God is a God of Life, part 2
Notes
Transcript
The Breath Of Life - (2:4-7)
The Breath Of Life - (2:4-7)
God Is The Author of Life
Elohim - Creator, King, Judge, Lord, and Savior - Chapter 1
The Object of Life - (2:7-9, 15-24)
The Object of Life - (2:7-9, 15-24)
God Is The Object of life.
God desires a personal relationship with His people.
He wants us to know Him.
The Breath of Life
God desires a working relationship with His people.
He wants us to be co-laborers with Him.
The Helper of Life.
God desires our human relationships, specifically marriage, to reflect Christ’s relationship to the church.
He wants the Church as His bride.
The Bride of Life
The Blessing of Life: God desires a personal relationship with His people.
The Blessing of Life: God desires a personal relationship with His people.
YHWH - I am who I am. I am dynamically present in your midst - Chapter 2
When God transitions to the creation of man, the wording goes from
the impersonal third person
Let there be…
and Made after their kind.
to the first person
Let Us make...
and made in God’s image.
God gets His hands “dirty” - intimate interaction with His creation.
The Tree of Life (vs 9) - pleasing to the sight and good for food.
Life is Good - My creation is fulfilling my purposes for my people.
God does everything for our good and His glory.
even after sin taints the world, the God of life turns death and destruction into good.
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
The death of Jesus was a good thing.
The Work of Life: God desires a working relationship with us.
The Work of Life: God desires a working relationship with us.
Cultivate Life (vs 15, 19)
All of life is to be done in worship of God.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
when we view all of life as worship, our lifestyle takes on a greater priority of attention.
when we view all of life as worship, we want to do those things that God would do, because that brings Him glory and pleasure.
Joyful service in worship of God - no connotation of toilsome labor, but rather a joyful experience of liberation.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
Works of service for worship (vs 19)
Romans 12:3ff - Spiritual Gifts
Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;
This list of spiritual gifts are very practical gifts and covers the basic ministries of the church.
As we employ these gifts, we are bestowing blessings of life on others in worship of God.
We are cultivating an attitude of worship with those around us.
Imagine if everyone lived a life of worship every day.
God wants to use us to bless others and cultivate worship
I’ll return to this in my next sermon.
Keep Life
Food and Work
Keep - to watch carefully over, preserve, guard, protect. To maintain and observe for a purpose.
By extension - stewardship of all of God’s creation. (1:26-30)
rule - to have dominion.
Exercising authority over those who are powerless or otherwise under one’s control.
This control is over one’s domain. Not someone else’s domain.
You have a sphere of influence over which you exercise authority and control over.
Our bodies are our domain. But we exercise authority over them according to God’s standards and wishes, not ours. I’ll come back to that.
subdue - to bring under one’s control.
When creation does not do man’s bidding, we may need to forcefully bring it into submission, if necessary.
Does not apply to people. But the created order. Bits in horses.
Unfortunately the word ended up being used to describe slavery.
Spiritually speaking, using the gifts God has given us to be good stewards of the church.
God wants us to cultivate and keep life, but He also wants us to fill the earth with life.
Fill the Earth with Life
God wants us to know Him, Acknowledge Him/worship Him, and make Him known.
God wanted us to fill the earth with His image, with life.
I’ll return to this in 2 weeks.
We are to cultivate life, keep life, and fill the earth with life, but we aren’t to do it alone. God gives us a helper for life.
A Helper for Life
Helper - same word used of God as helper throughout OT.
God is our helper…He created all of this to help us.
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
2:18 in the Septuagint uses a synonym for sunergos for helper
God could have just kept creating people out of the dust of the earth and breathing life into them, but God wants to use us. He wants to work with and use us. (2:18-22)
For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
fellow worker here is sunergos.
Adam was God’s helper
Adam naming the animals.
God could have named the animals.
God saw - God stepped back and observed His creation in action.
Just like a clock maker might wind up his clock and then step back and enjoy his creation functioning as it was designed to function.
Pure joy and satisfaction. Again, God saw that everything was good.
And now God was going to give Adam a helper. More on this in my sermon 2 weeks from now.
The Provision and Protection of Life (2:8-9, 15-22)
The Provision and Protection of Life (2:8-9, 15-22)
An extension on the responsibility to Keep life.
One definition of love is to protect and provide.
God Provides For Life In Eden
Eden means pleasure, enjoyment, or delight
A symbol of beauty and fertility.
A luxurious place to be enjoyed.
Synonymous with Paradise
Where conditions for life are maximized.
Where God provides food in abundance.
And unbroken fellowship with Him existed.
God Protects Life With a Safe Place In The Garden In Eden
Man was “Put” in the Garden.
Hebrew term meaning rest and safety. It can also mean the dedication of something in the Lord’s presence.
He is put in the garden where he can rest and be safe
He is put in the presence of God where he can have fellowship with God.
Garden means enclosure.
A safe place enclosed within the greater area of pleasure and enjoyment.
This safe place was the perfect environment for life to begin.
There was definitely an outside to the Garden…and an outside to Eden as a whole.
The Garden In Eden is like a metaphor for the womb.
There is a battle over the womb.
The Unborn
innocent, dependent, defenseless, they need protecting.
providing a safe place for life to begin. The womb should be a safe place for life to begin.
The womb should be a Garden In Eden. A place where life is protected.
Crafted the woman - same term, applied to crafting a baby in the womb.
God crafted a woman unto life.
God crafts the baby in the womb unto life.
And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, And My God is My strength),
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
We have a responsibility to cultivate and keep our Gardens - which includes family, and by extension the church. To protect and provide.
The Womb - a place of protection birthed by love
Family - a place of protection birthed by love
The Church - a place of protection birthed by love
Why do you think the womb, the family, and the church are all under attack?
Choose Life (2:9, 15-17)
Choose Life (2:9, 15-17)
He gives us choices. Here’s the game plan, will you follow it?
Tree of Life or
Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil
Given one caveat. One do not...
And the consequence was the opposite of life: death. “I will have to take the breath of life back from you.”
God gave the breath of life and he can take it away. 2 terms parallel - wind, spirit, breath, but also some distinction.
neshamah - seems more closely connected to the physical life
ruah - to the spiritual.
“If He should determine to do so, If He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath,
Will you trust me, or do you need to figure it out for yourself?
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil.
knowledge - experiential form of knowledge.
“Try it and see if you like it. If not, now you know.”
They were already tob - good. God called everything very good.
The only thing added to the equation was the opposite of good.
Remember, everything I do is for your good.
We know what they chose.
The result was death.
So metonymically it is called the Tree of Death.
Jesus takes our curse - redeems our bad choices.
Cursed is the man who hangs on a tree...
“If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—
By Jesus choosing to die, he is in effect taking ownership of the cross. He is claiming that the tree of death is now under His dominion.
What we turned over to Satan through listening to him and giving him our allegiance, Christ has wrestled back.
Through His death on the cross, he destroyed the fruit of the Tree of death and can now give us access again to the Tree of Life.
Jesus chose life for us by dying for us.
Put your faith in Jesus and choose life.
Once forever
Every day.
In the end pursue Jesus who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life...”
Choose Life.
Choose Life.
Pursue God because God is a God of Life.
Remember:
He is the object of life.
He breathed life into us.
He blesses life.
He protects life.
He provides for life.
He redeems life.
Finally, remembering the goodness of God helps us choose life.
If you haven’t done so, choose life today!