Thoughts on Genesis 1 and 2
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Brothers and sisters as we come to the text before us today I think that we should begin our time with the two great commandments
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
The greatest of the commands is to love first to love the Lord our God and second to love others.
And the kind of love that the Lord calls us to is not a love that is in word only
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Brothers and sisters, are we loving our neighbors well?
I know that there is a lot going on in the world but listen to me if we at Journey church are going to be used by God to be salt and light in chaotic and confusing times we have go to love our neighbor.
People want to talk about changing the world or changing a country and they are not even loving their neighbor, they are not even loving their family.
Oh people in our culture love the flashy and they love to post on facebook and get attention from others and get likes but they aren’t even willing to sacrificially love the person who lives right next door to them.
One of my favorite quotes is from Mother Teresa
If you want to change the world then go home and love your family.
I know that for me, I can get overwhelmed with what is going on in places of the country that i cannot be and i have no influence. And there is so much garbage put out there in the news and on social media but Journey Church let us focus here in our homes in our community, by God’s grace let us be the church of Jesus Christ and let us love our neighbor to the glory of God, that is what God is calling us to do.
And we will come back to this more as we look at Genesis 1 and 2
I want to point out a few more things from this text and then next week we are going to move on.
1. Building block for the Trinity
1. Building block for the Trinity
v.26
Let us
We can add to that as we see in the Scriptures that all things were created through the agency of the Son.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
2. Same God who spoke into the darkness to create light and life must speak into the darkness of our heart to create light and life.
2. Same God who spoke into the darkness to create light and life must speak into the darkness of our heart to create light and life.
v.3: Let there be light
Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 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.
To see the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is just as miraculous as God speaking into the darkness of creation and light beginning to shine.
3. Creation of man is clearly the goal of creation
3. Creation of man is clearly the goal of creation
Day 3 and 4 have about 70 words
Day 6 about 150 wors
There is a clear emphasis on day 6
we come to v.26 and we see man created in God’s image
There is a lot that we could say here but I want to emphasis one part of what is being communicated here
“In the ANE it was widely believed that a god’s spirit lived in any statue or image of that god, with the result that the image could result as a kind of representative of or a substitute for the god wherever it was placed. It was also customary in the ANE to think of a king as a representative of a god; obviously the king ruled, and the god was the ultimate ruler, so the king must be ruling on the god’s behalf. It was therefore not surprising that these two separate ideas become connected and a king came to be described as an image of a god.”
Moses uses this idea to teach us a point, or to make a point.
“Humanity was created and placed upon the earth to exercise royal dominion over the earth as God’s representatives.”
Humanity was put here to rule over the earth for God, to carry out His rule
Man is ruling for the ultimate King therefore responsible to Him and are expected by Him to manage and develop and care for His creation
v.28 Man is to fill the earth and subdue it, rule over it
man was to multiply and spread the Kingdom of God over all the earth so that the whole earth would be full of God’s glory.
Of course we know the story, Adam failed but Scripture teaches us that the Second Adam will succeed.
Who is this Second Adam, well He is the Son of David, the promised One
We see OT prophecies that tell us that He will fulfill this command, that it is through the reign of the Son of David that the earth would be full of the glory of the Lord
“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Ps alm 72
4. Sabbath command
4. Sabbath command
The sabbath command given to the Jews is grounded in Gen. 2:1-3.
A couple of interesting things.
Notice we don’t have in these verses what we see with all the other days, there is not the phrase and there was evening and there was morning the ...... day.
It has been suggested that the idea is here that God is inviting us into His eternal rest.
And the author of Hebrews uses the same greek verb used in the LXX in Heb. 4
Look at vv.1-11
This rest in found in Christ
5. Created for Relationship
5. Created for Relationship
If you notice, you will see a change after 2:3,
The word Yahweh is used, this word speaks of the covenant God of Israel.
A. The covenant God is Israel is the God of creation
Moses teaches that the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob who revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush, the god of our Fathers, the God of promise is the God of creation.
B. It communicates to us that God created us for a covenant relationship with Him. God enters into relationship with Adam. God gives tasks to Adam and Eve, God invites Adam and Eve into His eternal rest but He also warns them of the consequences of disobedience.
Disobedience will not bring rest and peace and life instead it will bring struggle and sorrow and death
2.15-17
Brothers and sisters we are remind that there is no rest outside of the garden, there is no rest outside of a relationship with our God.
The only rest is found in Him, peace and life is found in Him, outside of Him, outside of His presence is death and turmoil.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
This is central to all and is the first of all relationships.
If our relationships with others is going to be what they should be then we are going to have to first have a relationship with our God.
And we see in chapter 2 that God created us for relationships with others.
Here we see the foundational human relationship that is necessary for human society.
We see the covenant relationship of marriage.
This relationship teaches us that we can relate with others but at the same time we are reminded here of the uniqueness of this relationship. This is a one flesh relationship, it is a covenant relationship where a man and a woman give themselves to one another like they give themselves to no one else.
The NT is clear that marriage is to point us to the covenant relationship we have with God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Eph. 5.22 and following
We see this relationship attacked in our culture, but I tell you that if this relationship is not safe then no other relationship is safe.
You see in the cheapening of marriage in our culture that people do not think of relationships with spouse or with others in a biblical way.
Our culture thinks of relationships like this, it is not about what I can give but what I can get and if I am not getting then I am out.
But brothers and sisters that is not love
We are called to love God and love neighbor, and who is our first neighbor, our spouse, our family
If people in our culture cannot love their husband, their wife, their kids then how in the world are they going to love someone of a different ethnicity, someone with whom they have very little in common.
But brothers and sisters, it should not be so with us