The Gospel of Genesis
Notes
Transcript
If you were to walk into a random church or pastor’s conference or even evangelism training and ask the question: Where in the Old Testament can I find a clear presentation of the gospel? I’m going to tell you what many pastor’s would say, and I’ll preface that the answer they give is a good answer, but not the only answer.
They would start with the Book of Isaiah and take you right to Chapter 52 and 53
They might start with Isa 52:14
As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
Anyone acquainted with the New Testament Gospels would go, “That’s Jesus!” Jesus was beaten before he was on the cross.
They might also go to Isa 53:2
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
This can show the whole life of Jesus. He was born in a manger, which is a feeding trough for animals. He was raised in a town nobody thought anything good could come out of and no one LOOKED at him and said, that looks like a king.
And then we get Isa 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
This is a verse that tons of non -believers are shone and when asked what book of the Bible they think it’s in, they often say Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, because it is obviously talking about Jesus.
Now, this is our reading for the day, but it’s not our main focus. I wanted to start here because I really want us to know that Jesus is the reason for everything. And when we hit Isaiah down the road we’ll go into this passage a bit more than this introduction. But what I really want to stress today is that Jesus and the Gospel are in every Old Testament book.
The Gospel
The Gospel
This is the basis for this saga is that every inspired scripture from Genesis to Malachi not only points to Jesus but shouts him for all to hear. Also, the New Testament from Acts to Revelation point back to him in the gospels. So, I bring up Isaiah today as a popular and useful way to communicate the gospel in the Old Testament, but it’s not the only place. And if you follow and pay attention to where I get my scripture each week, you might be thinking, he’s done this one already. Did he not know he did these chapters already? And you’re right, I did. We talked about how Jesus was present at creation, and not only present he was active in the creation. One of my favorite passages in the gospel acounts goes like this
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Anyone hearing that pray would have immediately known Jesus was claiming to be one with God and therefore God.
Today we are going to take one more look at Genesis chapters 1 and 2, but not just to study that narrative, but to look at the Gospel in creation. And since the Gospel tells us of salvation we are going to look at Creation and how it relates to salvation. The gospel communicates that Jesus lived a perfect life, suffered and died to defeat sin, rose again, and will return one day. Salvation is our belief in that and a process that begins with acceptance and a letting go to his work within us. With all that being said, let’s start at the very beginning.
Creation and Salvation start with the life-giving spirit.
Creation and Salvation start with the life-giving spirit.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The very first thing we see in creation is God interacting with it. The earth has been made. It’s there doing it’s thing and his presence is about to do something wonderful and awesome.
You see, without God, there is no change, growth, true maturity. You might argue that plenty of people do good things and are very mature outside of Christ and yes, they do appear that way. Firstly, we are made in the image of God and even tainted we still desire to be like him. But also, we can be trained.
I’ve made the observation before that men mature faster than women because women change and mature constantly all through their lives, and men are done at 12. Some people disagree with that observation, usually not men, but some say they have met very mature men. I would argue, you’ve encountered well trained men, and that has nothing to do with maturity. Broaden this out to all mankind, sure, we can d good things, and even look like good people, but outside of Jesus, it’s just good training. Only God can change us, grow us and mature us.
“Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.”
Here he is again letting people know he is God. But also that it is the Spirit that gives life, not flesh. You can do a million good things in your own flesh, but one wrong thing will erase all of them. However, when the Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, is covering you, the good works of Jesus are covering up every bad thing you’ve done. And because the Spirit is hovering over you, around you and through you. You are good. That’s pretty amazing. Because of the Spirit, the world and the universe were made. Without God, nothing would be made. Same with you. Outside of God, you can do no good. You can be trained and do things that are good. But until you come to Jesus and let the Spirit in there can be no change. Once the Spirit is in, get ready, because you are in for a ride. Anyone who is in Christ knows what I mean.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
No hebrew word this week, but I have a greek one for you. Check this verse out in greek and I think you’ll be amazed.
New Creature
New Creature
So you notice here that the translators add a few words. “He is a” is not in the greek at all. Now, this adds clarity for us and isn’t wrong to put in there, but these three words were not originally there. And this word here Key tee sees, we translate to creation, which makes sense. If you are in Christ, then you are a new creation. Good solid sentence, but that Greek word can also mean creature. So let’s word for word translate that and say it boldly, like I think Paul wrote it.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ: NEW CREATURE.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ: NEW CREATURE.
You are brand new. You are not the old trained flesh anymore, you are a spirit filled creature filled with life and:
Created life and Salvation begin with Light.
Created life and Salvation begin with Light.
You are filled with light. Check this out
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Since the Sun Moon and Stars don’t show up til day 4 we know this light is God. And for whatever reason this light he created hit the earth in a single direction, which means that one side of the planet was light, the other was dark.
This tells me that even when we have the light of God on us, we as human beings still have a darkness, a flesh. We still sin. Wouldn’t it be nice if believers never sinned. Yeah, that would be awesome. But we still do, but the light does cover our sin and we can do good, because the light is in us.
I’ve heard a story once of a pastor who was in a hurry to make a meeting and a person driving in front of him was going very slow. He was getting angry and mad that this person was making him late. You know what he did. He passed them, honked his horn and cut them off before speeding up. I’ll make this story short, just guess who his meeting was with. A man who had the light of Jesus in him, sinned against God and the person he was meeting with. It happens, we new creatures, still have that old creature nearby. It’s dead, but I remember from our series last year about Giants, is that even dead things can still harm you.
5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So, we are that darkness that the light is shinning on, but that Light is Jesus and it is a life changing light and you know what it does to the darkness?
Created Light and salvation light separate from the darkness.
Created Light and salvation light separate from the darkness.
This is a follow up to that light. We have that darkness, but what does the light d to the darkness.
4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.
You can’t really mix light and darkness. I’m not talking shadows, where you block the light source and get a shadow on the ground. That is just diminished light, not darkness.
There is light and then there is darkness. When you are in complete darkness, it is depressing. I’ve been there. I went on a cave tour in Wisconsin a few times. they get you down nice and deep and then turn out the lights. Complete darkness is not cool. It’s a little scary.
But that’s who we were apart from Jesus. we were complete darkness. One thing Jesus did when he created the universe is on day for he created the Moon and the stars. Because with out these half the planet would be in complete darkness half of the day. But he gave a moon to reflect the sun’s light at night and even the stars to brighten the darkness of the night sky.
So, yes we were born of darkness and that darkness is still nearby, we are now separate from it in CHrist Jesus.
5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.
God doesn’t see us as creatures of darkness. Remember, NEW CREATURE. we are now children of Light, or a Child of God. And because we are children of God we must respond to his work in us by also doing good.
Creation and salvation produce fruit.
Creation and salvation produce fruit.
One the third day of creation, still before the sun moon and stars, we got vegetation.
11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so.
The primary job of fruit is food. When man first walked the earth they ate fruit and veggies. It wasn’t until sin that the first animal death occured and it wasn’t until after the flood that people ate animals.
We often say that we consume the word of God. We eat it up. We digest it and hopefully come back for more. But what do we do with what is left over? The seed.
We come to church and we hear the word, and what is left over, what we’ve learned and can now share with others. We are to spread the seed of the fruit, so that more fruit may grow and more seeds can be scattered. And what does this fruit of the Spirit look like????
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
This is a light filled Spirit led life. Many people know this fruit of the Spirit and that’s good, but what about the contrast.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
The ways of the flesh are lives in darkness. The ways of the spirit are lives in light. Now, people in the dark don’t do all 15 things on the list, but that is the life they live in and it leads to death. In contrast those who live in the Spirit may have some of the 9 on the list of the Fruit of the spirit better than others, but when God lives in you and is working in you that fruit is seen and it is good. ANd all this culminates in:
Creation and Salvation move toward the climax of humanity in God’s image.
Creation and Salvation move toward the climax of humanity in God’s image.
This is a neat concept, because we know that when God created man he created in his image. When Adam first walked the earth he was a perfect image of God. He wasn’t God, he was an image of God. He was like God. Then sin happened and that image got tainted. We still kind of look like God, but the darkness has covered it up. Part of the Roman’s road gospel message is that All have Sinned and fall short. All of mankind is tainted. But we started out as
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
We started perfect. And we have perfection again through Jesus. When he makes us a new creature, it’s not using the old material. It’s him creating a new us. Now, that new us is spirit first, we still have this shell, but one day even that will be new. Let’s look at the contrast again.
8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Paul here is acknowledging that the flesh is still present in our life here on earth, but since we are a new creation, we have the choice to reflect our new self. Does our old self still show, sure. If I decide to paint a black wall white, you are still going to see that black through the white, you have to keep coating that wall until you can’t see the black anymore. The same with us. We need to keep putting on the image of God. we need to let his light keep digging in. If you take stock of you life since you came to Christ I bet you can think of time you regret. Sins you know you commited, people you hurt. But I hope that the more you know Christ and the more you give yourself over to him, the less you see of those old practices and the more you see of Christ in you.
In closing, we who are in Christ Jesus are pretty cool creatures. We have a light in us and covers our darkness. We have fruit that produces seed that we are to share.
And we have a gospel. Good news that didn’t start with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, it started with the words, “In the beginning,”
Let’s pray.
