Who Was I Supposed to Be?

God has shown His goodness and grace to us, Man has shown his distrust and rebellion towards God

1. God’s goodness made known through a perfect world

(Genesis 1:1)

God has created everything nothing outside of Him

v.2 the earth was without form and void, the idea of chaos, evil, wrong, but we see God in a week set in order the heavens and the earth. There are a couple of questions asked that are related to millions of years. 1. Is there a gap between verses one and two. How many of you understand flow of a narrative? A narrative doesn’t just start and then skip a bunch of time without indicating that. 2. Many people ask the question how long was the day? Or the Hebrew word yom? Because the Hebrew word unspecified period of time or a 24 hour day. If you look in a Hebrew dictionary and find the word yom you will see that we can know for sure these are 24 your days. There are three indicators to know if this is a day. If any of them present then it has to be a regular day. If there is a number assigned to it. first day fifth day. If it is connected with evening or morning, which scripture does. There is zero way that it can mean anything but 24-hour period.

So we see that God created everything in six days. And what does God’s creation look like.

It is good, it is to function as it would, makes God the judge, He gives His approval. (v.4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31.) You might notice that day twos work wasn’t called good, when God mad the skies. Is this an imperfection in God’s creation. I think we need to look back at verse 2. We see that the world was without form and void (chaos), wrong thing, it isn’t set in order as it should be. Days two and three are both about giving form to thee earth so that the good in verse 10 is referring to good for the completed work of the world.

v. 31 we see that God calls it very good, everything was functioning together for it’s intended purpose

God work was completed. With evolution, it assumes that the world needs to get better and better and keep approving. When God created, it had a stopping point because everything in God’s wisdom was order to do as God created it to do.

What made God’s original design different from what it looks like today. We will talk about the creation of mankind in a little bit but a major difference is that there is no death in this world. We are going to learn that the first man Adam sinned and death entered the world. There was no death before that. Animals were not eating animals they were eating fruit (v.30). We learn in verse 2:9-It was pleasent to look at and good for food. Maybe there was bacon flavored fruit (who knows). We also see the tree of life (3:22) man would live forever if he ate the fruit.

2. God’s goodness made known through good fellowship (1:26-31, 15-25)

What does God mean when He says Us, (3:22) God became like one of Us. Genesis 11:7 Let us go down. The term God (that is often Elohim) which is plural about 2,500 times. So are there multiple God’s. No the Bible clearly states no to this Isaiah 45:18, the God who created the heavens and the earth is one and there is no other.

So is God talking with angels. No. We are not created in their likeness and they are never referred to be created in God’s likeness.

So who is God talking to. He is talking to Himself. Does anyone talk to themselves? I have been told that it is a sign of an intelligent person. But with God it is a little bit different. God is a trinity. He is three separate persons as one Being. There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They are all separate from one another but they are all fully God. Psalm 145:3 States that God’s greatness is unsearchable. We do not understand everything about God. We do not know everything about Him. Since we as people do not exist as three separate persons as one being, we cannot comprehend how any being can be like that.

What does it mean to be in God’s image and likeness? The word image and the word idol are the same Hebrew word. Wait what. So an idol bears the image or likeness of what it was created from. Goat-gods (worshipping something that bore the resembles of a goat. We bear the image the likeness of God. Except God is spirit and I have flesh. For us, there are attributes of God that we can reflect. We see this is true for man and women (v.27)

Dominion

We see that God has dominion over all and we cannot question Him (Job 42:1-3)

God has given man dominion over the earth

Man has dominion over all animals (v. 26), Adam named all the animals (v. 18-19)

Fruitful and multiply so that they can subdue the earth (v.28), they are to spread out across the earth

Fruit (v. 29)

Responsibility with this (Gen 2:5-6, 15) He was to work (work isn’t bad, it is just hard)

stewardship going on here, take care of God’s creation (starts at the garden of Eden)

We see God create women, a comparable partner for him

The first time God said it is no good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18-25)

God was going to create a helper that was comparable to him (Gen 2:18-20)

God has put man and woman has equal value in His sight.

God created man and women in His image (v. 27) and Eve was comparable to Adam they are sorta a like. God has placed them of equal value. Which Adam did not find among the animals.

What does helper mean?

has the idea of aid and support

And what is happening in Genesis 2 is that God is creating an order for humanity. Even though Man and Women have equal value they have different roles. Man is called to be the leader. Where do we this? Remember to find a girl you need good rest. (v. 21-23) Adam names her. This puts him as the leader above. With the animals it should submission but with the woman it shows leadership. She is to be submissive she is a helper someone who is to give support to him.

God creates the first women (Eve actually doesn’t get her name until chapter 3:20)

She was known as woman for a while (Adam basically means guy out of dirt)

Eve means Living

Let’s look at some application for these first two chapters

Man is created above everything else on this earth. Genesis 1 culminates with the creation of man. Man is the pinnacle of God’s work. This is important to realize because the world thinks that creation and humankind are on the same playing field. I once had a friend tell me that if her dog was drowning and I was drowning she would save her dog. People are enraged when you cut a tree down. They who are we to destroy nature. We need to be good stewards of the earth. We shouldn’t trash it we shouldn’t eat up all resources that is poor mangement, and we are always learning how to make things better, but God has called us to have domnion we are placed as the stewards of the earth that are allow to make good use of the world. And we have more value than any animal. Be fruitful and multiply and cover the face of the earth.

We are called to be godly because we are made in His image. God desires people to want to live according to His standard. We see that in His Word. These words we are reading were written by a man named Moses but God directed Him as Moses was writing so that we can know what God has planned for us to do. We are to look like God, not physically, but in how we live our lives. This is how we have a good relationship with God. When we are like Him.

Work is good. Guys there is a lot of people who try to escape their job. They call in when they just want to be lazy that day. People lie that they are sick. There are many young people who just rely on their parents and don’t try to live on their own. They want to enjoy life and not put the effort in. I know people who rather be homeless instead of having a job. God created us to work. And when we are not working we are not living according to God’s design. We are going to talk about the fall of mankind, but we need to realize that work is not wrong but it is hard and unenjoyable now because of humanities sin.

We need to align ourselves with God’s view of marriage. Guys you need to be leaders in your home. Guiding the family the way they should go. Guiding them to follow God. Teaching how to live in a broken world. Sharpening, growing the character of your wife. You need to do this in love. You have to be an other-minded leader. You always have to be thinking what does God desire for my family right now. You need to provide what is needed for your family. Ladies, you need to be submissive to your husband, you need to follow his leading. If he is disobeying God, don’t follow, but you would still be under his authority and you would need to sharpen him. He needs to be aligned with God’s Word. Show him what God has called him to do. Be helper and support. Help to walk in godliness. Guys and ladies you need spouse who reflect these qualities. (Ill) Cinderella.

One flesh (Gen 2:23-24)

Flesh of my flesh (we are the same flesh) one flesh. The Husband and wife then make their own family. Leave and cleave.

Leave. God says it is good that a man and woman. They need to leave the household (live off their parents) Parents have plenty of wisdom and they can help. You are to serve them too.

Cleaveing. Marriage is the coming of two flesh to one flesh. It needs to be between one man and one woman. It isn’t two men, it isn’t to women. Two men do not make one flesh. Two women do not make one flesh. One man plus one woman. There is no trial run.