Steve Gentry
[0:00] I don’t know if you noticed a theme in the music this morning, but we are here to proclaim the message of Jesus. [0:10] If this is your first time here, I just want to once again, just kind of, I think you’ve seen it in the songs. [0:18] I think you’ve felt it while you sang. [0:20] But the reason that we’re here, the reason that the village exists, is we’re here to connect people to God, [0:29] through the hope that is found in His Son Jesus. [0:33] That’s why we exist, that’s why we sing those songs, is because God is not some far off distant deity,
[0:43] who’s unconnected from us, but rather He is here and He is involved and He is highly interested in your life. [0:53] And the second step, the next step, what comes next when you’ve connected to God, is that we want to teach you [1:01] how to live His mission in this world. [1:05] Because we believe that God is a God of mission. [1:08] And that the reason that He sent His Son was for a purpose that is greater than you and I.
[1:16] The one thing that I have to come to understand about my life is that this world is not about me, but rather it’s about God. [1:25] Everything that exists, exists to proclaim and show His greatness. [1:32] And that is probably one of the most intimidating and sometimes terrifying things about God. [1:38] Because when we look at our lives, when we see how we live, when we see the truth of who we really are, [1:44] we find always that we never show up to even give God glory.
[1:52] But He doesn’t leave us hopeless. [1:55] Instead, He lays His wrath and He gets justice through His Son who died on our behalf. [2:06] And this morning, and over the next six weeks, what we’re here to do is we’re here to take a look at God’s revelation of Himself to us. [2:17] We’re here to look at the Bible. [2:18] For the next six weeks, what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be really unfolding what this book is all about. [2:25] What story is being told through Scripture.
[2:29] Because I think Scripture is one of the most misunderstood things throughout the history of man. [2:36] Quite often what we do is we see it and we boil it down to something as simple as God’s handbook for our lives. [2:45] Or something that we go to when we’re under a great deal of stress trying to find inspiration for our lives. [2:53] Trying to find meaning for ourselves. [2:56] Trying to find just something that’s worth living for. [3:00] And so what we do is we look through these Scriptures.
[3:03] There are so many of them. [3:05] And we look at them as a disjointed book. [3:09] And we just look for that one verse that will turn our lives around. [3:13] That one thing in here that will have some meaning. [3:17] And quite often if you’re anything like me, when you go to Scripture, you sometimes come up with something that doesn’t exactly hit you. [3:25] Where you think it needs to hit you.
[3:29] Quite often, I’ll go into the Scriptures and I’ll read the Old Testament and I’ll just say, how does this fit with Jesus?
[3:38] Where is Jesus in the book of Leviticus? [3:40] Where is Jesus in the book of First Chronicles? [3:43] Because it’s not really adding up. [3:45] I’ll go to the book of Philippians and it seems like I’m getting one message. [3:49] And then I’ll go back to somewhere in the Old Testament and it seems like something completely different.
[3:55] But what I want us to do over the next six weeks is not just go in here and find a couple of verses that back up this or that that we want to think about or want to talk about. [4:05] But I want us to back up and look at Scripture as a whole from Genesis to Revelation. [4:12] And just make an attempt to see how it all fits together. [4:18] Because what you have in these 66 books is not some unrelated message after message after message of God speaking to this guy. [4:29] And then he picks another guy to talk to about somebody else or something else. [4:33] And it’s all disjointed and it doesn’t make sense.
[4:36] But rather what we have is 66 books over centuries that cover and reveal the story of God and His creation.
[4:52] And when we stand back and we begin to look at it and we see it as more than just chicken soup for the soul. [5:01] We begin to see a story that unravels throughout the course of lives, throughout the course of nations, throughout the course of centuries. [5:19] And when we put it all together we get one continuous and seamless story. [5:29] And so over the next six weeks I want us to kind of look at that. [5:34] And I want us to see the different parts of the story. [5:38] And what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at it through four different ways.
[5:43] We’re going to look at it through creation. [5:46] As God speaks the world into existence. [5:51] And then secondly we’re going to look at the fall. [5:53] We’re going to look at man and how we have fallen short and how we have taken what was beautiful and made it pretty ugly. [6:04] Because if you’re really honest life is not perfect unity for any of us. [6:11] But that’s the vision that God gives us when He creates.
[6:15] And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at redemption. [6:20] We’re going to look at what God does about sin. [6:25] What does God do with us when we fall? [6:28] What has God done with more than us? [6:31] But what is God doing for all of creation? [6:35] Our world, the universe, what is God doing?
[6:39] And then finally we’re going to see where God is taking it. [6:43] Through restoration. [6:44] It’s probably one of the most confusing and misunderstood aspects of the story of God. [6:50] And that’s because we haven’t seen all of it yet. [6:54] But God has not given up on the world. [6:59] There is hope.
[7:02] And people that believe the scriptures and people that follow God should be a hopeful people. [7:08] Because we know that in the end God is going to restore the world back to its original created order. [7:19] That there will one day be perfect unity between God and us and between each other and between us and creation. [7:29] And that’s where we’re headed.
[7:33] Quite often when we think about the future, Christians seem to be the ones with the least hope. [7:41] We seem to be the ones that scream apocalypse the loudest. [7:46] But that’s not the way scripture unfolds.
[7:52] Scripture unfolds and gives us great hope for the future. [7:57] Scripture unfolds and says not only is there hope for the future, but God’s people through Jesus Christ become that hope. [8:10] So I’m excited over the next few weeks. [8:12] I may knock over some religious traditions. [8:16] I may knock on the door of your heart and say something’s not right inside of you the way that you’re viewing scripture. [8:23] But understand that I’m not trying to offend you.
[8:25] I’m trying to love you and I’m just trying to be faithful to what God is teaching. [8:30] It’s not a mystery. God unfolds it right here. [8:33] So go ahead and make a long journey in your Bible to Genesis chapter 1. [8:38] It’s probably page 1 if you don’t have a study Bible.
[8:43] We’re going really far today.
[8:47] Just Genesis 1, maybe a little bit of 2. [8:50] I do want to let you know that we do outside have a companion to our series. [8:56] There are some booklets on the connection table outside. [9:00] And what it does is it goes through the story of scripture, creation, fall, redemption, restoration. [9:06] And what I want you to do this morning is I want you to go out on your way and I want you to grab one of these. [9:12] And I want you to take it and I want you to read it so that you know where we’re going.
[9:16] But more than that, I want you to use this in your life. [9:20] I want you to show your friends. I want you to go through it with your family. [9:23] So that you can know the story of God through scripture.
[9:29] But in Genesis 1, what we’re going to see is we’re going to see the beginning of it all. [9:34] And that’s a really good place to start. I’m glad God decided to start there. [9:39] Because if He had started in the middle or at the end it would have been even more confusing for us. [9:43] But quite often when we come into scripture, the mistake that we make is kind of like going to the middle of a Tom Clancy novel. [9:53] Or to the middle of Dostoevsky and go to page 500 and think it’s all going to make sense. [9:58] So what we do is we go to page 500 and read one verse and say, well the Bible doesn’t make any sense to me.
[10:04] Of course it doesn’t make sense. You’re viewing it as something other than literature. [10:08] Is this the inspired and inherent word of God? Absolutely. [10:11] But who do you think created literature? The God that created everything else. [10:18] So what you’re going to see in scripture is a plot. It has a theme. It has a main character. [10:26] It has a climax. And it has a resolution. [10:30] Scripture is not this mysterious book that looks like nothing else the world has ever seen.
[10:36] I would say literature is based on the devices used in scripture. [10:42] As the world has unraveled and we have grown to understand God’s creation and understand our minds, [10:48] God uses our brains to teach us how to know Him and to teach us how to look at His Word. [10:57] English class pays off in the end.
[11:02] Some of you were like me sitting in 10th grade English saying, I’m never going to use this. I hate reading. [11:10] And now it’s like, oh no! Hopefully we can remember some of that stuff as we go through the series. [11:16] But look in Genesis 1 with me this morning.
[11:20] In Genesis chapter 1, we begin and it says, in the beginning, God.
[11:32] Let’s stop. We’ve gone so far now that we’ve got to unpack it. [11:38] We made it four words and there’s something that we’ve got to unpack. [11:43] We’ve got to unpack God. [11:46] What I find most interesting about scripture is that scripture really reveals the story of God. [11:54] That’s really what this is. [11:57] And what’s really fascinating is the way He begins it.
[12:01] What’s really hard is when you’re in Genesis 1 and you want to set your Bible down, but then it wants to close. [12:05] So you’ve got to keep holding on Genesis 1 so you don’t flip through the pages again. [12:08] But what’s really cool about scripture though is it begins with God, but notice what it doesn’t begin with. [12:16] Usually when you’re reading a book, it has a preface so that you get what those four words would be talking about. [12:22] But God doesn’t do that.
[12:26] God just says, come into my story and know that I’m there and I’m not silent.
[12:35] The scripture has this presupposition of God in all of His greatness. [12:44] And He’s so great that He doesn’t even demand an introduction. [12:48] He just is.
[12:52] And for you to make this journey through scripture, that is exactly where you have to start. [12:59] Because if you start anywhere else, the rest of it is going to crumble and fall apart all around you. [13:08] You cannot have a good understanding of creation without God. [13:11] You cannot have a good understanding of Jesus without God. [13:15] You cannot have hope without God. [13:17] You cannot have redemption without God.
[13:19] And you surely cannot be restored without Him. [13:23] For centuries, the greatest way to go into life was said to be to understand, I think therefore I am. [13:33] There’s a problem with that though. [13:35] It’s that it begins with I.
[13:38] When you begin to try to understand the purpose of everything around you, [13:44] when you begin to understand why everything exists, [13:48] starting with you as the center of meaning and starting with you as to why everything is, [13:55] you can’t get to God because you’re God.
[14:01] Scripture begins with God as the basis and as the source of everything else. [14:09] Because nothing can exist without Him.
[14:15] The great physicist, and he is a great mind, Stephen Hawking recently came out with a new book. [14:22] And he’s a brilliant physicist. [14:24] And he looks at creation and he looks at everything that exists. [14:28] And he says, science has gone far enough.
[14:33] And we understand enough that theology and trying to understand God is pointless and meaningless. [14:42] Because our understanding has come to a point that we don’t need God.
[14:50] The problem with that is that it reduces this main character, and he is the main character of the story. [14:59] It reduces him to being nothing more than something to fill the gap of what we don’t understand. [15:11] So as we increase in knowledge, and as we increase in our scientific understanding, [15:19] the gaps begin to narrow, don’t they? [15:22] We understand the makeup of human beings, we get DNA, we look at black holes, and they begin to make sense.
[15:31] And so as the gap narrows, God becomes meaningless because what we’ve done is we’ve started an error. [15:36] We’ve reduced him to nothing more than an explanation for that which we do not understand.
[15:43] But the way scripture begins points us to a place where we look at God and we say God is more than that. [15:51] Because the problem is that God is not simply a part of creation. [15:56] If he’s just an explanation, that’s what he is. [15:59] He’s just part of creation. [16:00] But the God that we meet here is outside of creation because first we see him as the creator, [16:09] but second we see him as being on the scene before anything else.
[16:14] Scripture begins with an understanding that God has just always been there, that he’s there, and he’s not silent.
[16:25] So let’s move on. [16:28] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [16:36] The earth was without void, excuse me, can’t read. [16:41] The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. [16:47] And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. [16:52] And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
[16:56] And God saw the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. [17:02] God called the light day and the darkness he called light, and there was evening and there was morning the first day.
[17:12] What I want you to see there is more than just some argument for creationism.
[17:21] Because I think sometimes that’s what we go to Genesis 1 for. [17:23] We have traditions and we have understandings. [17:26] We believe in creation or we believe in evolution or we believe in intelligent design or we believe in a combination of all of it. [17:34] And so what we do is we go to Genesis 1 and we say, well, okay, let’s look at this. [17:38] Okay, I see six 24-hour days. [17:41] And we begin to form this defense that we’re going to go and we’re going to fight people that don’t think exactly the way we do.
[17:50] Forget that.
[17:54] For a moment, I want you to take away all of your traditions, all of your preconceived notions. [18:03] I want you to strip away all of the religion that you have in your life right now. [18:09] And I want us to just for a moment take a look at Scripture and just let it speak for itself.
[18:17] Because that’s how you come into a story. [18:19] You don’t come into a story and try to put your own spin on it. [18:24] You come into a story and you let it unravel. [18:28] Let’s do that. [18:31] So what we have is we have God and then we have God speak everything into existence.
[18:41] Out of nothing, God made everything.
[18:48] In seminary, we used a lot of complicated words and I never understood why I can’t just say it in English. [18:56] But in seminary, they taught us this concept called ex nihilo.
[19:01] And that just sounds really cool. It sounds like an ex-man to me. [19:03] It’s like, ex nihilo is here. [19:06] But what it means is it simply means that out of nothing, God made everything. [19:11] It means that there was nothing. [19:14] That God did not find these universal building blocks and then out of that, kind of the way we would build a deck on the back of our house, God built things. [19:25] No, what it means is that in the beginning there was just God, there was nothing else.
[19:29] And then he steps in and he makes a decision based on nothing more than his will and what he wanted. [19:37] And he said, exist. [19:40] And things began to exist. [19:43] This is in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [19:48] But then it says that God spoke and there was light. [19:52] God spoke.
[19:54] The darkness was separate from the light. [19:57] God spoke. [19:58] And things began to exist. [20:01] And what we have, creation in a poetic fashion. [20:05] And that is how Genesis 1 is laid out. [20:08] It’s laid out like beautiful poetry.
[20:12] And it recovers that over six days, God began to create things.
[20:19] First, he starts with light and dark.
[20:26] And that’s a day.
[20:29] I got to tell you, starting with light and dark is pretty good because I can’t do that. [20:32] I can turn on a light, but I can’t just say light. [20:36] But sometimes I would like to be a Harry Potter character so that I can just yell things like Lumos. [20:42] And there’s light at the end of a stick. [20:45] The best I have is a flashlight.
[20:49] It’s magical to me. [20:52] How do they get power into that little bitty thing? [20:54] I have no idea.
[20:57] Somebody sitting out there, oh, I know. [21:00] You could tell me. [21:01] I wouldn’t get it. [21:03] I’m not that smart.
[21:05] But just to kind of fast forward, what’s going to happen over the next few verses is that God’s going to create sea. [21:13] And then he’s going to create sky. [21:15] And there’s going to be a difference between the sea and the sky. [21:19] Water is going to cover the whole earth. [21:22] And it’s just going to be, and it’s going to be beautiful. [21:25] And God’s going to say it’s good.
[21:27] And then he’s going to create land.
[21:31] But sometimes when I think about God creating land, I think about desert. [21:35] And God said, desert. [21:36] And there’s all this dirt. [21:39] But God went further than that. [21:41] God said, let there be fertile earth. [21:44] Let there be trees and let there be vegetation.
[21:48] And let it be good.
[21:51] And then he makes day and night. [21:54] And when I was a kid, that didn’t make any sense to me because he already did that. [21:58] Because we’ve had three days so far and then it says it again. [22:03] But that’s not what it’s talking about. [22:06] My best understanding here is that before this point, there was no time.
[22:14] Before this point, there were no seasons. [22:18] Before this point, you couldn’t use the sun to see what time it was and then count on a calendar year where everything was going. [22:27] That was still with God.
[22:32] But then he just says, spin.
[22:37] Rotate.
[22:40] Work.
[22:42] And it works.
[22:45] What I find most fascinating about this is that if you look at science and you look at biology and you look at meteorology and you look at just the placement of where everything is. [22:58] I was a geography teacher for a year and I was so good at it that I only did it for a year. [23:04] So, it’s a true story. [23:07] And as I was, they had a shortage and somebody had to do it and I’m a glutton for punishment. [23:12] So I said, me. And so every night I’m feverishly studying the same geography book the kids are because I have no idea what I’m talking about. [23:18] But as I’m looking through this, I see that the earth is tilted in such a way and that it’s placed in such a space and gravity keeps it in such a place that it goes around the sun at a perfect distance.
[23:38] And it’s tilted in just the right way so that we don’t freeze to death or burn to death. [23:45] And if we were just smidgen closer, we would all burn alive. [23:52] If we were just a smidgen further away, we would all freeze to death. [24:00] And if gravity was putting just a little more pressure on us, it would crush us. [24:06] But if it was any lighter, I could be Superman.
[24:13] Actually, probably not. I’d probably just float away.
[24:18] See, if gravity was lighter, I would be lighter. [24:23] And that’s a dream.
[24:28] But what we see is we see God unfolding this beautiful creation that works and it holds together.
[24:37] Biologists look at the human body and they look at DNA and they look at atoms and they look at the way it all splits.
[24:45] And they say, some of it we can’t make sense of.
[24:50] Because there should be chaos going on. [24:54] And it holds together.
[24:58] And what we’re learning is it’s not by chance.
[25:04] Then he creates fish and birds.
[25:08] Why? I have no idea.
[25:12] But he did. [25:13] And I’m sure someone somewhere is like, I know why. I wouldn’t understand it anyway.
[25:18] But in God’s sovereign design, he did.
[25:24] See, you can go down to the reservoir and go fishing. [25:27] I would go and fall asleep. [25:28] But some of you like that stuff.
[25:32] But then there are birds of the air. Birds flying. [25:36] And I’m fascinated by that. [25:39] That their feathers just make them glide. [25:42] And someone just said, it’s not their feathers. [25:45] To me it is. [25:47] And they fly.
[25:51] But then on day six, God creates land animals.
[25:57] And then he creates humans.
[26:02] But for our story, we have to go a little further. [26:06] Skip down to verse 26 with me.
[26:12] Then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. [26:18] And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, [26:23] and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, [26:25] and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. [26:30] So God created man in his own image. [26:33] In the image of God, he created him.
[26:35] Male and female, he created them. [26:39] And God blessed them. [26:41] And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, [26:43] and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, [26:49] and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
[26:57] So now, we show up.
[27:02] But there’s something different about us. [27:05] Everything else God records and says, let it exist. [27:10] Let it be, and it was. [27:12] But with man, God has a huddle.
[27:19] And they discuss what they’re about to create. [27:24] They discuss the existence. [27:27] But notice that I’m using the term, they.
[27:32] That’s fascinating. [27:34] Because when we started, it was just God. [27:39] And now he’s speaking in plural.
[27:43] Hmm. [27:45] Scripture begins unfolding in interesting ways. [27:48] If we skip ahead to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, [27:52] we see that, and this is, if you are Jewish, [27:54] this is the verse that you memorize first. [27:58] And that verse says, here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
[28:05] Yet here, he’s us.
[28:10] So here in chapter 1, God still doesn’t give us a preface. [28:15] He just says, I’m plural.
[28:21] Here we have the first hint that our main character is a God that exists in community. [28:32] Yet in Deuteronomy, it says, he’s still one.
[28:37] And if you’re tracking with me, talking about the Trinity,
[28:43] we’ll get back to that in a second.
[28:47] Because what I want you to see right here is the way that God created the heavens and the earth. [28:53] God broke it down piece by piece, building block upon building block, in an intricate fashion. [29:00] If he had began with man, we would have needed gills, because all there was was water.
[29:08] If he had begun with land animals, the same thing. [29:12] If he had begun with land, well then it wouldn’t function the way that it does. [29:17] I know some of you have to water plants.
[29:22] Notice that water existed before plant life. [29:25] Notice how God created the earth to function in such a beautiful way [29:31] that everything came in its own and right time, and what it needed was already here.
[29:40] How can a bird fly if there is no sky?
[29:44] That rhymed.
[29:50] What I want you to see here is that creation is in perfect unity, perfect harmony, functioning beautifully. [30:01] That’s why science looks at it and sees such a beautiful thing. [30:05] That’s why the more that we go to understand, the more vastly interesting it becomes.
[30:11] Science is meaningful because it is beautiful.
[30:16] But it is beautiful because in the beginning, God.
[30:22] Because you see, if you look at creation, and there is no source other than it happens,
[30:32] what you do is you have to reduce it to either I define the meaning of everything around me, or it has no meaning. [30:41] And that’s what some philosophers have called nihilism. [30:45] Remember ex nihilo? Well there is nihilism that says, [30:49] this all came from nothing, so the point must logically go to nothing. [30:54] Therefore nothing matters.
[30:57] But when we step back and we look at creation, and we look at its wonderful nature, [31:02] and we look at its beautiful dance, even around the sun at just the right place, [31:07] I don’t think I see nothingness. I think I see a whole lot of something. [31:13] And when I see all of that something, it begs the question, where did it all come from? [31:19] What is the source? And creation screams out, the source is God!
[31:26] Psalm 19 proclaims and professes. [31:31] That’s right there. [31:33] The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. [31:39] Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. [31:43] There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. [31:47] Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
[31:52] In them he has set a tent for the sun.
[31:56] What we’re seeing here is that creation exists to glorify God.
[32:05] That God has made the world in such a way that if everything goes the way it’s supposed to, [32:12] what happens is that God stands back and he looks and he says, how glorious I am!
[32:20] Look at the work of my hands! [32:23] And when we look at it, what we’re supposed to see is that nothing escapes the sun, [32:28] and that’s a picture of nothing being able to escape God. [32:31] When I speak, when it’s day or night, God hears me. [32:36] God is God of all, he is King of everything, because everything came out of his hand in the beginning, God!
[32:47] And it exists for him!
[32:57] Now we see in Romans chapter 1, verse 20, [33:04] For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, [33:09] have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, [33:15] in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse.
[33:22] What we see there is that when we wake in the morning, when we go to bed at night, [33:29] when we see a beautiful sunrise, when we see a beautiful sunset, [33:33] when we go to things like the Grand Canyon, when we just see a child being born, [33:39] when we see a child take its first steps, when we look at how complicated and complex everything is, [33:46] it does not deny a creator, but it cries out beautiful design.
[33:58] Intricate precision.
[34:02] A few months ago I had my first son, and it was my first child, [34:06] and we took him to the cardiologist, and they are doing a sonogram on his heart, [34:12] and you are just looking at how the heart functions, and the chambers, [34:17] and how it pumps blood into the lungs in a certain way so that my son can breathe, [34:23] and you look at it, and you cannot help but be in absolute wonder.
[34:33] Just say, how magnificent. [34:36] There is more to play here than just boards nailed together.
[34:42] There is something that is intricate, and something that if the pump does not happen at just the right moment, [34:51] it could throw everything else in my child off balance.
[34:57] But it pumps.
[35:02] And it is intricate.
[35:05] And what that says to me is, wow.
[35:13] How did this happen?
[35:16] The source is not me. [35:20] And if the source is not me, then the purpose cannot be defined by me. [35:30] I have to go somewhere else.
[35:33] And where I go, by very definition, must be my God.
[35:42] Because creation screams out glory.
[35:51] And then in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 31, it gets real specific. [35:57] What we see here is Paul writing to a church, and he says, [36:01] Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
[36:10] And that says quite a great deal, because what it does is it reduces us to the simplest part of our day.
[36:22] Eating and drinking.
[36:24] If we were to stop eating and drinking, we would eventually die. [36:29] Some of us quicker than others. [36:31] I might last a little longer. [36:33] I’ve stored up a little bit more.
[36:37] But what’s happening here is not that Paul is being facetious. [36:42] Paul is not just trying to be annoying and say, try to find a way to eat that Big Mac for the glory of God, fatty.
[36:51] That’s not what Paul’s doing. [36:54] And some of you are like, I like Big Mac. So do I. [36:57] Look.
[37:00] I’m not offending you there, this guy.
[37:04] What I’m saying is, what Paul is doing is he’s reducing everything that we do, every activity that we partake in, [37:12] everything that we exist for to its simplest form and its simplest function. [37:16] And he’s saying, everything has as its source God, so everything has at its source the glory of God. [37:25] And it’s something that we must realize is very important to how we live and how we function because everything is spiritual.
[37:37] If God made everything and everything about God that we want to define and say is part of our spiritual lives, [37:43] if God’s the source of everything, then everything’s a part of our spiritual lives.
[37:48] Skip with me over to Genesis chapter 2.
[37:56] Let’s go to verse 18. [37:59] Let’s talk about us a little more. [38:02] Then the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. [38:10] So we’ve gotten past the fact that God made us. [38:14] And that He made everything.
[38:19] We’ve gotten to the point where He gets together and says, let’s make man, [38:23] and then we’re going to make man responsible for how everything works and how everything functions.
[38:31] So man is somewhat different than creation. [38:34] Not that we’re not a part of creation, but God in His final proclamation,
[38:43] He creates the being that will be responsible for all other beings.
[38:53] He looks at it and it’s a guy, his name’s Adam. [38:56] If you went to Sunday school, you got that, okay. [38:59] It’s Adam. [39:01] And He looks at Adam and for the first time in all of creation, He says, it’s not good. [39:09] Adam must have been a lot like me.
[39:14] And then He says, I will make for him a helper.
[39:20] Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens [39:25] and brought them to the man to see what He would call them. [39:28] And whatever the man called, every living creature, that was His name.
[39:35] The man gave, when I read that, I think of a lot of jokes about animal names that I’m not going to go into [39:39] because there’s no time. [39:41] But it’s like, what was He thinking?
[39:44] And He wasn’t in English, so I don’t even know if that’s what it was called. [39:48] Dog.
[39:50] I would have been far more creative. [39:52] I would have called it a Ferrari.
[39:56] That’s why He didn’t start with me.
[40:01] And whatever the man called, every living creature, that was its name. [40:04] The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. [40:09] But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. [40:13] So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him. [40:17] And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. [40:23] And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, He made into a woman and brought her to the man.
[40:29] Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. [40:32] She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
[40:40] I want you to grasp something on here. [40:43] Remember when God referred to Himself as us?
[40:48] And then He says, Let’s make man in our image. [40:53] So then He makes man. [40:56] And then He sets forth man to begin work. [40:59] And man begins naming animals. [41:03] And right before that, God says, It’s not good for man to be alone. [41:06] And after Adam has named the animals, God puts him to sleep.
[41:10] And out of him, He takes a rib and He creates woman. [41:17] And we’re very thankful for that.
[41:21] And so God creates woman and Adam says, He’s calling her that because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones. [41:31] So out of man she came.
[41:35] There’s something far more significant than most of us usually think about going on right here. [41:41] Why didn’t Adam on his own please God? [41:47] Because what was the purpose of man? [41:48] The purpose of man was to be in the image of God and to care for creation in a godly fashion. [41:55] So what happens? [41:56] Adam’s alone. Who’s not alone? God.
[42:03] Perfect unity. Perfect community. That’s how God exists. [42:09] That’s why He uses words like us, our. Those are united words. [42:15] So out of Adam, He creates woman to show this perfect picture of beautiful unity. [42:24] So that we could reflect God’s image onto creation because man exists to reflect the Creator.
[42:39] And so now there’s Adam and Eve. She’s flesh of his flesh, bone of his bones. [42:44] Forever they will be connected because one came out of the other. [42:48] And now they’re perfectly united. So man must exist in community to give God the glory that He wants. [42:57] So that everything can continue to work the way that God made it.
[43:05] And we’re the highlight of it.
[43:10] And so we’ve unpacked and we’ve seen that creation is this beautiful picture of the Creator. [43:18] And we’ve seen this beautiful dance begin to take place in creation. [43:24] And we’ve seen everything function and for the most part, doesn’t it still function that day? [43:28] I mean I haven’t caught on fire yet.
[43:32] I haven’t frozen to death yet. So the earth’s still where it’s supposed to be.
[43:37] And man is this great steward of creation. [43:41] What God did not do is create man and then look at the rest of creation and say, [43:46] Hey guys, have at it. It’s all for you. [43:52] Whatever you want to do with it, do. Consume.
[43:59] No, God says, Steward.
[44:05] Take care of.
[44:08] And He looks at man and woman and He says, Be together. [44:11] He finishes it and says, This is why men leave their families and go take a bride.
[44:20] He leaves his mom and dad. He cleaves to his wife because we’re still doing that.
[44:27] But we unravel this beautiful mystery that was creation. [44:32] To do it justice, it would take hours. [44:35] But I think we’ve caught a picture of its wonder. [44:38] And we’ve seen a picture of what it exists for.
[44:43] But tomorrow or even this afternoon or even as you walk outside the doors, [44:49] what you’re going to see is something’s not the same.
[44:58] Because this creation story, what it does is it unravels beauty. [45:03] It gives me a definition. It gives me a purpose. It gives me a world view. [45:07] It gives me a source. It gives me meaning. And God is my meaning. [45:11] But when I go outside and I begin to look at the way people relate, [45:14] and I begin to look at wars, and I begin to look at the arguments that we all have, [45:19] and I begin to look at the fact that we all separate and we live in isolation,
[45:22] and most of us live avoiding the very God that created us. [45:26] We live in isolation even from Him. [45:28] But now, something’s not right.
[45:36] Because death exists.
[45:40] And that doesn’t appear to be part of God’s intentions here.
[45:47] It’s true. Something’s wrong. [45:52] Something’s not the same.
[45:55] It’s because pretty soon, the people that God put in charge of all of it [46:02] decide that creation doesn’t exist for the Creator.
[46:11] Creation exists for us.
[46:17] And all of its beauty is for me. [46:20] And I’m the point. And I’m the center. [46:26] And it’s all because of us.
[46:32] And it’s not so much about Him. [46:35] And we live lives to glorify ourselves. [46:40] We live lives finding wonder in creation, [46:44] but ascribing its beauty to other sources. [46:48] We live lives of consumption rather than caretaking.
[46:57] We live lives separated from each other
[47:02] rather than saying, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, [47:05] even in marriage we struggle now. [47:09] And it’s all falling apart at the seams. [47:13] That’s what it appears to be. [47:15] What I want you to know is, [47:19] in the face of that,
[47:22] God is not standing idly by, waiting for us to fix it.
[47:32] God is not separating Himself away and saying, [47:38] that one didn’t work, I’m going to go over here and try that again. [47:41] They’re condemned.
[47:47] Throughout Scripture we find that God is restoring everything back to Himself.
[47:59] God is going to launch a mission to fix it all.
[48:09] But we put ourselves in the path and attempt to be an obstacle.
[48:25] If you’ve been in church any time,
[48:28] you know that redemption is something that all of us need.
[48:35] But have you ever stopped to say redemption doesn’t just apply to us,
[48:42] but it applies to us and God, it applies to us and each other, [48:47] and it also applies to us and creation.
[48:53] Even though everything kind of fell apart,
[49:00] God still will be and is currently being glorified by creation. [49:08] And that’s what fascinates me the most about the story. [49:12] Is that no matter how hard we try to unravel His story, [49:16] He says it’s still going to work out for me. [49:20] Because He’s going to come and He’s going to fix it Himself. [49:26] Because we can’t. So He sends His Son, because His Son can.
[49:31] And everything that we deserve for breaking creation, He puts on His Son. [49:37] Because God’s on a mission.
[49:40] But I want you to see this morning that the mission didn’t start in Genesis 4. [49:45] The mission started in Genesis 1. [49:48] And that mission is so that He can be glorified.
[49:55] And He will be glorified. [49:58] The question is, where do you fall in this story?
[50:05] Are you hopeful for creation? [50:08] Or are you hopeless?
[50:11] Are you hopeful for restoration? [50:14] Or are you hopeless?
[50:17] Because you can only be hopeful [50:19] if you realize what God has done and what God is doing through His Son Jesus. [50:28] That all of the pain and all of the hurt that we have done [50:35] has been laid right on top of Jesus. [50:39] And now God in His mission to be glorified is saying, [50:43] I’m going to be glorified through redeeming man who’s trying to pervert my creation.
[50:51] The very people who are in rebellion against His purposes [50:54] are the ones from whom He wants the glory. [50:57] And He’s going to get it through His Son Jesus. [51:01] And through you, trusting that the penalty for what we have done to creation [51:07] and the sin that we have done in rebelling against Him [51:10] has been laid fully onto Jesus.
[51:12] Everything that you screw up, everything that has been screwed up for you by someone else [51:18] has been laid fully onto Jesus.
[51:23] And as we go through this series, you’re going to see the beauty of this big picture [51:28] as we look at where sin came from, what sin has done. [51:32] And we’re going to see the mission of Jesus bringing community and reconciliation [51:38] and redemption and restoration. [51:41] And it is beautiful because God is beautiful and He wants you for Himself.
[51:54] And you can have Him today.
[51:59] We’re moving into a time right now and at the village, we do this every week.
[52:06] But we’re going to take communion.
[52:10] Communion is a very interesting thing because what we do is we come and we take a piece of bread [52:16] and we come and we drink just a little bit of juice.
[52:21] But what it represents is something far greater than a religious tradition. [52:25] What it represents, it represents everything that God is doing and has done [52:29] to bring us back to Himself, to bring us back to the point that He created us at. [52:35] The fact that He laid the penalty, He laid justice onto Jesus His Son [52:41] and He broke His body and He shed His blood so that we could go back to God.
[52:50] And if you find yourself at a place this morning where you know Jesus is your Savior, [52:54] where you know Him as God, where you see the Trinity and you see Him as your wonderful King, [53:01] then He’s opened this table for you. [53:04] And then you can come and you can proclaim the Gospel to each other.
[53:11] His broken body and His shed blood representing your sins being placed onto Him.
[53:18] But then the fact that you take His life into yours represents Him giving you His righteousness [53:24] and beginning the process of restoration that God has promised us will be complete.
[53:32] If you’re not a believer, I ask that you don’t come forward. [53:36] I ask that you don’t partake in communion. [53:39] But understand that if you’re sitting there today and you’re saying, [53:43] but I want to be a believer because I want to be restored, [53:47] it can happen today if you just trust in Jesus. [53:52] If you just believe in His redemption through His cross and through His resurrection.
[53:57] If that’s you this morning, I just ask that you step out of your chair and come to the back. [54:02] I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. I just want to pray with you. [54:06] And then we’ll come and we’ll proclaim the Gospel. [54:09] Father, we come before You and we thank You and we trust You. [54:14] God, You are unraveling a beautiful story all around us. [54:19] Lord, may we see where our lives collide with Your life.
[54:25] Where You created us, where we have taken it, [54:30] but where You want to take us and are taking us.
[54:37] Lord, speak this morning. [54:39] Let us live in praise for You. [54:42] Amen.