Genesis 2:4-17
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Work Matters
Work Matters
Image of God
With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in God’s likeness.
Illus: The Youth spray painting the Lincoln memorial. Or cutting up a special picture of a loved one.
We picture God, we are able to have communion with God and do God like things.
This is why human dignity is so important. The creation is different from the other aspects of creation. From the dirt and with the breath of God.
With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in God’s likeness.
From the dirt and with the breath of God.
When there is an assault on humanity it is an assault on God.
There is no such thing as a superior race or class because we all come from Adam.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Humanity is designed and patterned after Jesus. When we assault humanity we assault Christ.
A persons worth and dignity is not a result of how valuable that person is.
Illus: Woman with Alzheimer's, Embryo, handicapped or disabled, homeless, etc.
As sin comes in we do not want to image God, we want wither to tear down our own dignity (become animals, only instincts), or we turn ourselves into gods (, images that reflect ourselves). We don't want to acknowledge a creator because we do not want to declare our dependence and our praise.
Dominion
The gift of children. The hatred of children comes from the idolizations of ourself, instead of pouring ourselves out to the next generation. We want to spend our energy on ourself. Children then become at best an accessory and at worst a burden that we don't want to have.
Too often people see children as a hindrance and the next generation as something that is burdening my life now. God says dominion that comes as we are being fruitful and multiplying because HE loves humanity and its expansion and filling the earth of children.
To be truly human we must be welcoming and rejoicing in children, even when they seem to be a burden to us, and not just the well behaved children. The children who come from broken homes.
Dominion doesn’t mean that we lord over each other.
Leaving things for the next generation better than how you found it.
4-7 Adam was created to work.
4-7 Adam was created to work.
4-7 Adam was created to work.
4-7 Adam was created to work.
Humanity is created to work and to work with responsibility. When you come to it starts with the identity of what it means to be human as a working people. We do not normally see this. Our pictures of Adam and Eve show them laid around in the garden.
4-10
4-10
We have a picture of work and activity and it the root of what it means to be human in Christ Jesus.
1. The spirit shows us here about work and the roots of human activity.
God has been creating the universe, step by step.
4-7 Adam was created to work.
4-7 Adam was created to work.
Now on Day 6...there is a need for man to work to ground. The whole creation is waiting for humanity. For man to come and work the ground. God creates the man out of the ground and breathes into this dust the breath of life. The human both part of the creation (created out destructible material), and part of god (his breath).
Origin and mandate of humanity. Then God planted a garden. He brings these life giving trees in there and then commissions the man to work it.
8-15 Adam was created to watch.
8-15 Adam was created to watch.
Work it and to keep it.
Work--God did not give a completed garden for Adams to enjoy. Adams had to maintain and expand it. There are generations coming after you and you must prepare it for them. You are created to work. We have a complicated relationship with work. Some of us like to word but most of us really just work for an income. Just think of that word, income.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
Part of what it means to be a human being is to be a working thing.
Do I hate my job or work? Difference.
Why does Adam work the ground? Because God works with the ground. Why is Adam a gardener? Because God is a gardener. Why is Adam creative? Because God is creative. Why does Adam labor with hard work because God worked hard for 6 days. .
Keep it
Protect it. Keep it safe for future generations. Eden was supposed to cover the universe and he is responsible for protecting it from anything that would hinder that command. Adam should have driven the snake out of Eden but the snake drives Adam out of Eden.
Pocket knife. Used incorrectly to destroy.
Adam was supposed to be protecting the garden and getting it ready for future use. This is not just a command given to Adam. There will be others to come after us until Jesus returns. We are called to be good and faithful workers in bringing glory to God over all the earth.
Limits of humanity. The Lord commands the man. Negative view of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God not only says you cannot eat tree but gives a positive command that Adam can eat from all of the other trees.
God is not putting some arbitrary tasks. In order to rule correctly we need to be able to distinguish between good and evil. There is a limit to their dominion and work, obedience to the will of God.
Jesus--says "I am working, because my Father is working." I take delight in what He does. Jesus undoes the curse that has come upon us.
Jesus knows that there is a limit in our work. Bread will sustain us for a little while but only the tree of life will sustain us forever. We have been driven away from this tree. IN Jesus God sends for us, somebody who is god who takes on our own nature and gives up His own life, giving us his life to cleanse us from our sins to bring us into union with a renewed life forever. You cannot work for that, you must receive it, and you receive it by understanding that you do not deserve it.
You cannot work for salvation. But as we come to Jesus, he sends us to work. He breathes upon us the Holy Spirit who drives us to work and labor for the kingdom of God. Every believer has a gift and a labor from the HS.
Not only to we work faithfully in our jobs during the week and in our homes but in the church. And just like we managed and given and protect the earth, we work within the church--guarding it, protecting it, so that future generations will have the gospel.
That's a labor and a work. But you don't need a pocket knife you need a sword. The word of God. To keep the movement going.
16-17 Adam was charged to remember God’s Word.
16-17 Adam was charged to remember God’s Word.
Man wants to take that 6th day, just short of god's perfection, and multiply that into perfection....666, man, man, man, I want to be my own God, my own creator.
16-17 Adam was charged to remember God’s Word.
16-17 Adam was charged to remember God’s Word.