Sermon Tone Analysis

Foundations of Faith

Intro: I’m going to start this sermon by lying to you.

That’s not something you want to hear.

Humans have no special value, we are just animals, a cosmic mistake, oh its just a clump of cells.

We are here for a while, then we pass on to nothingness.

How about this one, marriage is just a social construct, any two people or things or combination of the two can get married and spend the rest of their lives together, or not, whatever you feel like.

Or what about this, there is no God because there is sickness, death, war, famine, and life is hard.

Lies.

Lies we hear everyday permeating our society and culture.

Lies that are interwoven into the fabric of a world that wants no part of God.

How do we answer these falsehoods?

How do we combat and stand against lies?

Well, we do it with truth.

A few weeks back I was thinking through the first few chapters of Genesis.

I was thinking to myself how much of Genesis is so against the grain of society.

And then I got to thinking, what if everyone were to understand the first few chapters of Genesis as cold hard facts.

A literal account of the beginning of time, the first recorded values and covenants of God, the entering of sin into the world and the solution God would provide.

Many attempt to undermine the value of Genesis.

But what if everyone believed that Genesis was true and accurate?

How the world would change.

Well, sadly, this will never happen.

Many have and will reject God.

So God will punish them and give them exactly what they want, absence from His presence in hell.

Genesis is the foundation of our faith.

If we allow Genesis’ validity slip away in our minds, where does it stop?

What else from God’s Word slips away?

If those around us are attempting to write off Genesis life just gets more confusing.

Genesis is the foundation of our faith.

The first foundational truth that we will look at is that ...

We are Made

We are not a cosmic mistake.

We are not all just varying sizes and shapes of clumps of cells.

We were made.

Genesis 1:26-31

We were made...

By a triune God.

Genesis 1:26 “26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

Here in Genesis 1 we get our first look into the nature of who God is.

He is referred to as one God.

“Then God said”.

He refers to Himself as “us”.

Our God is a God of fellowship.

He has had fellowship in the Godhead from eternity past.

In God’s image.

That means we can have fellowship with God.

No other creature has the special honor and privilege of being able to commune with God.

What other ways are we made in His image?

Personality, creativity.

When a monkey sees a banana they see food, we see a cell phone, banana bread, a slippery peel.

When a dog sees a stick they go fetch, we see a mowing hazard, fire kindling, a spanking stick.

We have personality, creativity, critical thinking skills, free will.

All these and more are part of being created in God’s image.

Male and Female.

Oops, I just got canceled.

If you or I offend someone, let it be because we offered them Christ.

If I offend someone, let it be because we offered them truth.

Offending people is never the goal, our goal should be the same as our Lord’s that all should come to repentance, that they would come to Him and live for Him, and to not get distracted by the world and by the flesh.

We were made male and female that is the truth, no need to beat around the bush.

Both display the image of God, both have unique, God given, special, and crucial roles to play in God’s plan.

We were made with responsibilities...

Genesis 1:28-29 “28 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.”

29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.

You shall have them for food.”

To have dominion.

God has dominion over all creation and nature.

And he gave to man the responsibility to have dominion over every creature.

To be fruitful and multiply.

Chapter 1 gives the quick summary and responsibilities, chapter 2 goes into more detail on how exactly God created man and woman and why He did did it this way.

To be dependent on God.

Genesis 2:5-6 “5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—”

Notice that God gives the plants and fruits to man and to His creation to eat.

The working and keeping of the garden would not have been strenuous.

There would be no 100 pound gear boxes to carry to the middle of corn pivot.

God watered the ground.

There would be not thistles to spray.

Mankind was to be completely dependent on God.

Each individual has been uniquely made in the image of God, to have fellowship with Him and to be dependent on Him.

We are made.

A second foundational truth found in Genesis is that of...

Marriage

The world presents a counterfeit ignoring the origins and God’s design for marriage.

The world’s counterfeit is self centered, self gratifying, and self serving.

God’s design is vehemently opposed to that.

God’s design is self sacrificing, other focused.

Genesis 2:18-24

It was not good that man was alone.

Everything else in creation was good, but not this.

No other creature was fit for him.

No one else was created in the image of God like Adam was, so God made Eve.

Husband and Wife are meant to compliment each other.

Helper fit for him literally means a “helper corresponding to him” or “a corresponding helper”.

God intended husband and wife to be a spiritual, functional unity, walking in integrity, serving God, and keeping His commandments together.

When this harmony is operative, society prospers under God’s hand.

Helper is by no means a demeaning term.

Ps 33:20

God being our helper is awesome.

Husband and Wife become one flesh.

This is the complete unity of man and woman in marriage.

A man leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife.