September 17, 2014
In the Beginning……
Genesis 1:1-12:3
I God the Creator 1:1-31
II A Marriage Made in Paradise 2:18-25
III God’s Grace After the Fall 3:1-24
IV Obedience Saves Lives 6:1-10:17
V Forced to Scatter 11:1-9
I’ve told this story before, but it had such a profound effect on me and is such an elementary beginning, to understanding the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, that it fits, for me to tell it again,
here in the beginning of our walk through the Old Testament…
,
When my daughter Mary Kathryn was in the 9th grade, which believe it or not, has been 18 years ago now…. I went with her and the youth group, on a mission trip to New Hampshire. Our purpose for being there, was to lend man-power and support, to two fledgling church plants in the area, by going door to door, inviting people to join them for Sunday Worship… ”
I learned a valuable lesson on that trip, which always happens when we least expect it. I had never realized just how true the words of 2nd Timothy 3:16 are, which say… that “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in rightousness.”
As believers, when we’re trying to lead someone to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus, we’re taught, to use the scriptures found in Romans that build on each other, called the Roman Road….but I learned that day, that the Holy Spirit , since He is the author of the Word, can take any passage He wants to, and use it to reveal Almighty God to us.
Every day the bus would take us to specific areas and drop us off. We would canvas the area, then it would come back and pick us up and take us to a new area. We had been warned, to expect anything, because we were invading people’s privacy, so even though we allowed the teenagers to go to the doors, two by two, we made certain sure that there was an adult close by….
On this particular day, I was partnered with two shy, not very wise, in the ways, of the world, young girls. But we were doing great, until we got to one particular house……and then, I sensed trouble the minute the young man opened the door, in his short terrycloth bathrobe.
So, I headed, at a sprint, up the driveway, as the girls started their discourse…and I got to the door, just as he was shocking them, by stating that he was an atheist. It didn’t take me but a minute to take over the conversation, thinking I knew exactly what to say to him…. I wore out the Roman Road, with no results,……because he was smart and very articulate, and he had an answer, for every argument I threw at him.
I remember, finally, I asked him, what do you think happens after you die,,,,and his reply was, “Nothing, you live and then you’re buried…It’s over… the end.”
That’s when my heart broke, the emptiness in his eyes and voice, brought tears to my eyes----
and then, I looked up, at the beauty of the White Mountains, surrounding us…and thank goodness, that’s when the Holy Spirit took over, because I was botching it, in my own strength.
Because, without any more argument, I raised my arms up, and just simply said, “what about this?”
And then, Praise the Lord, finally, with candor and openness and vulnerability, he said, “that’s the one thing I can’t explain….so, then… I said , what I never, would have thought of, on my own….’then that’s where you start,” and I handed him a bible, and said “you start at the very first verse, Geneses 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….”
He took it, I told him we would pray for him, and we left. There wasn’t anything else to say.
All these many years later, I don’t know what happened to him…
But, what I do know, is that the God who gave him physical life, gave him the promise of a new life, that day, as the Father, Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, took him back, so that he could get the big picture…..back, to where it starts for each one of us, back, to where it always starts, back, to “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
I God the Creator 1:1-31
“Abraham Lincoln said once, “I never behold the heavens filled with stars that I do not feel like I’m looking into the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”
The word genesis means beginning or origin----the fact that the first book in the bible is named this, is significant because it tells us about the beginning of the world, about the beginning of mankind, about the beginning of sin, about the beginning of sacrifice for sins, about the beginning of redemption and about the beginning of God’s special relationship, with the people He created for Himself.
The truth is, without understanding the 1st 11 chapters in Genesis, the rest of the Bible wouldn’t make any sense-----these chapters form the foundation for the rest of the scripture…Everything in scripture is built around God, and His plan, and His work---not man, contrary to what we think sometimes. That’s why God is the subject of the very first words in scripture…
And I can see 4 reasons that jump out, that can teach us the full import of what this should mean to us….
God formed the world…He created it, out of nothing and He owns it; it belongs to Him….. we may all be actors on the grand stage of life, but God owns the stage…He owns the props …and He owns us! What we think and believe to be true, about anything and everything in our world shapes who we are----and if we believe that we’re worthless with no purpose or value, then that is how we will live our lives, and if we believe that we are the cherished children of God, with all the blessings that entails, then that’s how we will live our lives…Everything that you can see and touch and hear in this world belongs to God. And once we figure out that it is all his anyway, that He is always sovereign, no matter what….it frees us to love Him with reckless abandon and to trust Him, with any circumstance,,,,good, bad or scary...
Over and over again, in scripture, God tells us that He loves us and has a purpose and a plan for our lives…we need to believe it and cling to it and let the truth of it envelope us in a deep awareness in the goodness and sovereignty of our great God…
It is God who gives value to our lives, because, glory of glories, He has stamped His own image on our souls …..making us precious to Hum, and worthy of His love and care and worthy of the responsibility He places on our shoulders to go tell the world about him.
3.) God created the world and then went to great lengths to prepare it for us…
Genesis 1:26 says, “let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” That’s was our first commission from God, to be the stewards of this world---- to take care of God’s creation... to give our life’s service to it and to the people who populate it …..
God was very particular on how He built our environment ---there is such a fine balance of chemicals, minerals and gases that if they aren’t combined in a perfect order, in a way that only God could do,
there would be an annihilating explosion, of epic proportion….
if earth were 1 degree closer to the sun, we’d fry, 1 degree further away, we’d freeze…
If the moon were any closer or larger, the tides would destroy the coast lines. If the moon was any smaller or further away, the oceans would die from lack of nutrient movement.
If the earth’s service gravity was any stronger, it would retain too much ammonia and methane and we wouldn’t be able to breathe. If it were any weaker, earth’s atmosphere would lose too much water and we wouldn’t have the necessary liquid to survive.
If the earth’s crust were any thicker, it would absorb too much of our oxygen and we wouldn’t be able to breathe. If it was any thinner ; the earth would move or shake beneath our feet and would make life impossible.
I could go on and on about this planet that God created just for us….and I haven’t even said a word about the miraculous inter-workings of the human body----but in the interest of time, I will leave it to your imagination. Suffice it to say…….God created the world and everything in it, it did not happen by chance.
4.) God Created Light….
On the first day, God created light----not the sun, moon and stars kind, they were created 3 days later….this was a divine light that came directly from God, to light our world…
*****….and there it is……. on the 1st day of creation God’s plan for us was being revealed---He wasn’t just creating light for us to be able to see and grow and thrive physically, He gave us light because He was revealing His plan of redemption, for us, from the very beginning of eternity----from eternity to eternity, God’s plan of redemption was the right one----the Gospel was always planned, it wasn’t Plan B, because we messed up---God knew we would mess up and He created us with free-will, anyway….. I was always Plan A….God always intended to go to the cross for us, in the person of Jesus…..that light represents His perfect love!
When God created the world, He lit the world with His divine light….it’s the same light, that the book of Revelation tells us, lights heaven….there has never been any other light for the world------without that divine light, the world would be in complete and total darkness….and without that light, no life could have been sustained, even for a minute….. Jesus is that divine light---- without Him, the world would be in total, complete and utter darkness-----no hope of living -----but Praise the Lord, from the beginning, God showed us, from the 1st day, that Jesus is the only way, to live a life in the light, so that we don’t die in the darkness.
There are many ways to Jesus, but from the beginning, there has only ever been, one way to the Father. Jesus said in John 8:12 “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me, will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. “
II A Marriage Made in Paradise 2:18-25
Once upon a time, there was a marriage made in Paradise, that has been the model for every marriage, down through the ages, since that first one in the Garden….When God married Adam and Eve, to each other----- there was no sin in the world, everything was perfect, the marriage rate was 100%, there was no divorce, no widowhood, and nobody was single. Then, disobedience entered the picture, creating the free-fall from grace, that we’re still living with….. and sin came into the world. And with it, came all the problems, that we see in our world today….but that being said….we have to understand and embrace the fact that God hasn’t changed and God’s plan hasn’t changed and God’s intention for marriage hasn’t changed ----times change, people change, styles and trends change…but God still wants us to live in our marriages,
in the same way, that we would, if they had been created in Paradise.
I’m going to list some principles and goals of God’s intentions for marriage….. that I wish I could expound upon, but we don’t have time, so maybe we can re-visit them at a later time…But they will go a long way, if we pay attention to them to divorce-proof our marriages…
The Lord’s Intention
God’s intention in making the woman and giving her to the man was to complement and complete him----God’s intention was to unite two halves of a whole. And it still works that way today…
The garden was a place of unspeakable beauty and God declared that it was good----- but as the animals paraded by Adam to be named, God saw that Adam was alone, the only one of his kind and He declared that that wasn’t good…. (If your single, for whatever reason, don’t get the wrong idea-------it isn’t always God’s will for everybody to be married----the truth is, sometimes there are times and circumstances where God has decided that he can better use someone when they are unattached and single. So don’t struggle against singleness, embrace it and see what the Lord Jesus can do through you….) God gave Eve to Adam so as to
complete him-----not just to keep him from being lonely, not just to help him complete his tasks, not just to give him somebody to talk to and share things with, not just to have somebody take care of him when he’s sick,,,,,although, all of these are good reasons to share your life with somebody, they aren’t the most important thing-----God gave Eve to Adam to make him holy----to help him be the best person, created in the Lord God’s image that he could be.
The Lord’s Intervention
God passed the animals in front of Adam, so that he would realize what he was missing and so that it would create a desire in him for a mate to share himself and his life with….a desire for companionship, and for physical and emotional intimacy. God has created the desire for intimacy between a man and a woman and He met that need by giving us marriage ----the only place for intimacy is between a husband and a wife within the marriage vows.
Our God is a God of order, so there was a process in bringing Adam and Eve together, and God still uses that process----
God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep (sometimes, we just need to sit back and go to sleep, and just wait on God’s timing, things will be so much better, all the way around, if we let God orchestrate things, not us…..) We live in a fast paced, instant world------we need to learn how to be patient and to wait. Sometimes impatience reveals a lack of faith------faith and trust are precious commodities ,that needs to be developed in each of us, not just for our marriages….but for living our lives every day-----the truth is if we can trust the Lord with our salvation, then why in the world do we struggle with trusting him with our mates, and our children, our friends and our day-to-day walk as well….
Then, while Adam was asleep, God took his rib, made Eve and then woke Adam up….and gave her to him----and just like, how surgery causes pain, thanks to sin in the world, trouble can rear its ugly head,,,even in good marriages, and cause pain….we just need to be prepared, so that we won’t be enticed by satan, so that we allow him to rob us of our peace and joy…..
God intended the process to paint a picture of how Adam and Eve were to go forward----and of how the marriage relationship is supposed to be for us….it can be summed up by a quote written by Matthew Henry…”Eve was made by God, not out of Adam’s head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, from under his arm to be protected by him and from near his heart to be loved by him.”
The Lord’s Invention……
Marriage is God’s creation, his intention for a man and a woman, who come together in a love relationship…and we shouldn’t let our politicians monkey around with it. There were 3 aspects in that first marriage ceremony made in Paradise that would go a long way in helping our own marriages resemble Paradise…
Marriage requires a response from both the husband and the wife----- you need to be engaged every day…. Once you’ve chosen to enter into the marriage relationship, then that’s your choice----you commit yourself to that one person----and you might fall in and out of love with them in your lifetime, a thousand times, cause we do get annoyed with each other, but we have to choose to love all the time…
Marriage Involves a Responsibility to each other….
We have to leave and cleave ----this means that every other relationship in our lives should take a lower priority to our mate----except the Lord-----as believers, the hierarchy in our lives, is that the Lord is first, our mates are 2nd , our children are 3rd and then everything and everyone else falls into place under that. Outside of our relationship with the Lord, there is no relationship that is more important than the one with our husbands.
And learning to cleave takes a lifetime, it doesn’t happen over night----it means total and absolute commitment and it comes about through effort and through the choice to cleave, no matter what…---and it means that two people are glued together so well, that they can’t be torn apart without grievous harm to both….
Marriage Involves Righteousness …
Adam and Eve were naked and they weren’t ashamed----they had nothing to hide from each other and sexual intimacy was given to them by God, as a gift, within the bounds of their marriage. The sizzle should never be allowed to fizzle and it won’t, if everything is kept innocent, healthy and lovely between the two of you---- happiness is a by-product of marriage, God’s real intention is to make us holy…
III God’s Grace After the Fall
When Adam and Eve disobeyed and fell from grace, the whole human race was plunged into darkness, sin and death. In that terrible moment when man sinned against God, mankind died, and became spiritually separated from Almighty God….and spiritually helpless, in his ability to get back in a right relationship with God…
But, in His great goodness, from the moment Adam and Eve fell, taking all Mankind with them…..God implemented His eternal plan, to right their relationship with Him….in his grace, He sought them out, to attempt to re-establish a relationship with them…
He came to them-----Adam and Eve had sinned against God, creating a great gulf between God and them…..God’s custom had been to join Adam in the cool of the day for fellowship and communion-----God had every right to kill them or turn His back on them, but instead He came looking for them. That is grace…..
He called them----- God didn’t just come to look at them, in their misery----He called out to them and He called them by name. A sinner can only be saved if God calls his name. It is pure grace that God would call any one into a love relationship with Him…
He confronted them-----God challenged Adam on the basis of his sin---He knew what they’d done. But Adam, out of guilt, laid blame on God. And God still challenged them. He wanted them to repent------that’s what He does for us----He points out our sin and calls on us to repent. It is grace that shows the sinner the error of his lifestyle. And at first, it may be painful to see ourselves as we really are, but until we see ourselves as sinners, we’ll never see the need to be different, never see the need for Jesus.
He chastised them-----He meted out their punishment to them. Even that was grace----He could have killed them; He could have separated them; He could have cursed them with no hope----instead He gave them the promise of redemption, in the middle of their guilt and he let them have the comfort of each other…
He covered them--------Their sin became very real, when God had to kill the innocent animal to cover their nakedness---this was grace in action,,,,,there is nothing that we can do to be saved, ……our salvation is free, but it is anything but cheap----it cost Jesus everything He had, including His life…
He commanded them------Casting them out of the Garden, was grace laced with compassion…. because if they had eaten from the tree of life in their sinful state, they would have been eternally damned. Adam thought that ejection from the Garden was the worst thing that could happen to them-------but it was God’s grace protecting then from something that could hurt them a lot more than being given a new lease on life, even if it was a hard life. The Lord knows what’s best for us, and its His grace that stops us before we step too far in the wrong direction
IV Obedience Saves Lives 6:1-9:17
Noah was a successful father… because he raised his family, during a very difficult time in ancient history; and during a time of extreme violence during a time of extreme wickedness; and during a time when God and his ways were being ignored; and every single member were saved because of his influence…
And this was because …..
Noah Walked with God:’
He was converted-------- there is no doubt that Noah was saved, because scripture says he was a just man-----the word, just, as it’s found in the scripture----means to be right with God, to be right in His sight…. And Noah, the only one in his generation was right in God’s sight…
He was Consecrated----Noah practiced what he preached---his behavior was consistent with his words.
He was Consistent-------Noah walked with God is what the scripture says, not sometime, not every once in awhile, not when he felt like it or when he needed comfort----but consistently---because the scripture simply says,”Noah walked with God.” Just walking steady with the Lord in a world of constant change, says more about a person than 1000 verbal testimonies---it makes people want to follow you and to have what you have.
Noah Witnessed to Others
Through his Conduct----Noah was a lifestyle evangelist----his life was so different from the people around him that his life was a living, breathing witness to everybody he came in contact with. The Lord wants his children to stand out like sore thumbs---He wants us to draw attention to Him, by drawing attention to ourselves….not in a negative, bombastic way, but in a winsome, turn the other cheek, talk freely about the Lord’s goodness… kind of way…
Though his Conversation---- Noah didn’t just live right while he worked for the Lord--------he also told everyone who called out to him about what the Lord was fixing to…Telling the lost about Jesus Christ…..……..
Through his Commitment----For 120 years, Noah worked and preached----and after all that effort, the only converts he had were the members of his own family…I’m sure there were times of discouragement and frustration, but he didn’t let it deter him----he didn’t waver in his commitment to the Lord…What a wonderful testimony----one of the strongest proofs to the validity of our testimonies is a consistent commitment to live for the Lord, when everybody around us seem to be doing what they want to do, not what the Lord is calling them to.
Noah won his family (His Greatest Achievement)
a. He won their respect----Noah’s family followed him into the ark, because they trusted him----they knew his walk with the Lord was real----they believed in what he believed in because they believed in him….they respected the man that he was…
b. He won their response-----
Noah ‘s sons and their wives, and Mrs. Noah followed him into the ark, so that when the rains fell and the rest of the world perished, they were saved. Because of Noah’s lifetime of obedience he saw his children saved----he didn’t save them, but his influence certainly led them in the right way…this was Noah’s greatest accomplishment----to see each of his children walking with the Lord. There is no greater blessing than this….
V Forced to Scatter 11:1-9
After God opened the doors of the Ark and Noah and His sons came out, God promised Noah that He would never destroy the world’s people like that again and He placed the rainbow in the sky as a symbol of that promise-----then God told Moses and His sons to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and they did--------but then, there came a generation that wanted to build a city and a tall tower so they wouldn’t have to be scattered from each other-----But the entire foundation of their plans was in direct violation to God’s commands., so God had to intervene, and interrupt their plans.
Ever since the fall, mankind had been seeking to find a way back to the perfection of the Garden, What they couldn’t understand was that God already had prepared the only way back to Him, and obedience was their only hope…In true human fashion, the longing in our hearts and minds, is always for what we’ve lost…and the quest for heaven on earth, and a desire to return to the Garden hasn’t ended and won’t end until the Lord comes back again…
God’s purpose for man has always been for us to be about His business, and go out and do His will. We can only be complete in Him and we can only be satisfied in the center of His will. Too often, we try to deny it, but only God, alone, can satisfy our hearts and our minds. Things and activities and even people will let us down, but the Lord never will….
Even believers get sidetracked being about our Father’s business, by seeking to live in our own self-contained little world. We surround ourselves with church people, we send our children to Christian schools and enroll them in church camps and sports teams…and we have church functions as the center of our social activities. But, this isn’t good because it directs and keeps the focus on ourselves rather than on God’s purpose for our lives. The average Christian cuts off most non-Christian acquaintances within a few months of becoming a believer. But the truth is, Jesus, didn’t cut off His ties with the people in the elieve, high-ways and bi-ways of the world…and we’re not supposed to either. There is a line that must be drawn between living in the world and living for the world. We should cut off contacts that are destructive to our faith or cause us to sin, but we shouldn’t isolate ourselves, or the church, into a separate culture. We are supposed to be salt and light to the world---not salt for ourselves and light to those who are already enlightened.
God used the persecution of the early church to get it out of its isolated state and into the culture around them, so that their light could shine and impact the world. God doesn’t bless us so that we can languish in his blessings. God blesses us so that we can bless those around us. He equips us so that we can go out and do His will and touch the lives of others in His name. By nature, we are self-centered. When the church gets a self-centered world-view, it lose sight of God’s plan. When we become self-centered, we want to be isolated from anything that will interfere with our little world. Fearing to lose what we have, is why people resist branching out and reaching out to others. God commands us to go into the high-ways and the bi-ways to share with everyone we can, the Gospel. God’s command to go, often interferes with our desire to keep our preferred group together. We get content when our church home, or our Sunday school class or our small group or even our group of friends, get the way we want them to be. Then we get complacent or zealously protective and we isolate ourselves from the world.
Out of a self-centered view of life, the people of Babel, made the decision to leave God out of the equation, and to build their own Utopia. Their goal was security and preservation. Until a person sees the bigger picture of God’s plan they will cling to their own life and seek their own works.
So God, in His mercy, intervened, to save the people from Babel, from themselves, because the only thing that restrains the evil of men’s hearts, is accountability. When a group thinks and acts as one, outside of God’s plans, the result is always tragic. The confusion of the language at Babel, was an act of mercy, it saved them from themselves, because his life was the only one they acknowledged.
But that isn’t what God has called us to do, instead He wants us to live the life we’ve been given, with an eternal perspective, in view. In order to live a righteous and purposeful life, then we have to step outside ourselves, and be willing to go and do, whatever the Lord calls us to, striving to make the work of our hands and hearts, on every given day, count for the kingdom.(Griff’s story)
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