Dwelling Place Week 1

In the beginning?

Let’s start with a question....

How would you describe boundaries?

Boundaries:

Everything has limits right?

If you drive as fast as your car can go, eventually the car will meet a max speed.

If you decide you are going to climb a mountain, you will eventually reach the highest point you can go before you need something to carry you higher into the atmosphere.

Even life has boundaries. Eventually, we are all going to die.

Some boundaries are meant to keep us confined. But then there are boundaries that are meant to keep us away from harm and damage. Most of the time this is what our parents do right? They tell us what we cannot do in an effort to keep us safe. Or at least thats what they believe to be the truth. As you get older you start to understand why you had curfews and limits on with whom and where you could hang out.

When God created the earth and assigned man over the earth to full dominion over it, there was also boundaries. At first, Adam and Eve were confined to the boundaries of the garden until they decided that they wanted to expand their knowledge and do what THEY think is right for themselves and so sin entered the world and man was separated from God.

Over the next few weeks we are going to be looking at God’s plan from the very beginning of time and the constant struggle of surrender from man.

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I’v said this before a couple of years ago, but the entire Bible follows a theme that is so clear within the first few chapters in the Bible.

Creation

It always starts with the creation of something.

Genesis 1:1 ESV

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

Before we learn anything about God, we learn that he creates.

What does God create?

So it starts with Creation

Fall

Then comes the fall of man.

Genesis 3:1–7 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Humans become greedy. They desire something greater than what has been given to them.

How many of you can relate to that?

We live in a world of constant desire to know more, do more, be more. We celebrate someone’s desire to “never settle” or “never be content.” Adam and Eve wanted the same thing. They wanted to be like God and understand God so they chose that they were above and outside the boundaries that were set from the beginning.

Redemption

The beauty of our constant desire to move beyond boundaries is that it leaves the door open for redemption.

After God calls to them and they realize that they are naked, both physically and spiritually, we see redemption happen.

Genesis 3:20–24 ESV

The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 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.

God doesn’t see this happen and snap his fingers and say you are dead. As a matter of fact, the first thing God does once Adam tells him that they are naked is clothe them. Though the ground is cursed and women have to deal with the pains of the childbirth, God gives them redemption by allowing them to do the same thing they were doing in the garden. The difference is that within the garden it was perfect unity and dwelling with God and outside of the garden the separation leads to hardship that must be endured. God is a gracious God but he is also a just God. Adam and Eve were punished, then redeemed. Does that sound familiar?

Where else do we see a story of redemption in the Bible?

It mimics the story of Jesus right? Because of our human nature, we have been condemned to a death, but Jesus came to pay that price for us.

4. This leads to restoration

The ultimate form of restoration is to look at the way it was from the beginning and where the story ends.

It begins with perfect unity between God nd man and it ends with eternal rule with God and man.

True restoration happens at the end.

Still there is restoration to the order God had intended from the beginning.

Throughout the OT we see a number of ways God tries to dwell with man over and over.

The garden

The tent

Pillar of fire

The staff of moses

Tabernacle

Temple

The reason it is important to establish that at the beginning this was God’s plan is because it gives us the basis for what unfolds in the rest of the Bible.

Now what does this have to do with boundaries? What does this have to do with rules?

The law in the OT was the only way the Israelites were able to communicate with God.

Moses gets the 10 commandments as a guideline for how to live life honoring to God. What connected his people to God was knowing how to live.

If you go back to Adam and Eve, they lived an undefiled life until they became aware of what was good and what was evil. Though we constantly try to determine what makes something good or evil, there is always a lack of understanding with how we are to live our lives taking that into account.

What I mean is that we are always drawn to our human nature. So much so that we tend to confuse selfish desire with God’s desire.

Psalm 119:33–40 ESV

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared. Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life!

God’s rules are good because they allow us to live a life that is fulfilling to him.

His rules are a guide for us as we live life on a world thst is not ours.

Ultimately, the law was meant to bring us closer to a place of dwelling with God which has been his goal since the beginning.

We were redeemed by Christ to came to fulfill the law of God as it says in Matthew 5:17. He has paid the price for our sins so that we can have the Holy Spirit dwell within us. We are now God’s dwelling place.

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