The Story Chapter 1: Creation

Prayer Requests

Preface

What was there before there was a universe? There was God.

Who is God? God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

How do God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have relationship today? God’s work is done through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, according to the will of and to the glory of the Father.

But what about before there was a universe? How did they relate then? What was that fellowship like?

Complete

Pure

Undistracted

Full

Loving

The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit full, perfect communion with no distraction. There were no billions of humans with trillions of problems who needed constant love, attention, healing, redemption.

Then, in the presence of this complete love and goodness, God says “Let us make a creature called man, in our image, and let us build a place for him to live.”

That’s the stage that is set before us, that’s the moment of creation. With that, let’s watch this video.

Intro Video

Intro Video

Key Events

So what are the key events that make up this chapter of The Story? Let’s summarize what happened.

God created the heavens and the Earth, all the living things that walked on the Earth or flew in the air or swam in the sea. God created Adam in His own image.

God prepared the Garden of Eden for Adam and placed him there, God created Even from Adam to be his partner, his wife. In the garden are the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The serpent comes into the garden and convinces Eve to take a bite of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil because it will make her like God, she convinces Adam to do the same.

God discovers the sin of Adam and Eve and removes them from the garden, placing an angel to guard it so that they cannot eat from the Tree of Life.

Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain becomes jealous of Abel and kills him.

The human race spreads throughout the world, and their wickedness grows out of control. God decides to remove humanity from His creation.

God selects Noah, the one righteous man, to build an ark. In the ark, Noah, his family, and 2 of every animal are kept safe from the flood.

The earth floods and kills everything not in the ark. When the waters subside Noah and his sons come out of the ark. God promises to never again kill every living thing on Earth, the first covenant, and places a rainbow in the sky.

The Lord tells Noah and his sons to go forth and multiply and populate the Earth.

God seeks a way to bless all the people of the earth, a person to head a new covenant.

Open discussion

What about this story stands out to you? What did you notice about God? What did you notice about humanity?

God’s response to our failure is ALWAYS love and grace

It’s easy to think of God as vengeful, ready to smite human’s who fail to live up to His high standards. However, we can see just in our reading today that God responds to our failures with grace.

Adam and Eve Eat the Apple

When they eat the apple, they have sinned against God, more-so, they now have the ability to continue sinning because they have the knowledge of good and evil and are therefore accountable for their evil actions. The next things that happens is God kicks them out of the Garden of Eden! Of Paradise! Surely this is harsh punishment for their terrible sin, right?

Maybe… but maybe not. Read again what it says about their removal from the garden:

Genesis 3:22–24 ESV

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

What would’ve happened if a humanity became immortal, while they were still sinners?

Remember, what did Jesus HAVE to do in order to pay for our sin.

Can an immortal die? Therefore could humanity’s sins ever be fully redeemed?

So God removed Adam and Eve from the garden before they could do irreparable damage, because He already had a plan to save the descendants of Adam and Eve from their sin!

The Rest of Noah’s Story

There’s an important bit here that happens as soon as Noah and his sons leave the ark. Does anyone know what Noah does as soon as he grows some grapes? He makes wine! And he drinks a LOT of it! So much that he passes out naked and is discovered by his son Ham, the father of Canaan.

Anyone remember the Canaanites from Bible stories? Did they get along well with Israelites?

So Noah, the ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN that God chooses to save when He wipes out the Earth, gets so drunk that he ends up creating the primary enemy of God’s chosen nation a few centuries later! And what does God do next in the story?

He starts looking for the next person that He will use in the redemptive story, He starts looking for Abram.

Announcements

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2020 Youth Kickoff Event: The 2020 Youth Kickoff will be Saturday, January 25th from 6-9 pm at Bryant and Rhonda’s house! Pizza will be served, there will be a very short lesson as well as games and a movie! Feel free to invite a friend!