In the Beginning Pt 2.

Introduction

In the last few weeks, Emily and I have been trying to do a much better job at cleaning our house. As you all probably know, a critical part to doing this, especially if you have animals like us, is to vacuum every day. Well, we were doing this very well until last week our vacuum cleaner started having some problems. Now, it is a nice cordless vacuum, and after pricing it, we decided that it was a good shot for me to try to take it apart and fix it, to see how long of a life we could get out of it. So, after ordering, I discovered that I needed a special proprietary tool to go in further, and we got that tool. So, I went to taking it apart. Inside the bottom part of this vacuum was a little tiny motor that had 2 power wires running into it. This motor was supposed to turn a small rubber belt that moved the roller and bristles that touch the carpet. Well, at first I couldn’t find a way to get the motor working for more than a few seconds. Honestly, I had given up (until being reminded of how much it would cost to replace it). Then, I decided to think about the needs of the small motor. I then picked it up, and noticed how dog/cat hair had gotten into and clogged several of the holes that the simple motor would use to cool itself. So, I picked that out, and wouldn’t you know it, it worked! After reassembling the vacuum (and an incident that included our dog joy getting a plastic piece off the table and deciding it looked like a fun chew toy) the vacuum worked just as it did before. All of this, because I let the motor have its basic needs met so it could function well.

We all, each and everyone of us, have needs that must be met. Without them being met, we are left in a bad state, even up to questioning the need and usefulness of life. But, in our chapter today, we will see some of these needs, all of which God has hard wired us into having, as He is our creator we His Creation. In a few moments we will see them, with the intent of us knowing them and fulfilling them, but first, let us pray.

Prayer

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much, that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.

Context

Today we begin the second chapter of our walk through the first few chapters of the first book of the law of Moses, the book Genesis, the book of beginnings. In last week’s text, we saw how our creator and eternal God literally spoke the world, the heavens, the stars, the land, the creatures, and mankind into existence from nothing. From this, we saw several key facts about our God, who He is, and our relationship with Him and His creation. That is, primarily, it’s all His, we are all His, and His has all the true power, might, and majesty.

In today’s text, we see the last of the goings of the creation week and more on mankind' s creation and God’s earliest dealings with us and His love and concern for us. As we are all His creation, and today if you are in Christ, then He takes nothing but great delight you, a truth that stood for the first man and woman at first until their fall into sin (which we will see next week); as we are all His and you are in fact “being” and alive, it’s good for you know certain things about Him and your relationship with Him. That is, you were created in His image, very much like Him in appearance but not in ability and power, so He gives all of mankind (including yourself) certain needs that you are hard wired to need and long to be fulfilled. What i’m saying is, Your creator made you with needs, including the need to worship Him. In this chapter, we will see a few of those needs, which if not met will lead to the early destruction and maddening of anyone who ignores them and puts them away. So, let’s see what some of those are today from the text and jump where from it. I want you to see and do these actions, because you are wired to do so.

Message

The first action that you are wired to do is to: Work and Rest 1-3

2 So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. 2 On the seventh[a] day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested[b] on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.

With the creation completed, on the 7th day, He did something that we had never seen a record of before. He stopped, He ceased, He did no more. He took a day to stop to rest (not that He needed to from weary or exhaustion as we do), but rather to set an important example and president; one that The Lord Jesus even did while He was on the earth. This was the institution of a day of Holy rest and worship. Though God could have kept on creating, He chose not to, as with His new treasured creation of mankind, He had much care for them, saw their needs, and attended to them.

We see this main point, work and rest. You see, it has two implications within it, first is that you must work and two that you must take a rest from it. This truth remains for you until literally the moment your body from the weariness of life and of age will no longer allow you to do anything anymore. And no, I'm not just talking about retirement, I mean it’s a fact from the first to last able breath. For many of us, doing this well means that at different life stages and ravages of age and illness that either what we do for work and activity will change or our ability to as much will. A steel driving man in occupation may change active grandparent. A teacher may move to gardener. A working parent may focus on their children for a time. In hard battles of health, your work may be at that time to focus on getting better so you can get back to it. But then, even the very ill with little to no hope of recovery can work as an encourager to others, as doing so only requires phone calls and prayer. What’s key here is to recognize where you were, where you are now, and what you are capable of still and for a while longer. No one is to simply cease from everything until it is your time to go. Doing only serves to shorten your life. The same can be said of the overworker, who works every day, as you heard me confess about myself the other week.

Think about it, if God created you in His image, with His likeness, then clearly He created each and everyone of us with the inherent need to be active in some way and the need to rest from work and activity. Doing both of these, work and rest, is both an act of worship, as it is fulfilling what you were designed to do. Your creator made you with needs, including the need to worship Him. One of these actions of worship is to both work as you are able and to rest for a day each week from that work. To not do so, is to say something dreadful and reveal what you really think about God. That is, you don’t trust Him and what He has planned and prepared for you, rather you trust yourself and what you dream of and the vain plans that you have. It says you sinfully desire more. So, work-heavy person, trust that God has plenty for you and is very concerned and cares about you. Stop ignoring His holiness, command, and example to rest. Doing this is best for you. The same is true from the able bodies work stopper, you were created with a wired in need to work, to not do will lead to both your own depression and decay, so find some good work and deed to do, Then when you do so, take a well deserved and hard wired in rest from that work each week.

The next action that you are wired to do is that: You Live to Worship 4-14

4 These are the records of the heavens and the earth, concerning their creation. At the time[c] that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 no shrub of the field had yet grown on the land,[d] and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not made it rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. 6 But mist would come up from the earth and water all the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.10 A river went[e] out from Eden to water the garden. From there it divided and became the source of four rivers.[f] 11 The name of the first is Pishon, which flows through the entire land of Havilah,[g] where there is gold. 12 Gold from that land is pure;[h] bdellium[i] and onyx[j] are also there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon, which flows through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris, which runs east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

One very important thing to understand about reading your bible and the study of Hermanutics (the study and action of bible interpretation), and one that I have had people come to me about in confusion, is understanding that the timeline and events that are happening are not always linear. That is, for example when we (in real life) experience our world and when we read most books or history, event 1 happens, then 2, then 3 all happens in timeline order of events. In your bible, it’s important to know that first of all, it is a collection of 66 different books that were all written at different times and many by different people who penned the words who had different perspectives and areas that seemed important for them to focus on at the time.. So, while some parts may work in a timeline, most do not. In fact, many books of the bible have a lot of overlap, looking at and recording the same time but from a different angle. Even in the same book, in this chapter and the last chapter of Genesis for example, we see the first 7 days of creation at first, and then we see more detail about what happened within some of those 7 days. So, we went forward for a while, now we are stopping and detailing a bit more about what happened in some of the days them.

So, in these extra details of days, we see how God watered the ground to lead up to the growing of the plants, which happened on the 3rd day. We then fast forward a few days to the creation of mankind. This creation, of which we are, is naught but dust crafted into our bodies and the breath of life from God breathed into it. Then we are put in a special planted garden, called Eden, and we are lucky to know it’s whereabout and can even see the flowing waters of 2 of the rivers mentioned today, the Tigres and Euphrates, which historians have long called the area between them “The Cradle of Civilization” which is located in modern day Iraq.

From this creation week, we observe that all of creation was made for the glory, enjoyment, and delight of God. But, mankind, His treasured creation, is able to do something that no other created being can do. Mankind, You and I, were created for and have the capacity towards worship of God. Without doing so, our lives are empty, meaningless, and even the wealthiest people in the world can account that without worship to God, feels all of those and fruitless, futile. Your creator made you with needs, including the need to worship Him. Worship in simplicity, means that you place Him, what He says, above everything else in your life. That no other vice, sin, or even good thing is more important in your heart than Him, pleasing Him, and fulfilling His will. For the Christian, those in Christ, we say it plainly this way, that you are living and being a disciple of Jesus that Loves God, Loves People, and Makes Disciples. So, esteem God more than even your favorite person, item, idea, or what-have-you and you will find that you are then meeting for full potential and having your needs met with bounty in your life.

This takes us to another action that you are wired to do is to

:Be with others 15-25

15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man[k] no helper was found corresponding to him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. 22 Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man. 24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

From this early point, man is given a job, with which is an action he does in the worship of God, to tend and watch the garden to God’s delight and enjoyment. In this, he gave mankind but one restriction, everything is yours, but you must not eat from the tree in the center, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So, the man began his work, tending the garden and naming the animals. In this action, God saw a problem. For the first time, he said something was not good. He saw the man was alone and had no one and nothing else like him as he works which includes observing how everything else had mates and others. God saw the loneliness in the man, and said it was not good….. So, in His love for us, He changed that. He had the man fall asleep, took out a rib bone from Him, and from that rib bone, He created the first woman. God woke him, sewed him up, woke him, and brought His new creation to the first man, Adam. Then look, and even though our bibles don’t include the punctuation to tell us, from the words you can see the delight and excitement in the man’s words. This one, at last, is like me! I will call her woman, for she was taken from me. We are like one, and so we shall work and be together. For that reason, even today, man and woman come together and are treated and esteem themselves as one flesh in the institution of marriage. The two together, in this sinless state together in God’s created world, felt no shame or ability to be wronged, even to the point that they were naked and not troubled by it.

Loneliness and isolation has a devastating effect on an person’s psyche, happiness, and ability to live. Why? Because God has hard wired us to need one another, to be with other people. Even our own Justice system recognizes this, as outside of ending a life, the worst punishment a person can endure in a lifetime alone in solitary confinement. Even regular inmates are punished for their wrongdoings, oftentimes by being separated from others. Even right now, one of the worlds most notorious and perhaps dangerous man alive, the drug lord El Chapo, is losing his mind as He is no longer allowed to be around other people from his prison cell, no longer allowed to even know where He is, and is only allowed to correspond with His lawyer. But, one doesn’t have to be that separated from others to regress, it really only takes a day with no contact with other people to deeply affect most people.

Yes, you can even say that as our God created us to be with others in fellowship, that to some degree being around others can be an act of worship, as it recognizes your weakness and need. Even the trinity delight in each other and spend time together. In fact, the most painful moment in Jesus’ life was not the cruelty of the cross, but the separation He had from The Father as He turned His eyes away from Jesus as the sin of the world was placed upon Him.Your creator made you with needs, including the need to worship Him. While we can see this need to be around others, this also comes with the need to Worship God together with others, what we call corporate worship and to come together in Christian Fellowship. Yes, a Christian without those 2 together is dying Christian at best, a weak christian in the middle, or was never a real believer or is a betrayed believer at worst (and these are often the most likely). Your God created you to be with others and to worship Him with others. So let me urge you today, if you are physically able, to never forsake the gathering of believers (that is the church service). Let me also urge you to have friendships with other believers. And finally I urge you to be around people as much as you can. All of this is because you are hard wired to do so, to not do so leads more quickly into your depression, weakness, sadness, and decay.

Conclusion

Beloved, today let us each recognize these truths about ourselves in our created beings. Each and every one of us, have a hard wired-in need to: Work and Rest, Live for Worship, and Be with others. Do not ignore these needs in humanity. It will only lead to bad for you. Each of these are themselves a place and action that you were designed to do and fulfill. So then, be a God honoring Disciple of Jesus who does so.

With all of that being said, I would be remiss if I didn’t share the Gospel (or the Good News) of Jesus Christ with you today, for the benefit of both believer and non-believer in the room. This begins all the way back at the beginning, God created everything, and he created all things good. He gave His most treasured creation (us, mankind) the ability of free will, the ability to choose Him or rebellion. Man was deceived by Satan and desired to be like God and sinned (or rebelled against God). This brought the curse of sin and death into the world and it remains with us to this day; which separates us from God. God, though, loved His creation (mankind) so much that He worked through history to redeem all mankind that would turn to Him from sin so that we can experience a full and perfect relationship with Him again. This was through the perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the pay for sins. Accepting this free gift from God, makes you new and forgiven. All you have to do is accept this free gift by repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus and you will get to experience the good side of God’s justice forever. So, now that you know this, you can no longer plead ignorance. I invite and urge you to respond today non-believer and apply this to every part of your life believers in the audience today.

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much, that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.