Choosing Life, Part 1
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Review: What We Have Looked at So Far? (Genesis 1, 2)
Review: What We Have Looked at So Far? (Genesis 1, 2)
God Is a God of Life.
God is the Author of Life - He breathed life into His creation.
God is the Object of Life - He desires a personal relationship with us.
God is the Blesser of Life - He blesses life and calls it very good.
God Sustains Life by Protecting and Providing for Life - He created the Garden in Eden for them and gave them all the food they could eat.
Our Response to the God of Life.
Worship Him through Works of Service. Cultivate.
Viewing our work as worship.
Living our lives in worship of God.
Honor the 7th Day. A day of rest and communion with God.
Be Good Stewards of His Good Creation. Keep.
Take ownership of your responsibilities. Dominion.
Protect and Provide (love). Not rule and subjugate.
Multiplying the Life God Gave to Us.
Take His Image Over all His Creation. Fill the Earth.
God is good, called His creation very good, and wants us to take His goodness and share it. Be Fruitful
Just like God authored, blessed, and sustains life. So, too are we to do the same. Multiply Life.
He provides a Helper.
We protect the womb.
We promote biblical godly marriages.
Choosing Life
Choosing Life
The Imago Dei (Genesis 1:26-27)
The Imago Dei (Genesis 1:26-27)
Image - selem / ikon
An artistic representation of the original.
Statue or model.
You are the spitting image of your father.
“Internal attributes”. What I’m made of.
Heart, Mind, Soul, Strength. Core essence
Emotions, Rational, Will, Communion, Fellowship, Creative, Power,
Likeness - demut / homoiosis
A pattern - like the pattern of the tabernacle mimicking the temple in Heaven.
A shadow of - foreshadow of.
Often used in similes. This is similar to... It looks like…the throne of God...
It would seem to tie into the glory of God as exhibited by His characteristics.
“External Attributes” - What people see. How I act.
Moral. Good. True. Character.
Goodness, Lovingkindness, faithfulness, compassion, forgiveness.
Dignity / special / value
Different from the beasts - Contrast / Consecrated / holy...
Not created after “its kind”, but rather created in the Image of God.
God is spirit.
The totality of man’s higher powers that distinguishes Him from brute creation.
Spiritual
Glory, Honor, and Rule
God’s First Words to Man are Both a Command and a Prohibition (Gen 2:16-17)
God’s First Words to Man are Both a Command and a Prohibition (Gen 2:16-17)
Introducing the Choice In The Middle Of The Creation Account Is Significant.
Adam is a rational and moral creature - re-emphasizing the Imago Dei.
Adam alone is responsible for his decision.
Adam alone determines his destiny, and ultimately the destiny of mankind, by his volitional choice.
Adam alone is judged as righteous or sinful based upon God’s Command.
God is setting a standard and precedent for all mankind.
You Are Free to Eat...
God is Free. Freedom
man as a free being is set over nature, which is not free, they are run by their instincts.
God Created us to be Free.
Freedom is a blessing.
True Life is Freedom
True life is not the liberty to do whatever you want, but the freedom to do what you ought.
I want to eat of it, but what ought I to do.
I ought not to eat of it.
True freedom is self-control / meekness.
You are free to choose, and you are free not to choose.
If you “can’t help” but choose a certain way, then you are not truly free.
You are a slave.
You are no better than an animal who runs on instincts and self-preservation.
You become a slave to your passions.
If I give into the urge to do something, then I did it under compulsion, and it was not a free choice.
God Created Life to be Good.
The Tree of Life.
The only thing added to the equation was the opposite of good. It was evil.
They were already experiencing everything that was good.
So what was at stake? Everything that was good.
Life
Blessing
Provision
Protection
Worship
Proper Stewardship of Creation and relationships
Marriage and Family
Babies - the womb
Husband / Wife relationship
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
But You Must Not Eat.
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
Knowledge - to know by experience, relationship, or encounter.
da’at - Knowledge gained from outside of oneself.
Connected in the Book of Proverbs to Wisdom.
Also means to indicate insight or discernment.
Seems tied more to objective, informational based knowledge.
God alone possesses all knowledge.
His knowledge is beyond our comprehension.
Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
But He is willing to give us some of that knowledge.
‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
So the issue was not God holding out on them.
Will you take the shortcut, or do it the right way?
Will you be patient to wait until God gives it to you?
Will you obediently and by faith do it God’s way?
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
On The Day You Eat...
Freedom of Choice Comes with Accountability and Consequences.
True freedom has proper boundaries.
No boundaries is anarchy and lawlessness.
No boundaries makes everything relative and open to one’s own interpretation and opinion.
No boundaries means no moral absolutes. Anything goes.
In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
True freedom must come with consequences to our choices, in order to set proper boundaries.
Will you trust me, or do you need to figure it out for yourself?
What they were tempted with was experiencing what was not good.
With the presumptive thought that once they experienced it, they would now understand the difference between the two, which is played off as wisdom.
We may gain wisdom from learning from our bad choices, but the best kind of wisdom is learning from other’s bad choices.
In this case, trusting God that the alternative to “good” is not worth knowing.
You Will Certainly Die
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,
Both were affected by the Fall.
They did not die physically immediately.
Their immediate death was spiritual. They died spiritually.
God removed the Holy Spirit from them.
And someday they would die physically.
Avocados do not make this problem better!!
This is why the Holy Spirit was breathed back into the disciples at their moment of salvation.
And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
Death to Freedom. You become a slave to sin.
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Death to Life. You become slaves to death.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Death to our Relationship with God.
We gave Satan the keys to our life.
We gave our allegiance to Satan by listening to him.
We made him the authority in our lives.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
This Is Also Why We Still Struggle With Our “Flesh” Even After Salvation.
Our physical bodies controlled by our appetites and lusts.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
Our physical bodies that are weak, sick, and injured.
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
We All Have The Choice Before Us To Choose Life.
“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.”
We can choose each day by the grace of God to focus on life or to focus on death.
To focus on blessing or cursing.
We can choose to speak blessing over people, or cursing.
We can choose to consider each day a gift, or we can curse the day.
We can choose to be thankful, or complain.
To focus on the Goodness of God or the wickedness of man.
To focus on the Salvation of God or the ills of society.
To choose to live life God’s way - The Tree of Life which brings blessings.
To choose to live life my way - The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which brings death.