold you have driven me today away
From the ground and from your face I shall be hidden I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth and whoever finds
Me will kill me real quick this is why I did that age stuff earlier who's going to find him and kill him there's two options
Anyone in the future he just thinks I'll be a wanderer anywhere I go anybody can come find me and kill me most likely he's
Talking about his own brothers his own father because there's been some time it's most likely his parents have continued to have children and
He's just saying I've harmed my brother and now that this is known someone is going to kill me I don't want us to
See the heart of sin here Cain is angry and God gives him a chance to repent God comes to him and says you
Need to change your attitude does he no so he's not willing to listen to God on the front end God comes to him
After it the action after he murders his brother and gives him a chance to come clean to be honest to confess does he
Know when does Cain speak up when there's punishment and what does Cain say this is unfair it's unfair what you've done to me
And don't you know someone might kill me Cain who just introduced murder to the world now says it would be unjust if someone
Would hurt me this is too much and doesn't Cain have a lot of children today we don't want to listen we don't want to
Repent when God is coming to us beforehand after we have sinned we don't want to repent we don't want to confess we just
Want to bury it and then when we see there's wrath coming for sinners we say who on earth does God think he is
A God of grace he doesn't have judgment I don't worship a God of wrath and it's like we do worship a God of
Grace but he does have wrath that's what the grace is for it's for his wrath it covers his justice too often all we
Care about is the consequences not our own actions not our own hearts we can't even see our sin so verse 13 and Cain
Said to the Lord my punishment is greater than I can bear behold you have driven me today away from the ground and from
Your face I shall be hidden I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth whoever finds me will kill me then the
Lord said to him not so if anyone kills Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven fold and the Lord put a Mark
On Cain lest any who found him should attack him then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the
Land of Nod east of Eden so Cain says this is unfair and God says no your punishment is that you'll be a wanderer
Your punishment is that you'll be no longer attached to the ground and I'm going to put a Mark on you that if anyone harms you
His vengeance will be seven fold and God saying he'll carry that out which shows a lot of grace in the midst of Cain's sin
And in the midst of Cain's audacity to argue with God about what's fair and not fair 17 Cain knew his wife so now
This becomes important we don't know when he got a wife who his wife is Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore
Enoch now some of you were saying okay wait a second some of you were fine with that and I'm about to make you
Not fine with that some of you weren't fine with that because you were like wait I thought there was Adam and Eve and
They had some sons where did this wife come from glad you're all sitting down most likely Cain sister you guys Adam and Eve
Are the only people and all the children come from them Cain married his sister now I want to make that a little bit
Better to talk about dogs for a second so all the dogs we have and all the dog breeds that we have just stay
With me don't don't start guessing what I'm going to say just wait all the dogs we have and all the dog breeds we
Have came from an original wolf like a big dog like there wasn't a bunch of little like chihuahuas didn't roam the wild that
Didn't happen you guys I know you thinking mine is mean enough to no it's not if you're not even paying attention to it
In your yard a hulk will still get that thing like you eliminating strands of DNA and types of DNA and we we kind
Of can whittle them down to make a certain type of dog so you eliminate genetic code to get a specific dog this is
Why purebred dogs have more health issues than mutts because the genetic code is smaller they have less to pull from they have more
Health issues this is why like if you go buy a $1200 to Adam and Eve were like wolves they were the original pair
That had all the genetic code their children weren't they did inbreed but they weren't inbred does that make sense like they didn't have
Small genetic code so actually later in the Bible it's going to say no you don't need to marry your cousin but that is
As they became a nation that had eliminated so God brought all peoples from Adam and Eve and it wasn't the way we imagine
It now I hope that helped it might not have but there you go okay verse 17 came to his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch
When he built a city he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch to Enoch was born Irad and Irad father Mahujael and Mahujael fathered Methushael and Methushael fathered
Lamech and Lamech took two wives okay so the text just told us Lamech is changing things and it indicates to us that Lamech is pursuing he gives a full vent to his passion that's kind of what the text has shown us here
Because God originally made a man and a woman he brought them together and from this point on there was a man and a woman and we're following this one train through here and all of a sudden it says Lamech took
Two wives the name of one was Ada and the name of the other Zilha also for the record the Bible in Genesis doesn't always give us commentary of what's going on so it doesn't say he did this and that was wrong
It just tells us that it happened and this is the father of polygamy and polygamy never works out well in the Bible it happens all the time in the Bible it's never shown in a good light there's never like this was a
Polygamy a polygamous couple and it was great it's always a mess and some of y'all are like I'm married to one person and it's a mess we're not adding other people into this like imagine all of your arguments but now there's a third person who's in bed like that would
Be great we're gonna see it gets worse you guys when we get to Genesis later there's a lot of polygamous problems other Zilha and Ada bore Jabal and he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock he kind of had a whole people that lived
In tents and have livestock his brother's name was Jubal he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe so what we're seeing is that this line coming from Cain which is sinful still has beautiful things going on there's still culture coming
Out of it there's still cities there's still music there's still creativeness in this and it says Zilha also bore Tubal Cain and he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron the sister of Tubal Cain was Nema and Lamech
Said to his wives so we're going back to Lamech and this is to highlight what Cain's line became what it was like Ada and Zilha hear my voice you wives of Lamech listen to what I say I have killed a man for wounding me a young man
For striking me if Cain's revenge is sevenfold then Lamech's is seventy sevenfold and so it just shows that sin continued and that Cain rather that Lamech declares his own curse somebody just harms him he murders him and then he's just proud of it he doesn't hide it he announces it and he says
If anybody tries to harm me Cain who had a curse placed on him by God to protect him I get to place my own and it's better and bigger than God's and so the text is showing us that Cain's line has deteriorated and then it turns and it says Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name Seth for she said God has appointed
For me another offspring instead of Abel for Cain killed him to Seth also a son was born and he called his name Enosh and the time people began to call upon the name of the Lord and so it kind of gives this redemptive idea here at the end through Seth that God's going to continue the promise he made that he's going to continue his offspring that he's going to continue to do this beautiful work of redeeming
In the middle of Cain's sin and his line God brings about Seth and begins to continue out the promise that he says he'll one day send a redeemer and that's who Christ comes through is Seth and I want to highlight one thing as we come to a close the band's going to come back up here we're going to sing and we're going to take communion but in verse 10 God says this to Cain says the Lord said
What have you done the voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground the Bible tells us that it was through faith that Abel spoke even though he was dead that it was his faith that declared his presence and who he was and what Cain had done and then in Hebrews 12 right after it says that it says this about Jesus and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks
A better word than the blood of Abel you see the blood of Abel cried out for condemnation all the blood of Abel could do for Cain was display his sin all the blood of Abel could do for Cain was call out for God's justice and God's wrath and condemnation for what Cain had done and so we have Jesus who gives us a better covenant and better blood so many of us have sins that are like Abel we have tried to bury them
And all they will ever do for us is cry out to God for condemnation for destruction for justice for wrath there is going to be a day when we stand before God and you are either going to have all of your past cry out like the blood of Abel condemn or you will get to stand in a new covenant with Christ where his blood cries out forgive that Jesus would come in the line
Of Seth that he would take the punishment for sin that he would die so that we could live that he would rise again that we might have hope and that those who place their faith in him are covered by his blood which speaks forgiveness and life and hope not condemnation so in a second church as we take communion together it's for all those who have placed their faith in Christ to remember
To appreciate to enjoy to take part in the fact that his blood cries out forgiveness and hope and life for us so that we take communion that we might celebrate that his body was broken his blood was shed and we've been forgiven and if you're not a Christian the blood of Christ does not cover you we would encourage you to not take communion but to sit and think about the fact that his blood can cover you
And that if you place your faith in him rather than your sin crying out condemn you'll have Christ crying out forgive and his blood speaking on your behalf let's pray God we thank you for your goodness and your grace towards us we pray that you would help us to trust in you that we might see our sin before it's too late before we've run headlong in it and that for those of us who feel like I'm on the other side
I've already committed my murder I've already done the unthinkable that we would know that God comes to us and he gives us a chance to repent and that he still has grace for us and that Christ's blood will shed for all those who do not deserve it not for the good not for the well behaved but for the sinner I pray that we would repent of our sin that we would partake in communion as those who are forgiven and free and who your blood
Speaks a better word on our behalf in Jesus name amen they're going to play a little music and as you pray and reflect when you feel led get up and take communion and then we'll sing together in a moment I'm going to open up two ahead how are you there you
The Fall
Transcript
Well, all right. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab a Bible. Go to Genesis chapter 3. We're working our way through the book of Genesis.
And we're in Genesis chapter 3. And so far in the book of Genesis, it has been great. Everything is working perfectly. The world is beautiful. The grass is green. The birds chirp.
Everybody's frolicking around naked and happy. And today it's not going to go so well. One of the things that we all collectively agree on, and it doesn't matter kind of your worldview, and it doesn't really matter your approach to faith or your approach to God. It doesn't really matter your understanding of origin. One of the things that we collectively agree on is that this world isn't perfect. That there are things that are broken in it.
There are things that are marred in it. There are things that are wicked. All you have to do is watch the news for a little while. Like if you're at your house and you're like, I'm having a pretty good day. I'd like to be depressed. Just open a news app.
Watch the news for a little while. I know Jimmy Fallon for a little while would do good news. They just had news anchors read made-up good news stories to try to make everybody feel better. So it's like two minutes of them just saying happy things, and it was the weirdest thing to ever see news anchors do. But they'd use their little news anchor voice, and they'd be like, this just in.
Puppies are still cute. And then they would turn to the other camera, and they'd be like, When asked his favorite color, Barack Obama excitedly answered all of them before hugging the questioner. Like it would just do two minutes of like this happy news because that's not what we get. That's not what happens, and it doesn't matter what your belief system is. Everybody can kind of collectively say, no, this isn't how this should work. And then the argument comes not that everything is broken but how to fix it.
That's where we begin politics. That's where we begin these discussions. That's where we have debate is in the answer of how do we fix this. Not that it's broken. Nobody's ever said, we really need to work on this issue. And someone said, I don't even know of those issues at all.
I don't see that. I don't see how hunger is a problem. I don't have a problem. No, we all agree that there's something broken. And so what we're going to see in Genesis is kind of how this unfolds. One of the complaints that happens towards Christianity, and these two complaints happen at the exact same time, and it's kind of interesting, but if you'll listen out for them, you can hear them.
One of the complaints towards Christianity is that it takes a beautiful world. We have this beautiful earth, and everything's nice, and Christians come along and say, no, it's terrible. People are sinful. People are wicked. You're wicked. Like, Christianity is just, like, mad at everybody, and so, like, the world is just, like, happy rainbow place, and Christianity comes by and spray paints garbage on it.
Like, that's kind of a complaint that you'll get. The other side, though, at the exact same time, they'll say that the world is broken and chaotic, and there's death and pain, and Christians come along and just spray paint a little smiley face on it, and we're all like, we're happy, and we have hope. Like, that's, these two complaints are happening at the same time, and the truth is Christianity does 100% say the world is broken, and you are wicked. And if this is your first time hanging out with us, welcome. You're wicked. Intro to Christianity.
You are a sinner. But we also collectively at the same time 100% say, no, the world is beautiful, and it is glorious, and there is hope, and we get to see right now at the very beginning of Scripture where we get that, where that concept comes, that there is beauty and majesty beyond what you understand. There's hope beyond compare, and that we're more depraved and more wicked, and things are more broken than you could believe. So let's pray, and then we'll start reading the text. God, we thank you for this time that we have to study your word. We pray that you would use it to correct us and to train us, to convict us, and to change us.
And we ask for your power through your Holy Spirit to do that today. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so we're going to pick up in Genesis chapter 3, and so far what's happened in Genesis 1 and 2 is that God created everything in Genesis 1. He spoke it into existence. And then we saw that He kind of paused on day 6, and He created humanity in His own image. And then in chapter 2, we see this kind of zoomed-in look of what that looked like and how God created Adam and Eve, and He designed them, and He blessed them, and He surrounded them with everything they needed to flourish and to have joy.
And the last verse of chapter 2 is this, And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. That's where it ended. Now, that's a pretty little picture of marriage. They're in a garden. They have good things to do. Their needs are supplied for, and they're naked and not ashamed.
There's no shame. There's freedom. And some of you think, that sounds awful. And you'll see why in a second, why we can't have that anymore, why that doesn't work the way it's supposed to anymore, why nudist colonies are weird. We're going to get there. But it's a beautiful picture that God began humanity this way.
Chapter 3, verse 1. Now the serpent, it's a snake. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He's sneaky. He's up to something. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Okay, so we've got to understand a little bit what's going on here because this is kind of a weird intro to this story. So it says that of all the animals God made, the serpent was the sneakiest, the craftiest. We're told later in the book of Revelation that this is actually Satan, that he's the ancient serpent. So that Satan has infiltrated God's good garden.
Satan has infiltrated God's good design, and he is now at work against God. And he starts speaking to the woman, and he asks about this tree, and we read about it in chapter 2 and chapter 2, where God says, You may eat of any tree in the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it, you will die. That's all he said. Don't eat of that tree. So the snake comes along, and he says, Now we've got to pause for a second, because if you're new to this, you may want to go, Bible's cool with talking snakes?
Nobody's batting an eye at that? Like, you want to lean and look at the rest of your row like, y'all cool with that? Like, we're just, we're going to pretend like this isn't weird? A few things on that. One is, the Bible doesn't act like animals just talk. There's a later in the Old Testament where a donkey talks, and that was miraculous, and everybody acted like it was weird.
But God used a donkey to speak was a miracle that he performed. It wasn't like, yeah, animals used to talk. They didn't believe that. So they're having the same response, which is, wait, why is the snake talking to her? But it makes sense that Eve would not have been necessarily surprised or thrown off by this.
And the reason it makes sense is that Eve lives in a world where nothing bad has ever happened. She lives in a world where everyone and everything is to be trusted because there aren't any lies, there aren't any evil, there's no brokenness, there's no pain. So a snake talks to her, and she thinks, neat, I guess. I guess that's what she thinks. She doesn't freak out, but that's, it's the same with where you have to teach a children about strangers. Like, my wife was doing something the other day, and she told my son, he's three now, he's going to be sitting in the room by himself.
She was like, if anybody comes to the door, come get me, don't answer the door. He was like, okay. She was like, not even for the mailman, because he knocks on her door sometimes. And he was like, well, I can let the mailman in. And she was like, no, you can't. He's like, yeah, I know the mailman.
She's like, no, you don't. He's like, yeah, I do. And it's like, no, you do not know him. We're having to like explain to him like, no, no, no, no, you've seen him before, but you don't know him. He's not your friend. He's nice, I guess.
He's the mailman. Don't open the door. Like we have to explain to him. He doesn't get the concept. And so snake starts talking to her. And if a snake started talking to you, you would run away.
You'd have a better reaction. But she didn't because she doesn't understand yet. There's no evil yet that she knows about. Okay. So the serpent says, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
And we know that this is Satan. We do believe that Satan is real and he is at work to undercut what God has done. And we, it's really interesting that we get to see this unfold. And I want to, I want to tag something before we go any further in this story. I want to highlight something for us. There are some people who will try to argue that this is just an allegory.
This is just a little picture of try to give us an understanding of our world. But the Bible does not treat it that way. It treats it as if this is a real event with two real humans, Adam and Eve, who are the original pair that God created. And we believe that there was a literal Adam and Eve that God made. That he designed. The Bible treats it that way.
The New Testament assumes they're real. It treats Adam as a real man. It treats just the way it treats Jesus as a real man. And so we believe that this was a real couple with real events and a real description of what's going on. So the serpent says to her, did God actually say you should not eat of any tree in the garden?
And this is interesting because what he does is he comes along and he says something that's kind of outlandish. He stands next to her, slithers next to her. And then he says, huh. So you're not allowed to eat any of this, which isn't true at all. It's we just told in chapter two that God gave him all the fruit to eat except for one tree. But he does this blanket statement.
He still does this to us today. The enemy comes along and says, huh. So God's just anti love. So God doesn't believe that two people who love each other should have a, huh. So God just doesn't want you to have any fun.
Oh, so God just doesn't want you to be happy. Like he comes along and makes these outlandish statements. It automatically puts us off, off guard on the defense. So here's what she says. We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.
Now, God did not say that. He said, don't eat of it. He didn't say, don't touch it. Now we don't know if Adam told her that or if she added it, or if she was confused, we just know that that's not what God said. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
What we're going to get to see this morning as we continue through this passage is how sin works. We're going to get to see how we're tempted, how we respond once we have sinned and how we ought to respond in our sin. And so what he says to her is, you will not surely die. And this is something that the enemy continues to do. He tells us that there will be no judgment. What God said won't happen.
That's not true. You won't actually get in trouble. It's not that bad. You won't die. That was an overstatement. That's not really how that works.
Look at it. He knows. And then he tells her that God's a liar. You'll not die. For God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, some of that is true.
She will be like God, knowing good and evil. But what he's impressing upon her, what he's making her believe is that God is withholding something good from you. Now, of good and evil, which one does she not know anything about yet? Evil. She knows good. God placed her in a garden and it was good.
God brought her and Adam together and said it was good. God ends creation by saying that everything is very good. What has he withheld from her? Evil. So the enemy comes by and he says, he's withholding from you.
But what's he withholding? Evil. No. And so often that is what we have to understand is true about sin. It's true about the things that God steps in and says, you don't want that. It's that he's not withholding good things from us.
He's withholding things that are harmful, things that will destroy us, things that hurt us. And some of you feel the way she feels today. Is God good? Is he withholding from me? Does he really have my best interest in mind? So, verse eight.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And this is how temptation works. We are always sinning visually and mentally prior to sinning actively. So she looks at it and she starts convincing herself. She sees that it's going to taste good. She sees that it looks good, that this fruit is pretty, it's lovely.
And then she starts telling herself what it'll accomplish for her, that it'll make her wise. She completely buys in to what the enemies told her. She's elevated herself to the position of God and she doesn't even know it. You see, what she's done is she's placed herself to where she gets to evaluate whether what God said was true or good or not. C.S. Lewis said that it used to be that we understood as humans that we were the ones on trial before God, that God got to sit in the judge's seat and we stood before him in the dock, which is the place where you would stand to be judged.
And he says, but we flip this and we've put God in the dock and we sit in the judge's seat. That we're the ones who get to decide whether or not he's right. We're the ones that get to evaluate whether or not what he said was true or not. And so she places herself where she is now convincing herself to do this and elevating herself above God. She wants to be like God, forgetting that she was already made in God's image. So she talks herself into it.
And this is what we do. This is how we approach sin. We see something that we want and we start convincing ourselves that it'll be good for us. We see something that we desire and we start talking about, you know, I'd look really nice with that. That would be really good. My granddad was a pastor and I remember him telling this story one time in a sermon.
He said when he was little, his family didn't have a lot of money and he remembers going to school and kids would bring in 10 lunchboxes. And they started bringing those in and they had different colors and he saw them and he really wanted one, but he knew there was no way his family was going to be able to get one. And so he said, he watched the little kids at his lunchbox next to the swings and go get on the swings and start swinging. He saw the lunchbox. And it started to like glow and get bigger. Like this was his window.
This was his moment. So he snuck over there and he says he stood watching the kids swing up in the air, swing back, swing up in the air. And he said he swung in the air and he owned a lunchbox. And he swung back towards the ground and he no longer owned a lunchbox. My granddad, while he swung in the air, didn't own a lunchbox. And when he swung back down, my granddad was the new owner of a beautiful lunchbox.
He had picked it up when he was in the air and started walking off with it. He had seen something and he had begun to convince himself that he needed that. He pictured what it would be like. He knew how much joy it would bring to him, how much life it would bring to him. And any of us who have actively pursued sin, we should know what's about to happen. We should see what happens next.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. Now we should all be shocked. Everybody's jaw should hit the floor with what happens next. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. The text did that on purpose. It's a twist.
They just M. Night Shyamalan'd us. We all assumed Eve is by herself talking to this serpent. And all of a sudden in this moment, she bites and then we're told, and he just almost appears in the story. She hands it to her husband who was with her. What was Adam doing?
I can tell you it was not what he was supposed to be doing. Adam and Eve were in charge over all of creation. Adam was given the role to keep this garden, to guard, to keep it, to defend it. And there's a serpent in here. And we can assume it's okay for the serpent to be there. But as soon as the serpent starts questioning God, Adam and Eve should have said, you don't have a place here anymore.
You're not welcome here anymore. But do y'all want to know what Adam did? And men, do you want to know that we're tempted to do it today? We're told later in 2 Timothy that Eve was deceived, but that Adam was not. She was tricked. Adam wasn't tricked.
He was waiting to see if she would die is my best guess. He just, he was going to see how it went. Did it work out for her? He just kind of put her out in front of him and was like, we'll see. If she dies, I got more ribs. That's my best guess.
He was like, you want to make this decision? We'll see if it works. And husbands still do this. I don't think that's the correct decision. I don't think it's how we should handle our money. But you know what?
Hop out in front. And if it falls apart, I'll stand back here and know I was right. You can take the beating. You can hold the bag. And he let her just, he just waited. She ate.
He was like, is that good? She didn't fall over. Cool. But there was a slight delay on what happened. And all of us who've sinned know this feeling. She gave it to her husband who was with her and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Now the text is assuming that we know what it feels like to be naked in front of people. But we have a clue as to what showed up. See, what we read earlier in the chapter two was that man and the wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now they know they're naked and they're what?
Ashamed. Shame enters the world. And I don't know if you've ever been embarrassed or felt shame but it crawls up the back of your neck and it covers you. I don't know if you've ever been in a moment where you got caught red-handed or you broke something and then your parents show up and you're trying to explain to them that you and you can just tell that your face is it feels like your head has swollen up and you've turned bright red and you know they know you're lying and bees like this is what happened. That they got what they wanted which was the knowledge of good and evil. But it wasn't what they thought it would be.
And for all of us who've convinced ourselves to sin and to pursue something. Sometimes it happens immediately. Sometimes it takes a little while but we always get what we chased after. And it ends up being not what we thought it would be. You see my granddad said that after he began to walk away with his new lunchbox for the first little bit he could just tell how handsome he was and how good he looked. People knew how wealthy he was because he had this nice lunchbox.
And the further he went the more he realized he felt like everybody was looking at him and that lunchbox got heavier and heavier and heavier and the weight of it became unbearable. And he felt like he was exposed. That everyone would know that he was a fraud and everybody would know whose it was and like this was going to fall apart and so he said he walked back while the kid was still on the swing and he went up in the air and he didn't own a lunchbox and when he came back down he did. But this one wasn't as easily returned. So here's what happens to us in our sin.
We are exposed. It sticks to us. We feel it. It's that moment in the dream when you're giving the presentation at work or in front of a class and suddenly you realize in your dream that you don't have any clothes on. This has been imprinted in us that we're exposed and shame covers them. And so here's how they respond and you'll see that this is how we respond that we learned all of our beautiful tricks from them.
It says and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. So fig leaves are just a big leaf so they found some and they covered themselves up. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. This is one of our favorite and first responses to sin. We try to cover it up and we try to hide. I'm going to give you some of the ways that we cover sin up.
One of my favorites has been to promise myself very sincerely that this is the last time I'll ever do that. And I'm an honest person so I believe myself. Okay. Alright. That's a fig leaf. That's all that is.
Okay. You know what? I did sin but you know I'm not ever going to do that again. And I can always tell this is so wicked in my heart because that's in that same moment I'll be saying this. The reason I don't have to tell anybody. The reason I won't have to talk to my community group about this is that this was the last time and it'd be weird to talk to them about the last time I ever did something and I don't need to bring that up and this will be the last time and I promise it'll never happen again and I just try to convince myself but that's all that is is me trying to cover it up.
We try to cover it up with religious activity. I don't know if y'all know this but religion the idea that we can do things that make God love us we can do things to stand before God and say we're presentable all that is is elaborate fancy fig leaves. It's ornate fig leaves. See we're Christians. We believe that we don't come to God and present to Him things that we have done that make us worthy and valuable and lovable. We believe that we were made lovable that we fell into our sin and that Christ had to remake us that He had to die for us and that we present what Christ has done on our behalf to God.
We don't present what we have done but good works and religious activity is a fig leaf. I've been bad I've sinned but now I'm going to be good. Now I'm going to work really hard I'm going to turn over a new leaf. You ever heard that? Just add fig leaf to it. It'll be more biblical.
Turning over a fig leaf. I'm going to be good now. I'm going to behave now. I'm going to sow oh you don't even know my sowing skills are beautiful. I will look so good in these fig leaves. That's what we do.
That's what religious activity is. I'm going to work really hard and I'm going to prove to God that I'm okay because I'm going to make up for all the stuff that I did that was messed up. We hide. Oh man we hide. How many of us are sitting in here today and we have a few things that we've told ourselves you can never tell anybody that. I'll confess some things.
I'll confess some sins but I'm not confessing this one. Everything would fall apart if I did. This one I'll take to the grave. This is the one I'm hiding forever. If I tell people this there's no way I can keep going. There's no way they'll still love me and I just want you all to know that's such a trick.
I want you to understand that when you do that when you're in a community group and you've convinced yourself I don't have to confess this. I'll never tell them this. If they really knew about it they wouldn't really love me. But the problem is you never feel really loved because you know they don't know you. You consistently continue to tell yourself yeah but if they really knew and so we hide it. That's what they did.
They covered themselves in front of each other and then they hid from God which means that God's a little more unbearable in our sin. You ever have a friend it's like I remember in high school when I was walking late to class and you're like hurrying and you're trying to I gotta be and then you see someone else who's in your class and immediately both of you are just like hey cool. This is not so bad to walk in late with somebody. Do you know what I'm saying? So there's some amount of in our sin we can find a little bit of company but not before God.
And so we hide and I just want to ask how's that working for you? How's hiding working for you? Because it doesn't work well for them and God in his grace does something that I hope he is doing for us today. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him where are you?
And I hope God's doing that today. And for some of you who have been hiding who have been running who have tried to make the most elaborate fig leaves I hope that God right now in his grace is saying where are you? That he's calling you out. Some of you have no desire there's a part of you that has no desire to follow Jesus has no desire for any of this stuff. You hear us talk about community groups every week and you're like they sound like they're the worst. Some of you have been to a community group once or twice and you're like I hate this but you keep coming here and I'm praying our hope is that it's because God keeps saying no, no, no, no, no, no.
Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? And he said that's Adam I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Now is that true?
Kind of. This is another thing we love to do in our sin. Anybody ever been in a community group and half confess the thing? Just me? Okay, you don't have to raise your hand it's cool. You kind of confess like what he hid because he was naked or because he did the thing that God told him not to do?
Yeah, me and my wife we're just kind of struggling right now I want you to pray for us. You don't say I'm really stressed out at work so when I come home I yell at my children I yell at my wife and then I start drinking just to calm myself down. I do that every day. You say you're struggling and you need some prayer but that's the I hid because I was naked. He doesn't say I'm hiding because you remember that tree you told us not to eat of? We both did and I did and I willfully did it even though I think she was tricked I wasn't and that's why I ran away.
He doesn't say that. It's like a kid you hear a lamp break and you come in the other room and there's a kid there holding the cord and you're like did you break that lamp? And they're like what are lamps? I've never even heard of this. I don't even understand the concept. No, this was I was trying to fix it.
That's what we do. We kind of confess a thing because we know we're supposed to but we have this other part that we hold back or we try to make it sound a little better and we think we're clever. They did this on their own with no help off the cuff and they taught us how. We're going to see the next way that we respond to our sin. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Just wanted to point out the fig leaves didn't work.
If he had made really good fig leaves he wouldn't be hiding behind a tree. He said who told you that you were naked have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? God does this in an interrogation style but he knows the answers to the questions. the man said here's our next go-to the woman whom you gave to be with me gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Who gets blamed at the very last part of the sentence? I ate. He doesn't say I ate.
He doesn't answer yes I ate. He says the woman whom you gave to me she he's hoping he gets confused by the end of the sentence. She gave me some food we were there there's a snake like he just and how much do we do that? How many of us downplay our sin and we say things like this? Yeah when I was in high school I made some mistakes because I was kind of running with a rough crowd. So they weren't sins and they weren't willful they were mistakes you know like when you spill milk on somebody it was a mistake and it really what me was the rough crowd.
And it really what me was the rough crowd. I wasn't really a part of them I was there when we made the mistakes but I wasn't like how many of us do that? How many of us do this? Yeah we're having some problems but my wife yeah I know I did that but if you knew my parents if you understood what my husband was like how many of us
Elevate ourselves as Eve did to evaluate what God says and then use blaming others and blaming God God I know your word says this and I know it seems clear but I also know that I'm in a circumstance that you probably don't understand and they didn't really understand the circumstance when they wrote this and if people knew what my wife was like people knew what my children were like
People knew what my boss was like if people like if you just it's in us to sin to cover to hide to blame God you're the one who made me like this I love the movie Fiddler on the roof it's a play but I love the movie I haven't seen the play very often and he says Tevye says dear Lord you made many many poor people and I realize
It's no shame to be poor but it's no great honor either and would it have been so terrible if I had a lot of money he kind of looks at God and that's what we do we look at God and we say we know but why not me why am I in this situation why were my parents like that why did my life work out like that why are my children like that and it's this idea that God
Somehow is to blame for our choices and our actions and our sin and we got it from Adam who passed all this down to us then the Lord God said to the woman so God says she gave me the tree and I ate and the Lord God says to the woman what have you done and she does another thing that we do she says
The serpent deceived me and I ate she was deceived she was tricked he tricked me so we blame evil we blame the concept of evil we say yeah well you know the world's a messed up place we're just living in the system so the Lord God said to the serpent and he's about to curse the serpent he's about to curse Adam and Eve
And we're going to notice something in the text they do not immediately die but death enters the world and spiritual death enters the world we notice spiritual death entering the world the moment that the relationship between them is fractured and they have to hide from God they're no longer alive the way they were they're no longer designed the way they were everything's broken and that's how sin works
It takes a good thing and it twists it there is no evil that stands alone there's only evil that corrupts something that God has already made good and so some of us some people maybe want to read this and go hold on a second time out this seems like a very over aggressive heavy handed response to eating some fruit fruit I think death is overkill but the truth is this it wasn't just that they ate fruit
Every sin R.C. Sproul says every sin is an act of treason it doesn't matter how big we deem it that if God is the king of the universe and we decide to have an uprising against him to revolt against his good will revolt against his good design that we want to elevate ourselves to his position that we want to get rid of his decrees that we want to sit in his throne that we want to be
The king over our lives it's treason and that death is an appropriate punishment for traitors for those who would usurp the throne so the Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field and on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring you shall bruise your head and you shall bruise
His heel so God curses the serpent and then he says this I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring and we're going to talk about that again in a second but it's kind of this prophecy of what's going to happen and then to the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing pain existed before the fall in small measure it was a helpful thing he says he's going to
Multiply it I have two children my wife recently had a baby he's about six months old I think that came true that he multiplied pain and childbearing it's bad and she was like they gave her drugs we've done some things by God's common grace to kind of fight some of that and then he says your desire shall be contrary to your husband and he shall rule over you or your desire will be for your husband and he shall rule over you depending on which way they translate
That phrase in your Bible but there's this idea that what was going to be a beautiful kind of marriage dance like this perfectly leading perfectly stepping in time with one another is now broken and there will be pain when it comes to children and there will be pain in relationships and there will be pain between men and women as a result of sin and to Adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree I have that I made a big board
And I put that up in my house so that anytime my wife tries to tell me anything I point at it it's not true you guys my wife's small but she's fiery so what his point there is not that you shouldn't listen to your wife what his point is that what we were talking about earlier where rather than leading rather than serving rather than defending he put his wife in a position to take the blame and to take the fall and then blamed her because you've listened to the voice of your wife
And have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you you shall not eat of it cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat of the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return death enters the world pain enters the world and we will now survive by scratching and clawing and by the sweat of our face we'll be able to make it until we will have fruitless
Active fight scratch claw tooth and nail to eat by the sweat of our face and then at the end of that we die that that's what we have that's what's happened because of sin and that's the world that we live in where everything is beautiful and good and designed by God and there's so much loveliness and there's so much majesty and that it's so completely marred by sin and our relationships are marred by sin and our relationships
To God are marred by sin and to each other and it's broken apart and that's where we live and that's who we are and then he says this the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them then the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life that was also in the middle of the garden and eat and live forever
Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken he drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life so God sends them out of the garden he sends them out they've been removed from the place he made for him their relationship with each other is broken their relationship with him is broken and they're sent now cursed
To try to work and make it and eventually die and this is us and this is where we find ourselves but there are three pictures of the gospel in this text and I want to encourage us the way we want to respond to sin the way you want to respond to sin is you want to use Adam and Eve as a playbook cover hide blame I want to cover I want to hide I want to blame I want to get myself
As separate from this as possible I want to do enough good works to make this go away I want to do my little religious activity I want to do these things so that God will love me that I'll be okay I want to try to make up for it I want nobody to know but I want us to see how we ought to respond to our sin in the back part of this chapter that we just read so he looks at pick back up in verse 14 Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts
Of the field and on your belly you shall go and dust you out shall eat all the days of your life I will put enmity meaning you'll be enemies with between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel now the New Testament does some interesting stuff with this that he's going to have offspring what we see is that the enemy is going to be destroyed he's going to have his head bruised
Although he's going to harm the one who does this he's going to have his head bruised by a specific and that singular offspring it's not ancestors it's ancestor he says I'll put in between you you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring everywhere in the Bible that a genealogy is done it is done father to father to father to son father to son father to son every once in a while the highlight a female if we know a little bit about their story
Here God says there's going to be a woman who's going to give birth the only person in the Bible and the only person in the world that was born without a father on earth was Jesus so God makes this promise to the enemy I'm going to send someone who's going to crush you the first way we ought to respond to our sin is to acknowledge that we're not the ones who get to beat it you're not the one who's able to overcome this you're not the one who's able to fix the promise fix the problem God has promised
Someone else to do it secondly it says this in the text look at verse 21 and the Lord God made for Adam and Eve and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them God did not look at them and say no no no don't cover yourself stay naked he says I've got a better covering I've got a better covering than what you can accomplish the second thing that we ought to do in our sin is to go to God and expose our sin
So that he can cover it that's what happens in Christ see we're told that everything that we hide gets uncovered everything that we hide gets exposed that on the last day God's going to bring it forth that what we whisper he's going to shout from the rooftops but that everything that we expose everything that we bring to him in our sin he covers and so they had to come to him and they had to remove their fig leaves they had to quit hiding
And let him cover them we're clothed in the new heavens and the new earth by God's glory by Christ's grace lastly then the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken he drove out the man at the east of the garden of Eden
He placed the cherubim that's a type of angel and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life the way back to the tree of life is for someone to face the sword of God's wrath the only way to make it back to the tree of life is to face God's wrath and so the way we respond is we admit that we can't fix this problem we expose our sin before God and we place our faith
In Jesus who took the wrath of God on our behalf so that we might re-enter the garden and be given life see Jesus Christ fixes what falls apart here in Genesis chapter 3 and that's our hope it's the only hope we have that we would trust him who died for us and rose again that we might have life Raz and Kelly are going to come back up some of you have been hiding you've been hiding for a long time
Some of you have some actual fig leaves that work they work around other people Adam and Eve could have kept on going with the fig leaf thing until God showed up and some of you that's what you've got you've got acceptable fig leaves for your family for your co-workers for your neighbors but one day you stand before God and everything gets exposed and so I would encourage you to go to God and lay yourself bare to confess your sin
To be open about it to admit that you're wrong and place your faith in Jesus who takes God's wrath on your behalf that you might have life that the way to the tree of life is open again because Jesus Christ went to a cross and took God's wrath on our behalf so in a second Raz is going to play the guitar and give us a little bit of time to just pray to reflect some of us believe in Jesus but we've been hiding we have some things we need to repent of some people need to go grab somebody and talk to them that's in your group
And confess some sin and work some things out and then when you're ready when you've confessed when you've dealt with your relationship with the Lord and with others if you're a Christian in the room we'd invite you to take communion which is where we celebrate that Jesus Christ's body was broken for us that his blood was shed for us and that we have a new covenant with him not based off of our work or our labor or our ability but based off of his and if you're not a Christian in a moment while everybody else is taking communion please just stay where you are
And then we'll have a chance to sing and pray and be dismissed and if you've never placed your faith in Jesus you can't because it's not about your work it's about his so we would encourage you to expose your sin have Christ cover you with his love and his good work and then you may take communion as well let's pray God we thank you for how good you are thank you for the love that you've shown us I pray right now Lord that you would help us feel the weight of our shame
And our guilt and our sin before you that we would not grow comfortable with it that we would not begin to accept it and therefore never get rid of it I pray that we would confess that we would be honest that we would be real about where we are that you might cover us and clean us refresh us and give us life in Jesus name Amen
The First Man and Woman
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bibles, go to Genesis chapter 2. We are walking through the book of Genesis. Genesis is the first book in the Bible, probably on page 1, no matter what Bible you have, whichever which Bible you have.
If you do not own a Bible, we have blue ones in the row next to you. We'd love for you to grab one. We'd love for you to take it home. We want you to own a Bible. We want you to read it often. I have been married for, it'll be nine years this year, and I have gotten fairly competent at building things out of particle board.
There's not much in our house that is made out of any kind of solid material, but we have a lot of particle board. And I have built bookshelves and tables, and we've got a three-year-old now, and he'll jump up on particle board like coffee table, and I'm like, yeah, that thing's days are numbered. Like, this isn't going to last long. But we don't have a whole lot of real stuff, but there's different times when you buy something, and it looks nice in the store, it looked nice on the box, and then you pour all this stuff out, and you have no clue who originally wrote these instructions, and then even less of an idea of who then translated them, but they don't really match.
The pictures aren't great, and there have been times when I've been building something that I hit, you know, step seven, and all of a sudden I'm like, I just have to, like, step back away from it and stare at my creation, and it's like, I think something's wrong here. I think something's out of place. This picture doesn't look like this. I'm not even sure these instructions go to this. I think I'm missing some pieces. This isn't great, and since having a child, I've built even more things that don't even get me started on, like, train tables.
Like, there's just these moments where I have to step back and go, okay, I don't know if my instructions match. I don't know if I'm doing this the way it's meant to be done. And I think for a lot of us, life feels like that. I think for a lot of us, there are moments in life that kind of feel like that. Like, it just started happening. You just started making decisions.
Maybe for you, this kind of starts, I think really kind of starts, people actually start making some decisions in middle school. We've actually encouraged you before to reevaluate all your middle school decisions because some of us made decisions in middle school that we've just stuck with, and maybe we need to think back through those. But there are these decisions we make in middle school and high school, and then we kind of get out of high school, and we kind of pick, we're going to go to work, or we're going to go to college. We date some people. Maybe we get married. Maybe we don't.
Maybe like, and there's all of a sudden, there's these moments in life where you just kind of step back, and you look at your life and go, have I done this right? Is this built correctly? Did I miss a step? Am I missing some pieces? What is going on here? And so as we look at the beginning of Genesis where God is creating humanity, what we want to see today is kind of the good gifts that God places around the first man and the first woman, what he gives them, what he equips them with, so that we might better understand what is our life meant to have?
What are the pieces that are supposed to be involved? What order are they supposed to be in? How are we supposed to understand what's meant to be a part of life, and how do we live well in all the good gifts that God gave us? So that's kind of what we're doing, that as we zoom back on life at times and try to figure out, oh, I have everything here, we're going to hopefully see in God's original creation what he said, no, you need this, you need this, you need this, in order to be designed the way he designed humanity, to flourish and to be healthy. So let's pray, and then let's read the text together.
God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for how helpful it is, and we pray that as we see the beauty of your creation in Genesis 2, that you might help us to rejoice, and you might help us to worship, and that we might leave today grateful for Jesus and his good work on our behalf. Lord, we love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to pick up in verse 4, and we're going to kind of throughout the day walk through the rest of this chapter, but it says, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
This is the first of 10 times that we'll see this phrase, these are the generations, in the book of Genesis. Every time we hit that, we kind of know we're hitting a new section, a new kind of idea is being opened up, a new chapter in the book, and so it's saying, these are the generations, meaning these are the people, this is the stories we're going to tell kind of in this time frame, and so he says, in the time when God was creating and his beginning of creation and him in the time frame, that's what the day means there, in the time that God was making heavens and the earth, these are the people, this is what happened, and so verse 5, when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground, then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So in the opening of the Bible, we have Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and both of them are giving an account of some of the same historical things that took place. They're giving an account of some of the same events.
So Genesis 1 is going to give this big, cosmic account of creation, how God, the God of the universe, exists before everything else. That's why it starts in, in the beginning God, like he was here before everything else was here, and that he speaks everything into existence, and it's this orderly account of God's creating and kind of the way that he created. And then Genesis 2 is going to start back up, kind of in the middle of that, and zoom way in. So Genesis 1 is this big, cosmic picture of who God is and how powerful he is and how glorious he is and how he speaks everything into existence.
And then Genesis 2 is going to jump right in, and the main character is man fairly quickly. It's saying kind of nothing was ready yet, nothing was going on, and then God creates man. And some people will read Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and say there's some conflict there. There are some places where if you just do a straightforward reading of each, it seems like they're in conflict. I don't believe that they are. I think the purpose is different so that Genesis 2 is telling the same story but in a different way.
And you know this. You meet some people who both were in on the same event, and you ask them how it went, and maybe your granddad says it like just real matter of fact and real logical and real in order, and it's not the best story, but you got some of the facts there. Well, this happened, and then this happened, and your grandmother and I at that time were, and like he tells it that way, and maybe your grandma's chaotic. She's all over the place. She's like telling this part of the story, and you're like, wait, I didn't think y'all had kids then. She's like, oh, well, we didn't, but they came later, and she just mixes it all up, but her story's way better, and it's from the same events, and they're both true.
That's kind of what we have here where Genesis 2 is going to zoom in and say this is the main point of the story. So when it talks about trees, when it brings up these other things, it's just kind of saying God did that, but it's not trying to tell you an order. It's not trying to make this a big, it's saying let's focus in on the main part here. So that's what we have in Genesis 2, and so let's look at as God creates humanity, and as Genesis 2 zooms us in on this, let's look at what God places around man. So go back to 5.
When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So in Genesis 1, God speaks, and it is. God speaks, and it is. God speaks, and he sees it. It immediately happens, and then there's this, in Genesis 2, we see that God pauses, and we saw this last week as we looked at the man was formed in the image of God, that God pauses when he gets to humanity, and he approaches it differently.
That he forms, and he breathes, and there's this intimacy that is seen with humanity that is different, and in contrast to the rest of creation. That as the biblical account tells it, the stars have glory, but not compared to the glory of man. That God's good creation, animals have glory, but that God's poured extra distinct beauty and creative work and connection into humanity that is wholly different from the rest of everything else. And the Lord God, this is verse 8. So this is the first thing we're going to see that God kind of gives man.
So he makes him, and then we're going to start seeing kind of what he puts in place. And the first thing is a place, or place. God gives humanity place. Let's look at this idea. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Those two trees are going to play a very important role in the history of humankind, and we'll get more to them in a minute. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and onyx stone are there.
The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush, and the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. And the Lord God took the man, and he put him in the garden of Eden. And we'll stop there. God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden. So the first thing that God gives humanity is a place, and it is a specific place.
Some people will try to argue, and they're like, Genesis 2 is kind of this, it's an allegory, it's a picture, it's like, it's this, it's just kind of a story, but there wasn't like a real first man, real first woman, and we're going to see next week, we'll argue this out a little more. But yes, there were, because Eden is a very specific place. It didn't just say, once upon a time in a garden. It goes, no, in the east, and there was this river that ran into this river, and went to this land, that's not a part of this story, but that place has gold. Like, it just kind of keeps going, because it's telling you, it's a specific place on earth, and God takes Adam, and places him in a specific place on earth.
That we're designed to inhabit space. None of us can teleport. You had to wake up this morning, and move your body, and work really hard to get here. And some of us didn't make it here. There's some people who tried, and they're not here, you guys. They're in another place.
They inhabit other space right now. This is how this works. Some of you left family members at home. You were like, you're ruining this. I'm going. I will be there.
You will not. But we were designed to have a place that is ours, that is a home. And this is one of the beautiful things that God gives man. A place to belong. A place to be where he's meant to be. See, we're looking at just one man here, but this is actually what God is going to do for humanity.
He made earth this way for us, and that we're all only able to live in one place at a time, and only able to be in one place at a time, and that is a gift. It doesn't feel like it when you're at the DMV, but it is a gift that God designed us to inhabit space and to have places where we feel at home. You ever had those moments? I mean, it's not all the time, but there are these moments where you're just like, this is my place. This is where I belong. This is where I'm meant to be.
This is my home, and I don't know for you what that is. For some of you, it's the places that you, as you live in a place, maybe it's the restaurants and kind of your local haunts. I have restaurants. I had a Japanese restaurant when I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia. There's a Chinese restaurant that when I walk in, if I wasn't there the week before, there's a lady who's like, oh, I walked in the restaurant recently, and she went, it's not Thursday. It's like, yeah, my schedule changed.
I'll be here on Tuesdays, though. There are these places where you feel like, this is where I'm supposed to be. Maybe it's when you've come back from vacation, or maybe you joined the military, and when you got to come back from being downrange, there are these moments when you were like, yes, this is my home. This is my place. Maybe it's with family over Christmas or something where you're gathered together and you just have this moment. You can't describe it, and it's one of the things that C.S.
Lewis talks about in his book, Surprised by Joy, where you have this moment and you feel it, and as soon as you try to capture it or as soon as you try to look at it, it disappears. But there are these moments where you just feel, yes, I belong. I'm here. I'm meant to be here. I'm home. That's the first place that God gives it.
I want to point out something about this place that God gives. And I love that it talks about Havilah, and I love what it says about Havilah. So it says, God plants this garden in Eden, and then it starts talking about this river. And in verse 12, it says, in verse 11, it says, the name of the first river is the Pishon, and it is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah where there is gold. Verse 12, and the gold of that land is good. What does that have to do with the Garden of Eden?
As far as I know, it just helps place where it is, but this whole little, like if you were writing this, your teacher would circle the like, why are you talking about gold in Havilah? This has nothing to do with the rest of the story. Does Eden have gold? No. Does Havilah have gold? Yes.
Is it good? Yes. Where did God put Adam? In Eden. To work in a garden. What I love about that is that so often we long for other places and maybe you're supposed to be here where there is no gold.
That God placed you in a place and so often we get so, we wander and we convince ourselves that some other place should be our place. That we don't inhabit where we're meant to be and we don't enjoy the good gifts that are here. Some of you are so bothered by the fact that, you know, Charleston has the coast and they have these good types of food. And it's like, yeah, are you enjoying the river and the barbecue that's here? You've been to the zoo lately? Because if you were in Charleston and you wanted to see a lion, you're out of luck, bro.
And if you see a lion in Charleston, I got bad news for you. Something bad has happened. Like being in a place and enjoying the good things that God put there. That's a good gift that God gives humanity. He keeps going. We're going to see this in three spots.
It shows up in three spots, but we're going to hit it here. The second thing that we see that God gives man, it says this, verse 15, and the Lord God took the man and he put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. So God placed man there and he wasn't just like, hey, here's a beautiful garden. Take a nap. He says, hey, here's a beautiful garden. You got some work to do.
Because if you don't keep this up, it will not be a beautiful garden anymore. Isn't that crazy? I think we have this idea that prior to the fall, prior to sin, like back then, there was like, he just got to nap. That was it. God was like, here's green grass. Take a nap.
You know, he puts him there and he says, you got work to do. Later, he's going to have him name all the animals. Earlier, I love this. Verse five, it says, when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground. God designed certain plants to not exist if humans don't exist. Without humans, without us tending and toiling and working, it doesn't exist.
He designed it from the very beginning to need us to be involved, that God made the world that way. I heard a story one time of a pastor who used to ride by this plot of land and it was just overgrown. It was a big mess. He'd ride by it every day to and from work. Eventually, he saw there was a for sale sign in front of it and then the for sale sign was gone and then at some point he rode by and he saw that some of it had been cleared and then slowly over his trips he just kind of kept seeing it getting cleared and cleared and cleared and then things started being planted and it became this beautiful part of his drive.
He was driving by one day and he sees a tractor out there and he just gets out and he's staring at it and the guy kind of stops and gets off and they start talking and he goes, isn't it wonderful? Because he's a pastor so he pastors it up. He says, isn't it wonderful what man and God can do when they work together? And the farmer's like, you know, you should have seen what it looked like when just God was in charge of it. Every time I heard that, like it bothered me but that's actually how God designed it. From day one, there are things that were meant to only be good as humanity got involved.
Do you see the elevation and the purpose and the joy that God brings humanity in on his good work? That's the second thing he gives us is work. Good work to do. That he designed us to have a purpose. That none of us are meant to be here and just inhabit space but we're meant to be here and in the space that we are and in the place that we're put, we're meant to make it better. We're meant to add into it.
We're meant to do something with our hands or our intelligence or our ability to speak to others and love others and work together but we're meant to be a part of God's good work and that's a blessing. And you've had moments like that where you're doing some work, you're involved in something and you just have this glimpse of, now this is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is it. You have days at work when you come home and you're riding home and you're like, yes, that is what work is supposed to be like. I crushed it today. I am a worker and you liked it.
You don't always have days like that but there are days like that. There are times like that when you're doing something, when you finally, you were trying to cook the perfect breakfast and it just worked. You actually flipped the omelet and it landed and you thought, yes, from now on, I am the chef of the house. It was that one day, you've never done it again but you had these moments where it worked, where you felt your purpose and God gave us that as a good gift that was meant to be felt for humanity. It was meant to be a part of how we lived prior to the fall, prior to sin. Let's pick up the third gift that God gives is He gives us Himself and He gives us His Word.
Let's pick up in verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. Okay, that's part of place. He gives us food. That's just a blessing but it comes along with the provision of your place. I didn't want to add in food because I would talk forever about that.
I'd have way too much to say but food's good, you guys. Later He gives us meat but that's not until later. Right now it's just trees and like vegetables and stuff. I realize we don't really eat trees. All right, let's go.
And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. I find this part of the passage so interesting. It told us earlier that God plants a garden in Eden and in the middle of the garden He plants tree of life, tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden, in the middle, somewhere in the middle. It doesn't necessarily mean it was the exact center but it's in the middle. Now, I have a question. If there's a tree that they will eat of and it will kill them, why plant it there?
That's my, I was like, I'm not like a botanist or like an arborist or whatever but why when you were designing the garden did you put it like if I said, hey, I'm making my backyard perfect for my three-year-old and there's going to be a swing set over here and this area's just going to be kind of wooded and I'm going to have kind of where you can hang out and I'm going to put a pit with spikes in the middle and there's going to be a tree house. Like, you'd be like, what's with the pit of spikes? And I'm like, no, I'll tell him it's there. It's like, no, there's this question I have when I read this text.
It's like, why is that there? You want to know the text, the answer the text gives us? Unfortunately, it doesn't give us one. It doesn't tell us why he put it there. We have a lot of people who've made guesses and I think some of them are reasonable and some of them are intelligent but we don't know why God placed it there. We know that God is infinitely wise and infinitely good but I want to point out one thing about this that I think changes the minute that God says, don't eat of that tree.
See, the moment that God looks at Adam and says, you can eat of every tree except that one and if you eat of that one on the day you do, you'll die or in the time you do, you'll die. what happens that moment is Adam now has to trust God in a way that he never had to before. He has to believe God in a way he never had to before. He has to relate to God in a way he never had to before. That God is inviting Adam into a depth of relationship that is beyond what would happen if God had just put Adam in a padded room. We also see that it seems like that death and this kind of this interaction was going to be a part of creation somehow.
God had not designed it for humanity. It was not meant for this to be the way it worked but God places him there and he says, you're just going to have to trust me. And the moment he does that we're invited into humanity's invited into a relationship where we are more dependent on God and more have to believe him and trust him over and against our own desire and over against our own wisdom and over against everything else so there's this moment now where the relationship has changed and God has said you're just going to have to trust me. Those of you who are parents especially parents of older children maybe you've had these moments where you're trying to explain to them why they cannot do a thing you're trying to tell them that they should not act in such a way and their answer is why?
Their question is why? They want you to convince them. They want to be on your team. They want to agree with you and at some point you just land on because I am your parent because I love you because I have wisdom things you can't just you're going to have to trust me. Maybe you didn't say it that way maybe you said because I said so. Maybe some of you said because if you do they will be like I'm coming after you like I don't know how you worded it but there was these moments where the reason they're supposed to do or not do a thing is because you have told them and they're supposed to bank on the relationship and the love and the connection and your wisdom and lean into you in a way they can't lean into themselves and as soon as God says don't touch that tree he invited Adam into that.
That he gives us himself and his word and the truth is we need God to do that. We need God to enjoy life. This comes third in the list but it's first we need God. In the way humanity works we see that God's at work before he begins everything that humanity needs God. We were designed to relate to God. We were designed to enjoy God.
We were designed to walk with God. We were designed to have conversations with God. You ever had that moment I wish God would just tell me. That's how it was supposed to work. He still gives us his word in scripture but we were meant to have this relationship where we listened to him where we understood him where we knew what he wanted from us where he gave us wisdom we couldn't have otherwise. And it's a good gift that God gives us and it's the way it works best that we were designed to be in a relationship with God.
The way that children were designed to have parents and that's the way that it works best. We were designed as humans to be in a relationship with God and that's the way that we are most free and most flourish. There are things about the world we do not understand. There are spiritual aspects to the world we don't understand that God wove in who we are and how it works. We see it in glimpses of things like when you become depressed you also get physically sick. You can be actually sick.
What made you sick? I was sad. It's like how does that work? That there's more to us than we understand. There's more that God's put in the world and we need him to explain it to us and show it to us and we need to trust him and we were meant to. Prior to the fall we were meant to trust God and his wisdom over our own.
The next one we're going to see is that God gives us each other. Let's keep reading. Verse 18 Then the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. We've spent a decent amount of time talking about this in the past couple years. The first thing that God says isn't good is for him to be alone.
He looks at the man he's created in all of his creation so far in Genesis chapter 1 he said he saw it it was good he saw it it was good he saw it he ends by saying everything's very good. This is the one moment where God was like no it's not good for him to be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Real quick just to try to for anybody that this is a hurdle for the word helper while having kind of diminutive connotations in the way we use it like oh you're my little helper. like if Archer's helping me do work I'm like oh you're being such a good helper. He's not he's just hitting things with a hammer but it's like yeah good Job buddy.
And so it's like God looked at man and said oh I'm going to make you a little helper. And then that's where women came from. That's not that's that's that's why sometimes it seems like it reads the word helper in the Bible is most often used for God. There's only two instances where it is used to mean someone who is of a lower status. Every other time it's someone who shows up as like a rescuer. So it is not in the text and in the original Hebrew it is not meant to be diminutive.
Helper fit means that phrase really just kind of means a like opposite so he's going to make something that's similar but very different so that he's actually helped. So now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. This does show Adam's dominion over creation and God's place that he's put him in and whatever the man called every living creature that was its name. And the man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
So Adam you just think he's got a job and then at the end it surprises you because it was like a weird dating game because it's like but he didn't like any of them. None of them worked out. I think God was really putting that on display for him was like everything else is different from you. You are in a different category. So it's like zebras are neat but they're not like cute cute.
They're cute but not like I'm attracted. So that's what he's doing there. He's just kind of saying like this isn't going to work for you. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man. Then the man said this is at last this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
This is the first bit of poetry this is the first bit of song that we see that existed in human existence. Adam had the urge that every high school guy has had who had a guitar at a party which was to sing and look at a girl. That's what he did. He saw her and he was like I want to write you a poem. That's what happens. This is the last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she should be called woman because she was taken out of man.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Alright so in this part of the text there's a lot going on here and we're going to zoom way out but there's a lot of things happening here. Adam specifically Adam the one man that God had put on earth did not need to be alone and so God brings him Eve. So what the text is telling us is that Adam needed a wife specific to Adam. It also means that masculinity is incomplete without femininity. That God's distinct way that he displays his glory and himself through masculinity is not going to accomplish what the world needs so he also has a distinct way to display himself and his glory through femininity and they were meant to be complementary like opposites that come together to make a beautiful picture.
It means on another level that humans were meant to procreate and they're not going to be able to have dominion over the earth and be fruitful and multiply and accomplish all that God's meant without males and females but on a very zoomed out level one of the things that God is saying and completely writing into how he designed humans was that we were not meant to be alone and that does not just mean romantically that humans were meant to have relationships. This is why if you get trapped on an island you will start talking to a volleyball because we were meant for other people. We were meant to have relationships. We were designed and so in this moment God says no, no, no, no, no.
Humans need friends. Humans need relationship. Humans need love. That we're made in his image and God's existed in a trinity so that he's been forever loving and relating and being a friend and all of this. God did not make humans so that he could relate to us but he did once he made humans say no, y'all need to relate to each other. And if you think about all the ink that has been spilled all the film that has been used all the song lyrics that have been written about the beauty of friendship and love this is a good gift.
That God did not design you to just be alone but he designed you for family. He designed you for relationships. He designed you for friendship. And how much joy that brings to life. How we were designed to relate to one another and bring things out of each other. It's one of the things where you know like maybe you have a friend and when y'all hang out it's really enjoyable and there's a lot of fun but there's a third friend that when they add in you all of a sudden see a whole other side of this person that you'd never seen before and like you get more out of them because there's more people involved and God designed that to be a thing that happened for humanity that we had friends and enjoyed it.
So God in his goodness to us and his love for us intentionally made it to where you inhabit a place and you're meant to be there to be home to enjoy it to be content there. He designed you to have a purpose to have work to do. He designed you to relate to him and to know his word to trust him and he designed you to have relationships. We don't believe that everybody has to get married. We don't believe that the Bible teaches that. We don't believe that you're an incomplete person without a spouse.
We don't think that jives with the rest of the scriptures. We think that Adam was an incomplete person without a spouse because God specifically brought him Eve but we don't think that this means everybody has to have a wife but we do believe that everybody has to be in relationship. You were not designed to be alone. I'm going to be honest with you. You alone is scary. You need help.
One of the things that I know that is true about me when I'm alone is I let myself get away with a lot of things that aren't healthy or helpful. I convince myself of a lot of things that are harmful to myself and I also believe a lot of lies about myself like that I'm really easy to get along with and I'm the smartest person in the room. When I'm alone I'm super easy to get along with and I'm great you guys and then I get around my wife and she's like you're not that great you got some stuff to work on and I'm like what is wrong with you and I hang out with my community group and they're like why do you do this repeatedly? We've been hanging out in a group with you for years and you haven't fixed this and I need them to grow and to be healthy and to see my sin and I need them to enjoy life.
We're meant for relationship. God in his goodness gave us each other and I have really bad news. We're not going to end the sermon here and it's going to get way worse next week but I'm going to give you a little hint about what happens next week. Y'all remember that tree that God talked to Adam about? Well next week they decide not to trust God and that humanity is more intelligent than God that we know a better idea of what's good for us than God and they completely mess up all four of these things for us. They get derailed they get stolen they get corrupted.
And that humanity is more intelligent than God that we know a better idea of what's good for us than God and they completely mess up all four of these things for us. They get derailed they get stolen they get corrupted. We still long for all four of these. Every single person in this room wants a place where they belong wants a purpose that makes them feel fulfilled wants a job that is great for them
Wants to have a relationship with God even if you don't understand that even if maybe I always want to point it out to you you're in this room some of you think you have no desire for God whatsoever but he's been drawing you he's been pulling on you he's been claiming you he won't let you get away you're here because we know we were meant for we don't understand why but we know that it's missing and we need each other some of you
Think you hate people but you know you're way worse off without them you're like people are the worst and oh my goodness I have to have them I don't understand see what happens is this they sin and all of this good gift that God gives them they lose they're removed from Eden the good work that God had given Adam to do
In Eden is now just kind of dispersed and he has to move and try to try to patch it together everywhere he goes to work the ground but it's going to be harder the relationship they had with God where they walked with him intimately knowing him where he could just speak to them and they trusted him is completely corrupted and their relationship
With each other you know this line at the end of this where it said they were naked and unashamed which is like that's weird to put in here but alright good for y'all as soon as they sin as soon as they rebel against God both of them go I don't feel right they cover themselves up they feel naked they lose the relationship with each other so let me explain what happens let me explain us in this story
You kind of like your house if you just moved in it you think it's great we'll give it some time we have this idea that like this house is great but if my kitchen just and we pick weird things if it was just a different color I'd be happy I'd be settled if our floor looked a little different if maybe we were in a different part of town if maybe our house was a little bigger I realized that I wanted this but now I really kind of want that because the reason is
We were meant for a place and we really wanted to work for some of us we do this with cities you liked it when you were first discovering what Columbia has to offer but now that you're going for the third time to the same place and you realize that the best restaurant near you is like an Applebee's like that hurts you inside and you're thinking man if I could just move to Savannah if I could just move to Denver if I could just go somewhere
Where weed was legal and we need to talk to you we do this we convince ourselves that some other thing would be better some other thing would fill us up some other thing would make us more whole and we have these glimpses of it where I'm home and then it's gone this is my place no it's not because we've lost this and we long for it this happens with work any of y'all ever had the perfect Job just the perfect Job is it still the perfect Job nope
Because that's how it works you get in it and you're like finally I'm at my place this is where I belong and then it turns out this boss is an idiot like your last boss everywhere you've gone your boss is an idiot and it's not your fault it's the boss's fault you don't know how idiots keep getting promoted you have those days where everything worked you remember that day I was talking about you're riding home and you're like yes this is how everything was worked how many more days have you been sitting in traffic
Like wanting to bang your head on the steering wheel like this is I don't even understand how everything broke I don't understand how this all went sideways because we long for work we long for this to work and it's twisted it's broken it's corrupted our relationship with God this is a room full of people who are trying trying to read trying to pray trying to listen to God how's it going you have those days where you're like I don't even know how to pray I don't even know
If I've ever done this right I have days I'm a pastor you guys don't get rid of me I'm going to tell y'all something I have days where I go to sleep I'm about to go to sleep and I'm like did I even pray today? like I have this deep longing for God and this paired with this absolute inability to bridge that gap and we were meant for each other you guys for every beautiful love song just Taylor Swift has written a breakup song
How many people used to be your friend? we can rewind a little bit to the moments where you're like oh we're going to be best friends forever and where are we now? it's broken we hurt each other how many people that you care about have you done some serious wicked harm to evil we're going to talk more about that next week I want to tell y'all something beautiful the story starts off where God says I'm going to make
Everything good for y'all and it's going to be beautiful and he puts Adam here and he equips him with everything he needs and then Adam and Eve mess it up it breaks apart it falls down and the story does not end after chapter 3 see we're here the rest of this is about God fixing the problem and here's what he does he loves humanity so much that the God of the universe leaves his place see he was meant to be on a throne he was meant to be elevated
He was meant to be glorified we sang a song about this earlier that he comes here and he's a baby he's mute he's weak he's helpless he's laid in hay he leaves his place he was meant to be the ruler of the universe and to do all good work and to pour life into everything and his good work that he's sent here to do is to die the author of life the creator of life life itself is going to die
He was meant to have a perfect relationship with the father and every time we see in scripture that Jesus prays he calls him father until he's on the cross and then he says my God my God why have you forsaken me this beautiful relationship this beautiful connection with the father that has existed since eternity passed in a trinity is severed because God poured our sin on Christ
And then poured his wrath on him that the sky turns black because God is pouring his wrath out on Jesus as a human and as God Jesus was meant to have this beautiful relationship with us he's despised he's rejected he's hated humanity gathers together to kill God and he does all of that so that he can
Swap places with us Jesus does that so that we can have a place so that we can have purpose again so that we can have him again so that we can have each other again that's the story of the gospel that everything's been lost and we have this ache and this longing for it and no ability to get it except through Christ if you're here today
And you don't know Christ you haven't accepted Christ I want you to understand that this longing is in you this desire for this to work for you to have a place for you to have a purpose for you to have each other for relationships to be good and I want to tell you definitively you will not get those outside of Christ swapping places with you taking the punishment for you and granting you what only he deserves now which is love
And acceptance belonging and purpose and here's what happens our place all of these get to be twofold now we have a home we're citizens of heaven you will eventually get to heaven and go this is why I liked every little place that I kindly had this is why I liked all the little things I liked on earth are here because I was meant for this place you'll get to heaven and be like yes this is finally home
But it also means that we get to enjoy the place we are now your kitchen gets to be a weird pink you're okay you get to enjoy it you get to live in the neighborhood you live in you get to drive the traffic route you drive you get to enjoy Columbia that's God's grace through Christ for us you get to do good work here and Jesus has given us all a new purpose which is to see people
Come to know him so it doesn't matter where you work there are people that don't know Jesus there that need to know Jesus there and maybe God's already sent in a missionary to work there so that you might know them and pray for them and long for them to know Christ we get Jesus we get a relationship with him we get to be welcomed back into the beautiful relationship with Christ beautiful relationship
With the Father because Christ bridges that gap for us and because Jesus forgives us of our sin and we can have the gap between us and God reconciled then we get to reconcile with everybody and we're given a new family that we will be brothers and sisters in the new heavens in the new earth for eternity that heaven for us will be a place of purpose
Of belonging of family and of love towards Christ and the Father the band's going to come back up we're going to take communion in a second and what communion is is for us a celebration of what we just talked about that Jesus Christ gave his life for us he shed his blood for us his body was broken for us so that we might have life
And we might be forgiven and if you're a Christian in here what I would encourage you to do is prior to taking communion prior to getting up and celebrating that Jesus' body was broken for you and his blood was shed for you I want you to think through place and work and your relationship to God and your relationship to others and I want us to repent I want us to repent
Where we've begun to convince ourselves that we don't belong here that we have to be somewhere else to be happy I want us to repent for all the times that we've begun to convince ourselves that if we just worked this job if we could just move our job if we could just get that we lost our purpose and our meaning for mission for seeing people come to know Jesus and for just doing good work
But God to put us here to do I want us to talk to God about our broken relationship with him and ask Christ to help us to commune with God to pray to rest in him to enjoy him and if you have a conflict with somebody and they're in this room I want you to get up and go talk to them I want you to begin the process of reconciling of repenting of asking them
To forgive you of telling them you forgive them if they're not in this room you have a magic box in your pocket and Verizon through God's good grace and somebody's good work will connect you to that person and I'd love for you to step up step out and go call them here or out there and then come back in and take communion and celebrate the fact that Jesus shed his blood so that we can have
Each other so all around the room we're going to start praying we're going to start repenting we're going to start celebrating the good gift that God gave us through his cross and then when you're ready if you're a Christian we encourage you and invite you to come take communion if you're not a Christian you can be all you need is Christ so you can repent of your sin and you can say I need a place I need good purpose I need to belong
I need you and I want to repent of my sin and where I've run and where I've rebelled and where I've like Adam and Eve chosen to listen to myself over you you can repent and then you can celebrate communion as well let's pray God we thank you for these beautiful gifts that you gave us and we thank you that when we lost them you redeemed them so that we get an eternal family we get a place to belong a home
We get good purpose here and with you and ultimately God we get you back that we might be restored I pray that you would help us to see where we've gotten this twisted and where we've been believing lies you'd help us repent and then celebrate well that we're redeemed by a good God who loves us in Jesus name Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen
Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen 音 Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Rema
Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen
Imago Dei
Transcript
Morning. We're in our second week of our series in Genesis. We're going to spend some time walking verse by verse through this book. It is the first book in the Bible. We're going to be on page one of your Bibles today. We're going to be in Genesis chapter one.
So if you want to grab your Bibles and go there. And you have some deeply held convictions about the nature of humanity. You have some deeply held convictions about human rights. And I don't know if you think about them a lot. Sometimes some people work in certain industries or they're fighting for certain causes. And so they think about basic human rights often.
But many of us don't. We just take these for granted. We understand that this is how this works. If a politician began running for office and they announced that they were pro-cannibalism. You would immediately be like, well, I'm not voting for you. And you maybe haven't thought about cannibalism very often.
But you didn't take much time to know you're anti-cannibalism. Like you don't. You're not on board with that. If they started saying they were pro. They were going to. Hey, like they came and said, hey, I think the purge.
I watched that movie and I like it. And I think that's a really good idea, honestly. And I was thinking maybe just like a two-week purge in the summer. Maybe one around the holidays. Like we would immediately be like, no, we're not. We can't do this.
Nobody can sign on for this. Because we have these deeply held convictions about human rights. About how we ought to treat people who are not in positions of power. How we ought to treat people who have different backgrounds culturally. How different stage of life. We have these deeply held convictions.
And so what we're going to look at today is why do we have these? Where are they founded? How do we know that they're real and true? Because they are a part of our lives. And they are assumed. But what I want us to see this morning is that they come directly from the scriptures.
And without the doctrine, without the understanding of the origin of life that we're going to look at today, you actually lose basic human rights. So what we're going to do is we're going to study this passage in Genesis 1. We're going to zoom in on something we looked at last week. We're going to talk about how human rights grows up out of this. And then we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about failures in this today. Because of sin, there are failures here.
And so we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about how we ought to engage with those as Christians. So let's pray. And then we'll move into Genesis 1. God, we thank you for this time we have together as your people to study your word. We pray for all of those who come in here hurting, who come in here confused about what to do next or how to respond to life as it is. And we pray that in these moments we would not just interact with your word, but that we would interact with you.
That your Holy Spirit would be at work in us for our good and your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. But it's Genesis 1, verse 26. If you're new to your Bible, like I said, Genesis, the first book of the Bible is on page 1. When we say chapter, we mean the big number. And when we say verse, we mean the little number that's kind of smushed down in the text.
So we're going to be in Genesis 1, verse 26. As we pick up here, we're in the first creation account. So Genesis 1 gives us a creation account. Genesis 2 kind of zooms in, gives us another creation account, kind of walks us through in kind of a more intense fashion. So next week we'll get to spend more time talking about creation.
We kind of set it up last week, said that there's some different ways to approach it. We're going to continue that next week. But what we see in this place where we're picking up is that the pattern has been this. God says, and it is, and then God sees that it's good. So God says something.
He says, let there be light, and there was light. It doesn't say, God said there be light, and then he has to kind of go for it. No, when he speaks it, it happens. And so we see that this, God says it is, and then he sees that it's good. And then it says there's evening, there's morning, the first day. And this is kind of the pattern that goes.
God says it's good, and then evening and morning. God says, there it is, it's good, evening and morning. So that's the pattern. We pick up, it just ended at day five. It says there's evening and morning, the fifth day. And then in day four, in day six, he begins to bring forth living creatures.
And it says this, then God said, this is verse 26, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them, that's humanity, that's what he means by man there. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So there's this pause, there's this break in the flow where God begins to speak, and he says, let us make man in our image. And so we as Christians see a reference to the Trinity there. This is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, speaking inside the Godhead and saying, we're going to make humanity different and distinct from all the rest of creation.
And so God makes humanity in his image, and places humanity below God, but above everything else in creation. Verse 27, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. We're a young church with a lot of young families, and I think we've been doing pretty well with the be fruitful and multiply. I just want to say I'm proud of y'all.
Fill the earth and subdue it. We spent some time talking about that recently with the idea of work and how we're designed to have dominion over the earth. And it says, Have dominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So, humanity is distinct above all creation. And we know this. We believe this.
We feel this. And this, every once in a while I'll get on Craigslist, and I kind of just think, Let me see what kind of dogs people are selling. I just get interested, and maybe every once in a while I think I want to have a pet. I don't, but every once in a while I think I do. And I think I do until somebody in our church goes out of town, and they're like, Hey, can you watch my dog? And then I watch it, and I'm like, No, I don't want one of these.
Children make it hard enough to go out of town. I don't want to have a dog that I have to deal with also. But I get on there every once in a while, and I'll look and see what they have, and people will say, like the little Craigslist thing will be, Hey, I'm moving to a new place. Got transferred from my job. I'm needing to move into a one-bedroom house. They don't allow pets, and so I need to re-home my dog.
I love my dog. This is the best dog the world has ever known. It's crate-trained, and I love it, but I can't take it with me. That happens all the time, on Craigslist. That may not be true. That dog might bite everyone, and they're not actually moving, but that's the list thing you see.
I've never gotten on there and seen one that said, Hey, I'm having to relocate to another part of the town. I've actually lost my job. I'm having to get a job that doesn't pay as much. I'm really going to need to move into a one-bedroom apartment, and so I'd like to give up my eight-year-old Ian. He's great. We love him.
He's in the second grade. He can read pretty well, but we're just going to have to move, and it would be best for us if he didn't come, and he's crate-trained. You don't see that, you don't see that, because we know that if you're going to have to get rid of something, your children aren't on the chopping block. You've got to get rid of the dog. You've got to get rid of the parakeet and the fish, but you can't get rid of it. We know this is distinct and different.
We value this, and even for those people who come in and say, No, I think, and we mentioned this last week, but I think everybody comes from an evolutionary process, that all humanity grows out of this process, this long process of this creature turning into this creature, and then into this creature, and then into this creature, and then into this creature, and now we have humanity, and what we actually said last week is that there is room for a theistic evolution. This derails some parts of evolution, though. Humanity does not come in the line of creation. It does not come in the line of livestock.
It is distinct and set apart, so there is some room for there's some microevolution for some changes in, and we're going to spend more time on this next week, but this messes this up because God has made humanity distinct and separate, set apart as something different, and we know this. We don't treat animals the same. I was sitting there in my house, looking out my back window, and I like squirrels. I've owned squirrels periodically throughout my life. I'm watching the squirrels in my backyard. I like having squirrels in my backyard.
We actually raised four and set them loose in our backyard. I used to, when I'd go out there and talk on the phone, they would jump on you, which was great for me, weird for people who visited. So I'm watching the squirrel. He's eating. And out of nowhere, this hawk just goes, snatches him up, squirrels flipping around, and just takes off. And you know what I did?
Whoa. That was pretty cool. I like squirrels, but that was crazy. Now, flip that around. If I was facing out the front of my house, I'm across the street from a playground, and if I saw like an athletic 25-year-old do that to a six-year-old and just snatch him up and take off running, I wouldn't have been like, whoa. My response would have been a little differently.
I wouldn't have texted someone and be like, you wouldn't believe what I just saw. And they'd be like, what did you do? And I'd be like, what? We all know we're going to lose some young if they get separated from the herd. Predators will find them. Nobody, I wouldn't say that.
The response is different. I'm heading across the field. I'm going to go figure out what's going on. I'm calling the police, but I didn't call and say, you guys, there's a hawk and it just ate a squirrel. We don't do that. That hawk is not going to go to trial, is not going to get arrested.
How to Catch a Predator is a different show than National Geographic. You don't ever see the cheetah chasing and all of a sudden the person who was filming shoot it with a rifle and be like, I saved you gazelle, you're welcome. That doesn't happen. We just watch it eat it and they're like, neat. Because humanity is distinct from the rest of creation and we know this because of this. That God intentionally poured his image into humanity.
That humanity is made in the image of God and has the Mark of God on us and this is what this means. Because humans are made in the image of God, therefore, all humans have value and are worth loving, pursuing, defending, and serving. Because humanity is made in the image of God, all humans have value and are worth loving, pursuing, defending, and serving. You can add any other words you want to to that. I grabbed a few to try to help us wrap this picture around the fact that it doesn't matter what skin tone you have, it doesn't matter which gender you are, male, female, pink skin, tan skin, brown skin, this language, that language, this type of food, spicy food, bland British food, it doesn't matter. made in the image of God, worth loving, worth serving, worth defending.
Now here's what happens with this. One of the things that comes along with this concept is that we have purpose. Because we are made by God for a purpose in His image, then we have purpose, we have value. One of the things that has happened, come along in culture, is this idea that you need to create your own purpose. That you need to look inside yourself and find your purpose. You need to figure out who you are, you need to make your own purpose.
And so many people in our culture right now are languishing under the weight of having to prove that they have value when the text tells us that you have value because God designed you and put His image in you. Made you in His image for His glory and placed you here on purpose. That you do not have to prove your value. And here's what happens. This is the foundation for human rights. That humans are distinct from creation, distinct from creatures, distinct from the animals, that we aren't just in a long chain of that and that we all have value because God's placed value in humanity.
This is the foundation for human rights and so here's what happens. If we have the idea that we came out of nothingness, this is chaos, it all just swirled into what we have now and just by chance after chance after chance after chance after chance after chance our world won the lottery and here we are. we lose the foundation of human rights because if you have to find your own purpose it means that we don't just have to find our own purpose, we have to find and create our own morality as well. I want to read a law professor from Yale Law School whose name is Arthur Allen Leff and he's just interacting with this idea that if you have a God morality makes sense. Some rules that we all have to follow make sense and if you don't if you remove God from the picture if this isn't actually how this happened then laws and rules and morality we don't really have a leg to stand on.
He actually says that he uses a phrase that he says you'll find in bar rooms and schoolyards which is says who. You can't do that. That's not fair. That isn't how you should treat people and he says the response is says who? You and what army? And he says if there's a God you have an answer to the says who and if there isn't you don't have an answer.
I want to read this quote it'll be up here. God's will is binding because it is his will that it be. He just spent some time talking about in the scriptures you'll see God says and it is that whenever he says something it automatically exists. That when he speaks something he speaks it into existence so that if God says it is wrong to do this or if it is right to do this it is. It is wrong. It is right.
He's the only one who can speak in that way. Under what other circumstances can the unexamined will of anyone else withstand the cosmic says who and come out similarly dispositive? Meaning that God can say this is how this works this is what is right this is what is wrong and we just have to take it because he's God. But nobody else gets to do that. We examine it and we decide what we think. There are no such circumstances.
We are never going to get anywhere in ethical or legal theory unless we finally face the fact that in the psalmist's words there was no one like unto the Lord. If he does not exist there is no metaphoric equivalent. No person no combination of people no document however hallowed by time no process no premise nothing is equivalent to an actual God in this central function as the unexaminable examiner of good and evil. The so-called death of God turns out not to have been just his funeral it also seems to have affected the total elimination of any coherent or even more than momentarily convincing ethical or legal system.
Just his funeral it also seems to have affected the total elimination of any coherent or even more than momentarily convincing ethical or legal system. So what he's saying is this God gets to answer the question of the grand says who he gets to speak into existence morality he gets to say this is right and this is wrong and if you remove him from the picture then nobody else
There is no other equivalent you can't move the US government over there you can't move the UN over there you can't move nobody else fits into that equation where they can just speak and it's unexamined. He kind of finishes with this he says put briefly if the law meaning this morality this ruling over us is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky then it can only be one place
In us as things stand now everything is up for grabs so if we believe that we grew out of the strong eat the weak survival of the fittest the smartest the strongest the baddest the toughest the biggest need to breed and pass on their genes and the rest need to be weeded out you cannot build a system of global human rights off of that you can build a system of local ones
You can say our government works best if we don't allow murder so you can say that it's best for the United States to have rules and laws but you cannot make the argument that it's not a good idea for the United States and the USSR during the Cold War to just annex everything on the planet and say we own you now and if you don't like that we're going to destroy you because they're more powerful and that's how the system ought to work you cannot
Say this is wrong this is unfair without acknowledging the fact that you have nothing to base it off of for example most people in the United States think that females should have rights be able to drive be able to vote have opinions I agree I think that's good I distinctly and specifically agree whether I had a choice or not because the scripture says he made male
And female in his image and to deny that is to deny what this says but here's what happens we want to outsource this all over the world people who don't believe in God want to take this idea all over the world and so what happens is people will say well we know that women should have rights and we know that they should be treated this way we know it okay but for the majority of the population and the majority
Of the human history we haven't known that and much many many places across the world do not know that and so what happens is when you lose the grand says who when you lose the ability to say this is why this is true when you outsource it when you go over to Saudi Arabia or Libya and say no this is not how to treat a woman this is how women are supposed to be treated these are the rights they're supposed to have
All you really are doing is taking a very aggressively deep held opinion equivalent to whether or not pineapple should be on pizza it's an opinion if I told you that I was going to go to Saudi Arabia and I was going to make sure that they got rid of the ridiculous clothes they wore and the nasty tasting food they had started eating cheeseburgers and pizza and wearing blue jeans because they're all better you would say how on earth are you going to act like your culture
Just wipes their culture out but then we'll say they need to treat women this way and act like that's in a separate category and it is if you're over here where God created humanity in his image and it's not if you're over here in a big line of chaotic everything I weigh 220 pounds my wife weighs 100 pounds if I'm over here who's to say how she's treated if I'm over here it's different now you could say well we have laws
We have regulations but all you end up getting to do is appealing to power might makes right which was the argument I was making you say well the police will come in and they're more mighty than you we can say racism is wrong and we just know it it's common sense but the truth is for the majority of history and the majority of the population of the earth that hasn't been just known or made sense we can say
That a stronger nation shouldn't just plow over a weaker one and overtaken it but the truth is for the majority of the population and the majority of history that's exactly how that's worked and it's made the most sense so you can say that Russia should not annex the nation next to it named Georgia but without this it's hard to back up your argument and so for many of us what we'll say is no no no no I know this
You just want to argue with this you're like I know this to be true and the truth is I agree with you and the reason that so many people who believe this stand over here with us on human rights issues is because God made us in his image and we can't shake it it's been marred by sin but we can't shake the fact that we know that humans are distinct and different from the rest of creation and Christians have modeled this forever Christianity came in and immediately began
To interact with and adjust how the world viewed women how it viewed other races one of the most beautiful things that happens in the early church is the holy kiss we don't know much about it we read it and are sometimes like well that's weird because they'll say greet each other with a holy kiss here's what the holy kiss was in that time period when the church got started when people greeted
Each other on the street they would greet each other with a kiss so if you were of equal level with one another you kissed kind of cheeks we're equal if you were in higher status you could hold out your hand and they would kiss your hand and that demonstrated to everyone when y'all met this person is lower than me and if they were very low they could kiss your feet they'd bow down at your feet and Christianity comes in and goes nope
Everybody gets kissed on the face I don't care what your money is I don't care what your race is I don't care if you're a slave or free I don't care it's a holy kiss and it was this symbolic picture of what the gospel had done and Christianity began to do this very early on because Jesus came and he redeemed humanity he loved humanity made in his image so much that he would die
For us Christians immediately began to model this and how they cared for the poor there's a letter from the Roman Emperor Julian who's writing in the 4th century and he says this he calls Christianity in here and he calls it atheism because Christians only believed in one God and that was a big problem for everybody so you would say well of course all these gods are gods and Christianity would just be like
Nope can't play your game just the one so they called them atheists they were mad at them he says this atheism has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers and through their care for the burial of the dead it is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar and that the godless Galileans that's the Christians care not only for their own poor
But for ours as well while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them what he says is part of the problem with these Christians is they don't just take care of their poor people they take care of our poor people too which is crazy but it's helped them grow but see this idea that poor people didn't have worth was rampant and then Christians came along and said no Christians and the Jewish
People who also believe this no every person's made in the image of God and is therefore valuable worthy of loving serving pursuing defending that's how hospitals began was Christians serving those who couldn't get medical help medical help was given to those who were wealthy Christians started just giving it to everybody there are actually stories where there were plagues
In cities and people were just dumping out someone in their family would get sick they would just put them out on the street or whole people were just leaving cities and the only people that were going back in were Christians started caring for the sick that weren't even theirs because they believed that this is a person made in the image of God and the truth is if I get the plague and die I have a great king that I'm about to meet
What we're about to do is going to be distinctly political so it should be fun y'all like being uncomfortable I assume the reason it's going to be distinctly political is we're going to talk about human issues and human issues always get pushed to the forefront of politics as they should sometimes I'll hear people say well Jesus wasn't political and that's true he didn't run for office he did ride a donkey one time
But he didn't he didn't run for office there we go but he always engaged in political issues one of the reasons he was killed was for political reasons they said he was setting himself up to be a king he was accused of undercutting the power system that the Pharisees had and the balance between them and Rome but the reason he was always interacting with political issues is because he was always interacting with humans on their level
In their lives and in human issues you will find politics so what we're about to do is take this idea that every human is made in the image of God and is therefore valuable and we're just going to apply it to some areas where we see it breaking down currently where we see conflict where we see frustration where we see a divide in the aisle and we're just going to try to point out and say here's how we ought to approach this and understanding that every human
Is valuable we're just going to push it into that area some of these will be handled more quickly than others the whole goal is for us to draw our attention to the fact that Christians have forever engaged in image of God breakdowns in culture and that we are not called to do anything less the first one we're going to talk about is gender we see this playing out in two distinct
Ways culturally you see we've been told that gender is a cultural construct but we just read that it's a divine construct that God made man in his own image and he made them male and female that there is a distinction between males there is a distinction between females and it both hold the image of God and are meant
To put him on display so here's here's where this is falling apart in two places culturally one is we have kind of this idea that gender is fluid that there are no two genders that you can't figure that out by biology and there are a few exceptions that are actually
Mentioned in the Bible but God designed gender two distinct genders on purpose and so one of the areas that we're seeing this breakdown is that this is under attack is maybe a harsh word it is but it's disbelieved and aggressively disbelieved and so we as Christians have to hold to
The fact that no there are two distinct genders but the other way that this is breaking down is that those in our culture who struggle with gender dysphoria those that are transgender in our culture are at increased likelihood for sexual assault they are four times more likely to attempt or to commit
Suicide and Christianity cannot just join in looking at those who are struggling and hurting and made in the image of God cannot just join in to aggressively chant you're wrong when we're called to distinctly love pursue defend and serve that there are those
Who in the middle of this are told that you have to create your own value you have to find out who you are you have to make yourself have worth that those in the transgender community the suicide rate does not change
Prior to or after transition because a lot of times they transition continue to face outside pressure but also continue to face the inside pressure that this didn't fix them and we as Christians know that they're made in the image of God and Jesus loved them
So much that he would die for them and they have value and they're worth loving pursuing defending and serving while we also uphold the truth that there are two distinct genders this is a gender issue as well but I want to we're going to give it a different word women this is a
Current cultural it is it has been a forever problem because God's good design was broken by sin and in God's good design men have been larger created larger stronger have thicker bone density tendon density muscle mass and therefore have gotten away with a lot of
Things they shouldn't have gotten away with that are heinous and evil throughout the history of the world because they've taken advantage of females who God designed in his good design to reflect his glory not as big so that we have the me too movement and I
Celebrate and applaud even where it has been painful and we have seen it cropping up in places where Christians are and in churches where there has been sexual assault and pressure we ought not to just discount everyone who comes forward with this but we ought to celebrate the fact that a voice has been given where there was no
Voice in history no voice attempted rapes and completed rapes according to RAIN which is the largest anti-sexual violence 90% of that is towards females 82% of the total rapes that take place or attempted rapes are towards juvenile females who are often in a position of lacking power lacking a
Voice if you are a female and you are 18 to 24 and you are in college you are three times more likely to face sexual assault if you are not in college you are four times more likely to face sexual assault than other females one out of six women in our nation has either
Been raped or someone has attempted to rape them and this is not okay that we have such a breakdown caused by sin in the image in the image of God that masculinity which was designed by God in the way he designed it
For protection for defense I'm meant to be bigger than my wife so that I can meet whomever's coming in the door so that I might carry more than she I'm meant to do this and it has been twisted and it's not okay we ought not grow tired of the me too movement we ought not discount it
Out of hand because on the other end of it is a human made in the image of God who has been harmed by sin and Christians are meant to swoop in and defend and love and pursue and serve thirdly the unborn and the orphan since day one Christians have joined in
This it was very common in the Roman Empire for a child that was born that was unwanted to be put over to exposure which just meant they would take a child and they would place them out where they might be destroyed die by lack of food
Lack of shelter and Christians knew where these drop off sites were and they began showing up and adopting a lot of females and any child born with a deformity and taking them home because Christians from day one have believed all humans are made in the image
Of God and therefore worth immense value loving protecting pursuing there are about 750,000 illegal abortions in the United States every year according to the CDC that is the equivalent of someone on the first day of school walking into every public school in the
State of South Carolina and gunning every child down since a legalized abortion in the United States there have been 45 million legal abortions there was an article that recently ran by CBS and it said that Denmark it says Down syndrome is disappearing in Iceland you click on
The article and basically the article was about the fact that they do prenatal screenings in Iceland and 98% of children that are prenatally screened to have Down syndrome the pregnancy is terminated they were interviewing I watched this interview and they were interviewing one
Of the ladies that counsels the women in the situations and they said what do you tell the ladies that are in the situation she said tell them this is your life and you have the right to choose how your life will look and that's
True over here but it's not true over here and here's the thing Christians if this changes and as ladies currently choose to not have abortions an unwanted preborn child is an unwanted child and Christians need to be
Adopting there are 400,000 children in the foster system currently and we cannot chant protect the unborn protect the unborn and then care nothing for those children that are starving
And care nothing for the children that are in foster care and care nothing for the children that go home every weekend and don't eat a meal because their parents decided to keep them when that was not a
Financially viable situation we're called to do both all humans are made in the image of God and therefore are given irrevocable value and are worth loving pursuing defending and serving we have two more racial injustice
Systematic racial injustice this isn't just garden variety racism this is what has been brought to the forefront currently consistently in the United States we act as if this is new if you watch videos and riots now they look similar to the 60s we've lapped back around on some
Things they were similar to the ones before that you cannot I don't believe that you can coherently or intelligently act as if the United States does not have historic issue with racism a nation that grew wealthy off of the backs of slaves
And that up until 50 years ago was actively oppressing and removing the right to vote from those who are of different skin color and then to act as if that should have flipped around in a generation I do believe a lot
Of it has gotten better I think a lot of it is still systematically at work to cause problems now our church is predominantly white and I do not believe that if you are white you are racist I don't believe that I believe you might
Be I believe most of us lean towards we're comfortable with our color skin our cultural background our nationality and it makes it easier for us to look down on others but I do want to make the argument that if you are white it is easier in the United States for you to
Pay zero attention to this issue I like to make jokes about people who have gluten allergies and who are lactose intolerant it's really fun to be like oh does that spicy milk get to you they don't
Appreciate it but I think it's funny I didn't care anything about allergies and stuff other than the people that were around me like I wouldn't like if I was hanging out with my friend Raz who has a gluten allergy I wouldn't
Like dip a cracker in his soup or anything ridiculous like that but my son now has a milk protein intolerance so that when we feed him milk he throws up and now I care I am aware of
Where milk is I don't want it near him it's an issue that now matters and I think that if you're white in the United States because we have been the majority and we have been in power it is much easier to just say I
Don't see the problem and that's true because you've never drank spicy milk and you don't understand what the problem feels like so I've ceased to listen to the arguments and what I've got to say is that may be a very good approach if you
Were conservative that may be a very good approach for a Republican but much of the rhetoric is not Christian it is not about our nation it's about a kingdom and there are things that we need to as Christians get very very good at listening
To and walking in that we currently aren't because all humans are made in the image of God and therefore are given irrevocable value and are worth loving pursuing defending and serving this is the same issue but it's in a different area
I'm talking about refugees a refugee is someone who is displaced from their home due to poverty due to famine due to war due to violence 65 million people made in the image of our good
God loved enough by Jesus that he would die for them were sent away from their homes last year now that is a major national and international problem to take in people into your nation that do not speak your language
Do not hold your values do not agree with you on basic human rights in so many areas are not on the same page it is a major national international and national interest and issue when people are flooding over borders I understand
That it needs to be handled by those in politics with wisdom but it needs to be handled by Christians like Christians with a lot of grace and a lot of love understanding that these people were made in the image of God and we cannot deny
That this scripture does not tell us a skin tone of our first parents but it does give us the indication that all skin tones came from them it does not tell us the language of our
First parents but we know that all languages came from them it does not exactly tell us their location we know they're in the Middle East so if you want to make an argument for European
Superiority you are going to be in trouble when you meet Adam other than the fact that he messed everything up but Jesus was also Jewish and he fixed it we we are designed by God with value
And purpose and so is everyone else and we as Christians ought to be at work and at war with all the breakdowns in our culture these are a few there are many many more I have a few questions
For us as we finish out our time the first one is this I want you to ask do I undervalue myself you see because this isn't just a global truth it is a personal truth that you
Were made in the image of God I know in a room this size some of you are considering suicide I know some of you practice self harm I know some of you are languishing and being broken under the weight of I've
Got to prove my value and the truth is you do not you were given value when the God of the universe created humanity in his image and you are an image bearer of our God loved so
Much that Christ would die that you might be his that he might redeem you from your sin C.S. Lewis in his essay The Weight of Glory says this there are no ordinary people you have never talked to a mere
Mortal nations cultures arts civilizations these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat but it is to immortals with whom we joke work with marry snub and exploit immortal horrors
Or everlasting splendors this does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn or serious we must play but our merriment must be of the kind which exists between people who have from the very
Outset taken each other seriously no flippancy no superiority no presumption that you are not an ordinary mortal but you have been designed by a God to exist for eternity
And everyone you interact with the same questions that Christians ought to ask is who is marginalized or who is devalued when it comes to interacting with this image of God breakdown in our culture we need
To ask who is marginalized and who is devalued this is systematic this is who doesn't have a voice in our nation who doesn't have a voice who is in a minority but it's also who at work
Is marginalized and devalued who at your school is treated day after day after day and has to go home with the understanding day after
Day after day believing a lie that they don't have worth or they don't have value because of their intelligence because of their ability because
Of their looks when all of that is a lie because they were designed and made in the image of God with purpose and
Value who do you marginalize or who do I marginalize who do I devalue who isn't worth my time who's lower on the scale than I am who am
I biased towards who do I have negative connotations of these are all fair questions for us to ask as Christians as we investigate our heart when it comes
To our inability to walk this out well the band is going to come back up and I want to end with one main idea I know humans and I know this room and I
Know that these aren't these issues that we talked about aren't separate from us but that in this room we are those who have been
Assaulted and we're those who've committed assault and in this room we're those who have trampled the rights of others and in this room
We're we're those who are blatantly blindly racist or coming out of that and every time we think about it we feel shame crawl
Up our spine in this room we've had abortions we've hurt others we've lied about others we've maligned others we've irrevocably harmed others in
Three years in middle school we are image of God failures and offenders that each time we sin we give a broken picture of
What our God was designed to be like and how he was meant to care for our city and our world and how he was meant to
Subdue and how he designed us to give beauty to the world and each time we devalue women or each time we grow in our frustration and our hatred
Towards another race or another language or men we chip away at what was so beautiful you see the scriptures tell us we were made in God's image that Adam and Eve sinned and rebelled and that
Image didn't go away but it got marred and then it tells us in Colossians and in John that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God that he perfectly images God the way that we
Were designed to that he puts God on display in a way that humanity was meant to that he comes here and he so loves us that he dies for us that each time you think about
What you've done to someone or how you've harmed someone or how you've been harmed and each time you begin to believe that I deserve to die God agrees with you but he doesn't leave us there you see in Christ Jesus took our sin and died
For us that we might be forgiven because I know that in this room I listed off a whole bunch of issues and sins that we carry around with us and that we no longer have to carry if we're in Christ you see in this room we
Are blameless in this room if you are in Christ you are free in this room if you are in Christ you are spotless and beautiful washed and redeemed by the blood of Jesus that you might one day stand before the king and he might welcome you as a son or as a daughter he might wrap his arms around you and he
Doesn't know your sin he's forgiven your sin he's wiped it clean because Jesus Christ took it all and died for it so in this room and among the global ranks of the redeemed we engage where it's messy where it's difficult where we say the wrong things where we mess up our wording where we offend where we harm and we engage and we re-engage and we re-engage and we
Love and we serve and we pursue and we open our wallets and we open our time and we open our schedule and we open our hearts that we might love those who the world has lied to and told them they didn't have any value because we have a God who when we were valueless in our sin when we deserved death loved us enough to redeem us let's pray God we thank you that we are redeemed we
Thank you that in you we have hope we pray you'd forgive us for all the times we've trampled on those made in your image and all the times that we've robbed them of the glory you placed in them through our words through our actions we we've asked for your forgiveness for all the times God that we've blatantly aggressively lied about who you are by the way we've treated your world and we've treated others and we
Thank you that Jesus took all the pain and all the punishment that he suffered and was assaulted so that we might be clean that we might be forgiven that he died so that we might live we love you and we praise you Jesus name if you're a Christian in this room one of the ways that we celebrate the truth of the gospel is that we take communion which is where we take bread and we take the cup and see Jesus took these on the night before he died and he he took bread and he broke it he said this is my body
Broken for you he took the cup and he said this is the covenant of my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins one of the ways that we remind ourselves that we are forgiven that we won't be crushed for our sin is that we take part in communion where he was crushed for our sin and his blood was poured out for our forgiveness that we are washed clean that we are made new and if you're not a Christian communion isn't for you but if you belong to Christ it is and if you aren't a Christian and you've never placed your faith in him I would
Encourage you to do that today to trust him with your life and with your salvation with your forgiveness and then you may be free to take communion you pray you repent you talk to Jesus and then when you feel led if you're a Christian take communion otherwise we'll stand and sing you Christoph
Creation
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm a pastor and training here with Mill City Church. As you can tell, we are in Genesis. We wanted to read Genesis as we worship this morning because the point of Genesis 1 is to turn to praise. It is meant to see the glory of God and how he created everything and lead us to worship.
Genesis literally means beginning. Or if you're a superhero nerd, this is the origin story. This is the origin story of all of our stories. All of our stories go back to this chapter in Genesis 1. The book of Genesis was written by Moses. He's the chief architect of Genesis and the first five books of the Bible.
He had some collaboration in it, but he is the chief architect. And he is telling the story in Genesis of how the earth came to be, how the early history of the world and the first 12 chapters of Genesis. And then from chapter 12 all the way to the end of the book is about the formation of God's people, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. There's a whole lot that can be said about Genesis. I don't have time for it this morning because we have a whole lot to get into. So I will just say simply this.
Genesis tells the story of how everything started off, of how it all went wrong, and it tells us the story of why we need a Savior. So we're going to be in Genesis 1. It's in page 1 of your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, there's a blue Bible around you. If you don't have that, if you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That is our gift for you.
I'm going to pray, and then we're going to dive in. God, thank you so much that you created us, that you created everything that was made. God, I pray that we would see the beauty of that this morning. Amen. All right, so there are two different creation accounts.
There's two different stories in Genesis that tell how the earth came to be. We're going to be in the first one, which is chapter 1 through verse 3 of chapter 2. The people who put the verses and chapters into the Bible did a pretty good Job, and this one, they missed it just a hair. So this goes into verse 3 of chapter 2. The next one starts in verse 4 of chapter 2. Chet is going to cover that creation story.
There are differences, and the differences are highlighting different things, and he'll get into those when he teaches on the second creation story. But this story, Genesis 1, is meant to capture the glory of God. It's meant to capture, there are a lot of ancient Near Eastern creation stories that had all kinds of different ways they were telling about how the earth came to be. This one is meant to stand out above them. This is the true story. This is how it came to be, and it's meant to inspire worship in awe of the glory of our Creator.
And what happens in our current day is that a guy with a Richard Dawkins tattoo and a penchant for going on YouTube videos and commenting, a really just angry atheist, and there's not many of them that are that angry, but there's a few of them, and they're very loud, and they want everyone to know what they have to say. They stand up and say, hold the phone. Can you explain evolution? Because if you can't explain that to me, the book is closed. It's irrelevant. Your religion's irrelevant.
We don't want anything to do with it. Now, that's a loud, small minority, but then everyone else goes reasonably, okay, but what do you do with this? What do you do with Genesis 1? What do you do with how it interacts with what we know and what we hear in science? And when that happens, it sucks the beauty out of what this story was supposed to be. That because of Darwin's origin of species and the rise of evolutionary biology in the past two centuries, we've lost the point of what this story is meant to be.
This story was meant to be a great slice of cake, to be enjoyed, to be looked at in its glory, and we've traded it out for a cookbook, for a set of instructions. It's supposed to be a honeymoon, and we've traded it out for health class. And we have lost the point. Instead of focusing on why God created the earth and the universe and everything that was made, we focused on how. But the reality is, that's where we're at.
That's the context we're in. We've missed the point. So the elephant's already in the room, so today we need to do a little bit in addressing that. So this is what today is going to look like. I'm going to walk through five principles, five truths that help give us a posture for how we are supposed to approach this. And once we kind of have the posture of how we approach this, I'm going to walk through six different theories on how to reconcile what's happening in Genesis 1 with current scientific findings.
And then once we've done that, we're going to trade it out for some cake, and we're going to look at the beauty of what's happening in Genesis 1. So starting out, here are five principles, five truths that need to form the basis, the posture for how we approach this. The first is, the Bible is authoritative and true. That through faith in Jesus, who transforms our hearts, who transforms our minds, we know that God speaks truthfully. And He speaks authoritatively through His Word. And when He speaks truthfully, and when He speaks clearly, and you hear anything the world has to offer, and specifically scientific theories, we need to hold those theories skeptically, because we know the Bible is authoritative and true.
Second, the Bible is not a science textbook. It was not written to explain quantum physics, and it wasn't written to explain microevolution. Science by nature is limited to the natural, and it is blind to the supernatural. And our faith rests in the supernatural. I don't know if you know this, there's no scientific theories that show dead people rise from the grave. That's not.
But our whole faith hangs on Jesus conquering death, at the resurrection. Science deals with the natural. God created those natural laws. He operates outside of them. The Bible is not a science textbook. Third, God gives us the common grace of a growing scientific field.
Therefore, science is not evil. It's not. Scientific studies are the reason why we have a fighting chance against cancer now. It's the reason why, in the coming decades, the whole world will be run off solar power and wind power, because of scientific advances. So science is not evil at all.
One of my best friends from growing up, my roommate in college, is now a professor at Presbyterian College, my alma mater. He is a professor of biology. He has a Ph.D. in genetics. And I called him this week, and we talked a little bit, in interacting with science and the Bible. And he said something that I thought was really, really helpful. He said the sciences, broadly all the sciences, are trying to make sense of the natural world in an inductive way.
And when that happens, we get a little more info every day, a small piece with every new study. And with every piece, he says, we realize there is so much we don't know. The more he studies genetics, the more that he does research, the more that all of science starts to do this, they realize there is so much that he doesn't know. There is so much that we don't know. He says that most of scientists, most of people who are doing research, have that posture. Most of them have that approach, that there is so much that we don't know.
He said, you just hear about the ones who are the most vocal. He said, the Neil deGrasse Tysons of the world, the Richard Dawkins of the world. He is like, they are the most vocal. And then he threw in a jab, he said. And they are also laymen. They haven't been practicing science for years.
And the reality is, is that they are the most vocal. But most of science is humble in its approach. So we're not afraid of science. We welcome it. We welcome the quality of life that it brings. And if you want to hear more about that, we did a Home Sweet Home series a while back that talks about the Bible and science.
You can go back and listen to that. But science flows out of a ordered universe that God made. It is a common grace to us. Fourth, when everything is revealed and understood correctly, science and scripture are in perfect harmony. When everything is revealed, when all the cards are on the table, science and scripture are in harmony. Much of science is actually very compatible with the idea that the world and the universe were created.
If you talk to physicists, if you talk to people in biochemistry, they're going to point out that there's a lot that points to an intelligent designer. There's a lot that points to a creator. And out of the whole pie of science, there's one very thin slice of evolutionary biology. And there are quite a few people in there that are going to say no. So in knowing that, we understand what science is.
Science, in and of itself, is not fact. Science is not fact. Somehow down the line, we have come to understand that when someone says, oh, it's science, what they mean is it's fact. And science is not fact. It is a collection of theories that help form facts. And those facts become the basis for more theories.
I mean, bloodletting was the scientific way to treat illnesses for centuries. And so finally someone said, I think we're killing people. We're draining their blood. And they need this to fight things. We see this all the time. Scientific advancements keep coming and coming and coming.
We realize what we used to know isn't correct. That is important for us because you will consistently hear news stories that say, a scientific study says this. And I don't even have time to get into how those are funded and what they're going for and what the headlines they're grabbing for. I don't have time for that. But when you hear a scientific study says this, sometimes it's going to come in contradiction with a biblical worldview.
And when that happens, we don't panic. We read our Bibles. We wait for more research to come out. Lastly, Genesis is incredibly complicated and very hard to understand, especially the first few chapters. There's a church father named Jerome around 4th century. He noted that Jewish rabbis didn't allow anyone under the age of 30 to interpret Genesis, which I find ironic because I turned 30 in a month and other pastors are 30 and under.
Yeah, there we go. So, it's incredibly complicated. And if your approach has been, it's absolutely clear, we know it, I would have you pause for a moment and say, it may not be as clear as you think it is. It is very complicated. So, with those worldviews, with those truths in mind to help set up the worldviews we're going to look at, that needs to be our posture. Now, we're going to walk through six of the leading positions, six leading theories that help reconcile science and what evolutionary biology and some of the evidence that we're seeing and the findings we're seeing and the Bible.
Now, I just want to say on the front end, this is an open-handed issue. This is very open-handed. There's some things that come out of it that we can talk about later that are important, but it's open-handed as we walk through this. And the first one that we will cover is six literal day creationism. Some of my closest friends of the years, guys that are really smart, people I love, people that know the Bible so well, this is where they land. This is a view that says that if you look at it, they're going to argue, a straightforward reading of the text is going to argue for six consecutive sequential days.
And they're going to look at verse 5 when it says, God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And they're going to point this out every time. And there was evening and there was morning the first day. And they're going to say, that's sequence. That's chronology. Evening, morning, evening, morning.
That is six days in a row that God made the whole universe and everything in it. So that worldview places the entire universe at around 10,000 to 20,000 years old. And they get that through looking at some of the genealogies from the Old and the New Testament and piecing it together. The reason there's a big gap between 10,000 and 20,000 years is because genealogies and the way they were written weren't meant to record every single person in the line. They were just recording major figures. And they're going to argue that this was the consensus until Darwin came.
And they're going to say, when Darwin came, everyone started to read their Bible differently. And what happens when people do that, they're going to say, is you've elevated science to a place of authority and you've cheapened the Bible. That is going to be some of their arguments. And when pressed on the evidence, particularly the scientific evidence, people that hold this worldview are going to have two main critiques, particularly on carbon dating, which is how we know how old things are. Carbon dating is the measuring of carbon ratios. Obviously, I know so much about it.
But it's how they measure how old things are, how old fossils are. And they're going to look at some of that and say it isn't always accurate. It's not always true. One of the biggest theories they have is called flood theory. It's the theory that when the whole earth flooded at the time of Noah, which we'll get to in about a month, that when that happened, a global flood changed everything and it made everything look so much older than it actually is. That the flood aged the entire earth.
And these guys have gone to flood sites that have happened in the last century. And they've gone and they've looked at some of the artifacts that are just about 50 to 100 years old and they've carbon dated them. And the carbon dating came back as way older than a century. And they're going to say, see, water damage causes this kind of aging. Therefore, this is the leading theory. It's what they're going to say.
The flood killed off the dinosaurs. It killed off different species. And this is the way the world looks now. So that's six-day creationism. I want to walk through some critiques, a scientific one and textual critiques on this position. There is mounting evidence outside of geology and archaeology that show the universe is much older than 10 to 20,000 years old.
Astrologists are going to point out that there are meteors that come into the earth's atmosphere all the time. And we date those and they were never affected by the flood and they are much older than 10 to 20,000 years old. Physicists are going to point out that the universe is expanding and they're measuring wavelengths of light. And they're saying it's way older than 10 to 20,000 years old. And there's all kinds of other different scientists that are studying the earth and they're pointing out different arguments. And they just say, even if you conceded some of the fossils or some of the dating, there's so much more evidence that shows the earth is much older than 10 to 20,000 years old.
Now textual critiques in the Bible, what six day creations have argued for is that the Hebrew word for day, which is yom in the Hebrew, they're going to say that means 24 hours. It is literally a day. And we'll get to that word in a little bit. But there's plenty of Hebrew scholars that say that's not exactly correct. And the other critique that says that while we're just accommodating for what Darwin found, a lot of historical theologians are going to say, no, you can look at Augustine. Augustine in the 5th century, he said this.
He said, what kind of days these words are extremely difficult or impossible to determine? So the African theologian, Augustine, back in the 5th century, was having questions about this. Some of the reformers, like John Calvin, were having questions about Genesis. Some of the medieval theologians were having questions about Genesis. So it has not always been understood this way.
And we're not just accommodating for what Darwin found. All right. So that's literal 6th day. That is in the young earth, young race. Young earth being young universe. Young race meaning human race.
All 10 to 20,000 years old. There is another theory that's in that same category that runs alongside of that. And that theory is called mature earth. Here's what mature earth theory says. When God created Adam as an adult male, was he 30? Because he looked 30.
Or was he a day old? They're going to say, when God made trees, big trees with fruit on them for them to eat, were those trees with 50 rings on the inside, were they 50 years old? Or were they one day old? They're going to say, yes. And that's the point. That God made everything mature.
That everything looks the age that it does because God created a mature universe. And they're going to say that you can hold a 6th day view from Genesis because everything looks older than it actually is. Now some of the critiques that come with this deal with what about the fossils? What about what we find in the earth? So as I heard one atheist comedian say, do you think God put dinosaur bones in the ground just to mess with us?
And what they're getting at and what people in the Bible also are interacting with or getting at is that this kind of makes God look a little bit deceptive. So that's the strengths and the weaknesses of mature earth. The next few theories I'm going to walk through deal with an old earth view, meaning it's much older and some of these allow for a young race, a young human race in the 10,000 to 20,000 year range. And the first one is called day-age theory. Day-age theory looks at the text and when it says day, when it says yom in the Hebrew, they're going to say it does not mean 24 hours. It means in the day of.
In the same way that when your grandpa says back in my day, he did not literally mean a day. He meant in that day, in that era. And this view is going to say there are six consecutive eras. They could be a thousand years each. They could be a million years each. We don't know.
And they're going to argue that that is why the earth looks so much older. And much of this view is going to hang on in the translation of that word in the Hebrew. So does it mean a day, a literal day, or does it mean in the day of? So if you just put Genesis 1 away for a second and try to understand how this word's being used, you've got to look at the next usage that comes out. And the very first usage that comes out is the next creation story. And this is how it is used there.
It says, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth and when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. So the first instance that it's used outside of the first creation account shows this is a flexible term. It's being used this is not 24 hours, this is in the day. These are the generations in the day when it is being used. So there's flexibility from the text that we can see in this word.
And it's been understood for centuries. We just mentioned how Augustine earlier had noted that. The most influential theologian of the past 20th century was Carl F.H. Henry. He influenced everyone from Billy Graham to John Piper and everyone that we look up to. And he says this, he says, Faith in an inerrant Bible does not rest on the recency or antiquity of the earth.
The Bible does not require a belief in six literal 24 hour creation days on the basis of Genesis 1 and 2. It is gratuitous to insist that the 24 hour days are involved or intended. So what day age theorists are going to say is that this is flexible. This is six periods of time. So that's the argument.
Here are some of the critiques for that. Science, this view allows for some flexibility. It allows for some time. But people in evolutionary biology are going to point out, wait a second, that even if this is millions of years, the order in which it comes about is not what we see in our current scientific findings. that it doesn't match up. And you actually can just look in the text and you can ask the question, how were, if there are thousands of years between these days, how on day three when plants were created, how did they survive without insects on day five? That's how they pollinate.
Like how did they make it? The same argument is made of birds. Birds were created on day four. How did they survive without insects on day five? So if this is the view that you're going to hold, you've got to have some answers to that.
You've got to figure out how that pieces together. But then you have to answer the question when six day literal creations are going to say the text says it was evening and it was morning. And say, how are you going to answer that? It seems back to back to back. And that is what the next view answers pretty directly. The next view is called literary framework view.
This is a view that doesn't attempt to really deal with the science at all. It looks at the text from a completely different perspective. Here's what it says. That because Genesis 1 is poetic prose, it is poetry. The way the Hebrew is read is it's poetic and it's prose. It's common language telling a story.
That because it's poetic prose, there is creative license in how this story was told. And because ancient Near Easterners told stories differently than the way that modern Westerners tell stories, that we shouldn't read it as chronological. We should see it as a framework of days of forming, days one through three, and days of filling, which I'll get to in a moment. And they're going to say that because this is a framework and a creative story that's being told, that this is how you can interpret it. So let me show you the chart.
Literary framework is going to say this, that there are three, the first three days are days of forming. Light and darkness, sea and sky, land and plants. And the literary framework shows that on days four through six, the sun and moon feel it was formed on day one. The fish and the birds feel it was formed on day two and that land, animals and humans feel it was formed on day three. So the whole point of this is a poetic retelling.
It's not meant to convey chronology at all. It's just a poetic retelling of the story and that seems foreign to us. It does. I mean, we're Westerners in the post-modern age. That seems really foreign to us in the same way that if I had a foreigner over who knew English fairly well but didn't know all of the English language and I was telling him a story about, you know, my wife and I, we played cards last night and I killed her. And I'm smiling and he sees that and he's like, whoa, this guy killed his wife and he's really happy about it.
He's going to try to get away. He doesn't know all the euphemisms of our storytelling. It's a euphemism for, I beat her, which is another euphemism for, I won the card match, which does not happen very often when I play cards with my wife. It's a foreign way of storytelling but here's what, it shows up all over the place. It even shows up in the Gospels. Take the Gospels and try to put them in sequential order of events and you're going to have a tough time because even the Gospel writers aren't telling the Gospel stories chronologically.
They're telling them thematically and theologically. It is a different way of storytelling. So because of that, chronology is not important and therefore you don't have to reconcile science with this view. Now here are some of the critiques of this view. One of the basic ones is, well, well, well, that seems really convenient. You found a cute little framework, I like your chart, forming and filling.
That seems, it seems like you're just not trying to deal with the science at all. And that's kind of the gist of a lot of it is it just seems a little too convenient, it seems a little too pieced together well. The other one, and it just comes, and this is going to be where it's just, the two sides are going to agree to disagree. The sixth day is going to say, it says morning and evening, morning and evening, it applies sequence and the literary framework is going to say, that's not how ancient Near Easter is told stories. And that's kind of how this view is and some of the critiques of this view.
I got two more. The next one is historic creationism. This looks at the word beginning in verses 1 and 2. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and that word for beginning is the Hebrew word, Rashid. And they're going to say that that word has a flexible meaning which can mean an unspecific, undefined beginning. So what this view is going to argue is that verse 1 and 2 could be a long period of time that we don't know that God forms the universe.
And what the focus of the six days is the preparation of earth, the preparation of the land. So they're going to say that there's a long, undefined period of time on the front end, and then the earth is made in six days after that. There's another theory called gap theory which I can't get into that looks at that very similarly. It looks at verses 1 and 2 and it says, this is when probably the fall of Satan happened and the whole earth had to be recreated because of that and he used what was old to make what we now have. So it is looking at verses 1 and 2, looking at a big period of time and then what follows afterwards is six literal days.
So here's the critique on this theory. This theory is going to argue for a sequential pattern of days, of days 1 through 6, but they're going to separate it from the first two verses. And people who look at the text are going to go, if you're arguing for a sequential order, chronological order, why do you just separate it from 1 and 2? That seems a little too convenient. Others who are Hebrew scholars are going to look at how beginning is used in this view and they're going to say, well, that's actually debatable and there's going to be a debate over how you can translate that word. And then scientifically, you're still going to have to answer some of the challenges that come up in the fossil record, which brings us to our final one.
Our final view is theistic evolution. I don't want to spend a lot of time explaining this. This is what theistic evolution is. Evolutionary findings are true. The Bible is true. Yep.
They're placed on top of one another. The Bible is telling it poetically and what we know in science is true. And therefore, they're both compatible. Let's move on. So I want to point out two questions that this view is going to have to wrestle with.
And it's honestly two questions that each view is going to have to wrestle with. And the first one is, when did death occur? And the second one is, were Adam and Eve real? Were they real people? So that first question matters.
When did death occur? We know from Genesis 3 that God warns them not to eat of the tree of the fruit and knowledge of good and evil lest you die. They eat of it. We'll get to this in a couple weeks. They spiritually die and then one day they physically return to dust. They die.
So we can tell from the text humans were not supposed to die before the fall. But what about plants? What about animals? And this is going to matter for the fossil record. What do you do with that? Well, plants, obviously, something had to die.
Something had to get eaten. So fruits and vegetables, plants died. But then what about animals which make up a ton of the fossil record that we have? What about them? Did they die before the fall? I mean, there are a lot of people that are going to have current stances on food based on did animals die before the fall?
Like I went to a Brazilian steakhouse yesterday, saved up all day some stomach room and all I ate was meat and cheese and it was glorious. But there's some people that say, no, you don't do that. You have to go back to the picture before the fall that animals didn't kill one another. And some are going to argue, wait a second, what about lions? They have large teeth and claws. You mean to tell me that God designed them to eat grass?
That doesn't make any sense. And the other side is going to fire back. No, look at Isaiah 65. Isaiah 65 is a picture, it's a prophecy of the new heavens and the new earth at the end of time and it says this, the wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox. They're going to say, if this is a picture of the new heavens and the new earth, the new heavens and the new earth is a retelling of what happened in Eden.
It looks like they didn't eat each other. The other side is going to say, no, no, no, it's just metaphorical language for peace and they're going to go back and forth. Here's why that matters. You've got to have that wrapped around your brain. You've got to have that figured out because that's how you're going to have to explain some of the fossil record, some of the things that is being found. So when to death occur is a big one, but here's the biggest question that comes out of this entire debate.
Were Adam and Eve real people? I don't have time to get into that question fully. Chet's going to cover that in the next creation story more directly. But your, hear this, your view of this is going to be very telling of your understanding of the truthfulness of the Bible. I'll just give you a spoiler. The New Testament assumes that Adam and Eve were real people.
So your view on this is going to matter and it's also going to matter because there are scientific findings that are going to come out and they're going to say there's no way the age of man is 10 to 20,000 years old. They're going to say absolutely it's got to be over 100,000 years old. And there's also over the last decade has been a debate on was there an actually original Adam and Eve? Was there an original genetic pair? And there's been paper published, paper published going back and forth on that. So your view of this is going to be very telling.
But for all of these you've got to sort these out in your brain a little bit. And the reason why you should and the reason why you should read up on this and you should invest in this and we're going to talk about this in community groups this week is because there are people that have used this as a reason for unbelief. And you were called as a Christian to have an answer for that. You were called to be able to defend your faith in some form or fashion to be able to explain this a little bit. Now, pause. Some of you were like, yes.
Give me more. I want more fears. Some of you, very few of you probably, are like, I want to spend all day in this. And then others of you are like, I just died inside because we just spent 20 minutes. I just want the answers. Like, I want the cliff notes.
That was the cliff notes. They could go much longer. Can you just tell me what it is? What does the Bible teach? This should be clear. And I cannot ease that tension for you.
The answer is, I don't know. After all that, we don't know. I don't know. I cannot solve this for you. I honestly don't know. What's the position of our church?
We don't have one. We're open-handed on this. I mean, you talk to different pastors and we're going to say different things on this. I think that literary framework has some textual basis, but I'm not completely sure. I think mature earth theory has some textual basis. I'm not completely sure.
Genesis is really complicated. And you have to have that posture as you walk through it. Now, let's get to the cake. Let's try out the cookbook. Let's try out health class.
Let's get to the honeymoon. Let's get to the cake. And let's actually look at this text and see why Genesis 1 is beautiful and glorious. It starts out, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Francis Schaeffer says, this is one of the most pregnant with meaning literary statements in all of literature. There is so much packed into, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
What we see out the gate here is that God is the main subject of Genesis 1. He's the main subject of the Bible. It's no accident that He's the subject of the first sentence and that His name shows up 35 times in the first chapter. And here's what that means. The story's not about you. And it's not about me.
I don't care what self-help book you picked up in Books A Million that says you are the hero of your story. It's not true. God is the hero of this story. He is the point of creation. And we get to be made in His image as a specific part of creation. We'll get to that next week.
But we're not the point. And I feel like what happens when we have these debates over how the earth came to be, how the universe came to be. I know my posture in the past has been, God, could you have given us like a different, like an extra chapter of Genesis? Could you have explained this in a better way? Because there's a ton of people that are looking at this and saying, see, we shouldn't believe this. I've got to have an answer for them.
And I feel like God in that moment, it's just my feeling, is saying, are you serious? You have trouble installing ceiling fans. And you want me to explain how I made everything out of nothing. No. Read your Bible, look at an epic sunset, and be thankful. This should turn you to worship, not focusing on how.
Because God is the main subject. He's the point of creation. The next thing we see is in the beginning. And in that statement in this story, God pre-exists creation. Which means He eternally has been, always will be. People will say, well, what happened before God?
There was no before. God has eternally existed. He is the eternally uncaused cause. He caused everything into being. And it also means that He created time. And if time is like a linear object, God created time, and this is time, this is the beginning, this is the end, and that God eternally exists before time.
He eternally exists also within time. He also eternally exists outside of time at the end. Which is mind-blowing. And it hurts our brain. But that's how big our God is, and that's even a poor way of explaining the glory of what's actually happening.
God pre-exists time. He's infinite, and He's without need. Which also means He doesn't need us. He didn't need, He didn't make creation the universe. He didn't make humanity because He was lonely. He eternally existed in perfect harmony with Himself.
Which begs the question, why did He create us in the first place? And the Bible gives us two answers. One, because He desires us. He doesn't need you, but He desires you. He desires all of humanity generally, and He desires His church specifically. He desires us.
And the second reason is He did it for His glory. For the glory of God is why He made everything that was made. And we see that packed in the first statement. As you walk through the rest of Genesis, you see something else. You see that the Trinity is creating together here. That Genesis 1 gives us our first picture of God the Trinity forming things together.
In Genesis 1, 26, it says, Let us make man in our own image. And that is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit in communion with Himself saying, Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness. You see God the Father forming, shaping, creating. In verse 2, it says, And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. You see the Holy Spirit involved in making the universe. And then in verse 3, it says, And God said, Let there be light.
And there was light. And John in his gospel picks up on this. In the very first verse of John 1, it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And that is talking about Jesus. Jesus, the Word, the creative Word who brought everything into existence. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit together creating.
That's the first picture of the training that we get in the Bible. It shows up in Genesis 1. What we also see in Genesis 1 is that God speaks the world into existence. Think about this. He literally speaks things exist. He forms everything that was made by the power of His creative Word.
That when He says in verse 3, and God said, let there be light. In verse 6, and God said, let there be an expanse amidst the waters. Every time He creates, He speaks by the power of His creative Word. And the power of His creative Word, the power that that Word gives life, that theme is strung throughout the whole Bible. And it first shows up right here. That throughout the Old Testament, prophets speak, and it gives life that when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the Word came to life, and then He dies, the death on the cross, He conquers death at the resurrection, and then He leaves us with what?
He leaves us with a message. And we get to share that message with those who are spiritually dead to watch the Holy Spirit work through it and make those alive in Christ. God speaks into existence, and that theme is carried and it starts here in Genesis. What we also see is that God creates everything out of nothing. He creates everything, the Latin is ex nihilo, out of nothing, out of thin air, air. Not out of, air is a substance and thinness is a quality.
It's literally out of nothing that He creates everything. He didn't need substance to make anything, which also means is He didn't need inspiration. God is the one who inspires. And let me play that out for you on a practical level why that's good.