Creation, Fall, and Promise

The super hero movies are more popular than they’ve ever been, or at least they were when End Game came out. One of the classic genres within the super hero movies is the origin story. The movie about where the super hero came from, who they were before, and how they came to be a super hero. What’s your favorite origin story?

Tonight we’re going to look at our own origin story…

It’s good for us to know where we came from because it helps us to know what we were made for and if that is what’s happening or not!

pray and read

Humanity rebelled against its Creator, but He made a promise to get us back.

Creation

Genesis 1-2

God created us with order and intention and it was very good and we should trust it.

As humans we often tend to be prideful. We don’t like being told what to do. We a lot of times will think we can figure it out on our own and don’t need to have instructions given to us.

I was hanging something from the ceiling in our garage the other day. When you hang something, you’re supposed to figure out where the studs or joists are first… If you’re hanging in the ceiling it’s a little trickier because you have to first figure out which direction the joists are running. Well I decided I didn’t need to do that step…

I didn’t do that the way it was supposed to be done because I was a little prideful (and maybe a little lazy too) and I messed myself up!

First of all, God created us.

Genesis 1:1 ESV

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

God had a purpose in creation.

Genesis 1:26 ESV

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 2:15 ESV

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

God put an order of leadership into creation.

God leads humans, in a marriage a husband leads his wife…

1 Corinthians 11:3 ESV

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

and humans lead the rest of creation

His Creation was very good.

Genesis 1:31 ESV

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

If we believe that God is our Creator, then it is natural for us to accept that He is the one who knows best what we were created for. The way we should live. How to fix our problems. We should take the time to seek out how God has told us we were made to live and we should strive to live that way!

Do you believe the creation account of Genesis 1? Are you following the natural conclusion to that and submitting to God’s design, or are you pridefully trying to make things work your own way? That’s what gets us to the next stage we’re looking at!

Fall

Sin was brought into the world and we all participate in it.

If you’ve ever been to a whale show at Sea World, you know that there is a section at the front of the show called the splash zone. That’s where you are for sure going to get soaked. Not maybe you’ll get wet, you’re going to get splashed by the whale if you sit there. It’s going to swim up as close to the wall as it can, swim up out of the water and belly flop so you have wet clothes for the rest of the day and you’re going to hate it. Well all of humanity is in the splash zone and the sin is water and Adam and Even got told by Satan to jump as high as they could and splash us all and they listened.

Sin is not doing things as God designed, which come from pride and a lack of faith and trust in Him.

Genesis 3:6 ESV

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Sin gets God’s order out of order.

His order of leadership is God, humans (husbands sacrificially lead wives), and the rest of creation.

That’s flipped when sin comes in…

We all received the sinful nature.

Pretty quickly it gets so bad that God floods the Earth.

Genesis 6:5 ESV

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

When they come off the ark, they’re still sinful.

Genesis 9:20–22 ESV

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

In Genesis 11 the people, in their pride, ignore God’s instruction to fill the Earth.

And it continues today.

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

We are all sinners. Everyone of us has sin in our lives and in our hearts. We must believe that, accept it, and confess it to God if we hope to be forgiven, because there is hope of forgiveness!

1 Corinthians 15:21–22 ESV

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

That does not mean that everyone will be saved, Scripture tells us that only those who place their faith in Jesus will be saved.

But we can be saved! That’s the promise that God has made to us!

Promise

We can trust in God’s promises, and he promised to bless the Earth.

So what we’ve seen so far is that God created humanity, humanity rebelled against God, and we’re left under a curse.

When I think of a curse the first thing i think of is the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Curse of the Black Pearl. If you haven’t seen it yet, go check it out it’s great but I’m going to ruin it for you.

Some pirates have stolen a treasure and been cursed for it…

They remove the curse by everyone who stole some of the treasure giving back some blood to where they took it. The problem is one of the people who was on the crew is no longer with them. So they can’t lift the curse. But then they find his son who can lift the curse! If the son sheds his blood then the curse can be lifted! (Sounds a little familiar doesn’t it?!)

Finding ol’ Bootstrap Bill’s son gave them hope in their curse. God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, and to us, gives us hope while we are under a curse!

He promises that He will bless the Earth through Abraham.

Genesis 12:1–3 ESV

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

This is God’s first step in bridging the gap between us and Him that our sin created! And make no mistake, He took the first step toward us!

Our hope to be out from under the curse of sin is found only in the promises of God! We must put our faith in Him! There is hope for eternity no where else! Only in Jesus.

How does this look toward Jesus?

God’s promise to Abram looks forward to Abram’s descendant, Jesus of Nazareth.

Also in the curse of the serpent...

Genesis 3:15 ESV

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

How does this send God’s people to the world?

God’s first command was to fill the Earth. He’s always intended for the whole Earth to know Him!

He promises Abram that the whole Earth will be blessed through Him, not just his people.

And it’s a good thing because if that promise were only for Abram and his descendants, we would be excluded, but we aren’t! God’s offer to have the curse of sin removed is available to every one of us…