Transcription
Well, happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to our one-year journey through the entire Bible story. You know, the whole Bible really is one story. It begins in a garden; it ends in a city. And all the way through, it's about Jesus Christ.
And as most of you know, we have chosen 50 chapters of the Bible that trace this story. And our plan for the year is to follow the Bible story each weekend, with the exception of Easter and Christmas. And here's the goal: that through the Bible story, we will come to know who God is, you will come to know who you are, and what God offers to you in and through His Son, Jesus Christ.
I do want to say that for, uh, those among us who may not yet believe, you may be in a position, "I'm not sure I believe any of this." This journey really is for you. I want you to think about the Bible as if it were a large house, and this house has a sign up that says on it, "Open." It's an open house, and you're invited to come in and have a look around this house. You're invited to come and look at the world of the Bible, to listen to what God says, and to see what God will do in your life as we open the Bible together. So, I give you that warm invitation.
If you are a believer, I want to invite you specifically to consider inviting someone else to join you on this journey. And there are two ways in which you can do this. One is very obviously, you can invite a person to come here to church with you and to share with us this journey over the weekend. Or a second way in which you could do this is that you could simply invite someone to share this journey in conversation with you.
Let me give you this encouragement. A survey that was done last year by the American Bible Society showed that when asked, 66% of the population in America indicated, the sample that was taken, 66% indicated when asked that they would be interested in knowing more about the Bible. That was absolutely astonishing to me and wonderfully encouraging. It should be to you. Two out of every three people in the country who could be asked, according to this survey, said, "You know, I would actually be more interested to know more about the Bible."
There may never have been a time in the history of our country where the Bible was less known, and it may be that there's never been a time in which there were more people who were open to discovering the Bible. Hence, this is a marvelous opportunity for you to invite a friend, a neighbor, a colleague, or a family member to take this journey through the Bible with you.
And Unlocking the Bible has prepared and just launched this week a new website that will help you share the open journey with someone else. It is, uh, openthebible.org. openthebible.org. There you will find the 50 passages of scripture that we will be covering, God willing, over this year, a short 12-minute teaching on each of these chapters, and just five questions that you could share with a friend who has read that passage of the Bible and read the 10-minute teaching or listen to it, and you could talk about these five questions over coffee. You could do it at work, you could do it at home, you could even do it over Skype. And you can do it whenever it works for you.
So, this is a marvelous opportunity, an encouragement for us as a church to think not only about taking a journey through the Bible, but as we do it, to reach out with the Bible to many others who are connected with us, who may be open to discover the Word of God. So please ask this question: Who in my life needs to know the Bible and just might be ready and open to discover the world of the Bible if I were to ask them?
Well, now, please open your Bible, then, at the very beginning, in the book of Genesis. And I want you to picture yourself for a moment being in a theater for the first performance of a new play. And before the curtain goes up, the author of the play simply walks onto the stage and introduces himself to the audience. He tells you who he is, he tells you why he wrote the play, and he tells you what it is all about. The author does not walk onto the stage and present an argument for his own existence. He simply walks onto the stage and he begins to speak. He speaks about himself, and he speaks about his work. And that is exactly how the Bible begins.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God created. Now, think about this: creating always carries with it the rights of ownership. If you draw a picture, if you design a particular product, if you create something, you build something, you make something, you own that which you have created. And we're being told right at the beginning of the Bible, here's who God is. He comes on the stage, he announces himself. Here's the first thing that you need to know about me: I am your creator, and therefore, your life is not an accident. You are not a mistake. You and your existence, you are not the product of random chance. You are God's special creation.
Now, that is the most marvelous good news. If your life were an accident, if it were the product of random chance, your life would essentially have no meaning or purpose. You would be at liberty then to do whatever you want with that life, to indulge it, to waste it, or even to end it. But if you are created by God, your life has great meaning and purpose, and you will discover what that purpose is as you come to get to know the God who has made you.
And straight away, the God who has made you tells you some things that you really need to know about yourself. The first is that you are made in the image of God. Chapter 1 and verse 26 of Genesis: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.'" Two observations. First, as you'll see from the footnote in the church Bible, if you have that, the word "man" here is a generic term that includes both male and female. We're specifically told that God, verse 27, "created man in his own image; male and female he created them." So, this is very, very clear that God created male and female, and He created both in His image and in His likeness.
Second observation: Did you notice the plural pronoun "us"? "Let us make man in our image." There is one God, but right at the beginning of the Bible, here is a fascinating hint with regards to His nature that will be unfolded later in the Bible story, that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And although it will only be later in the Bible story that we will see this fully unfolded to us, it's actually there in the first three verses of the Bible. I wonder if you have ever noticed this. The first three verses: Chapter 1 and verse 1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Verse 2, "The earth was without form and void, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Verse 3, then we read, "And God said." So, right here, in the very first three verses of the Bible, you have God, you have God's Spirit, and you have God's Word. Isn't that amazing? First three verses of the Bible.
Now, back to verse 26: "God said, 'Let us make man in our image.'" What is an image? An image is a reflection. And so, God has made you in such a way that you would reflect something of His own nature and glory. And this, of course, is what distinguishes you, distinguishes us, from the world of the animals. If you think of yourself simply as a highly developed animal, you actually miss the most important thing about yourself. The most important thing that God says about you: you are made in the image and the likeness of God. And that is why your life, and every human life, has a unique dignity and worth. The first thing that you need to know about yourself is that you are made in the image of God, which is why you cannot really know yourself apart from coming to know Him.
And here's the second thing that you need to know about yourself. Not only are you made in the image of God, but you need to know at the same time: you are not God. You are not God. We were made from the dust of the ground. Chapter 2 and verse 7: "The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." So, here's what I need to know about myself. For we need to know about ourselves: created by God, made in the image of God, but I'm not God. You are not God. In fact, your life is very, very fragile. He made you from the dust. We depend upon God who gives us breath.
Notice how God made this first man. And can you just try to picture this? God forms a physical corpse of chemical matter from the dust of the ground. A material corpse is formed, and there it lies lifeless on the ground, a skeletal frame. And God breathes life into this corpse. I try to think of this from Adam's perspective. So, it's there's a first moment of conscious existence. Think about this: in his first moments of moment of conscious existence, what's the very first thing he knew? He's looking, in his first moment of conscious existence, right into the face of God. And he has this profound awareness from the very first moment of his existence: God gave me life, and I belong to Him. God brought me into being.
Now, of course, what God did for Adam, He truly still does for us today. You read this in Acts, in the New Testament, chapter 17 and verse 25: "God gives life and breath to everything." The very fact that we're breathing, our lives right now, are being sustained by this living God who gives life to us all. So, you are God's creation, you're made in His image, you're not God, you're dependent upon God. The life that you have is a life that He gives to you moment by moment, day by day. And you discover the meaning and the purpose of this life that He gives as you come to know Him.
Now, that's how God introduces Himself. And then, as we follow the story, God gives four wonderful gifts to the first man, the first woman, and they are gifts that really are the beginning of marvelous gifts that God gives to us in our lives today and will give to us in the glory of eternity that lies ahead for all who love Him.
The first of these is the gift of a home. Chapter 2 and verse 8: "Now the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed." Try and picture this. Adam has been brought into conscious existence, and God put him in a garden that God Himself had planted. We're being told here, God sets him down. God says, "This is the place that I have prepared for you. This is where I want you to know and to enjoy my blessing."
Now, it's very difficult to have any precise knowledge about the location of this Garden of Eden. What is really important to know is that it was a real place. It is located relative to four rivers in chapter 2, verses 10 to 14, two of which, of course, we know today: the Tigris and the Euphrates, both of which run through modern-day Iraq. This is a real place, and God plants a garden in a particular location, somewhere in that region, and He puts the man there. And the man knows that he's at home there because that's the place that God has planted him down.
And again, this is really a sign of what God wonderfully does for us today. Acts chapter 17 and verse 26 reminds us that God brings us all into being at a particular time in history and sets us down in a particular place. You ever thought about this? That the hand of God is in where you live? The hand of God is in the fact that you are alive today as opposed to any other time in history? No place, no time is perfect, but there is no better place to flourish than where God Himself sets you down. Try to imagine God walking into your home with you and saying, "This, this is the place where I am setting you down, the place where you will know me and where you will enjoy my blessing." Or imagine the Lord walking with you into church and saying, "This is the place that I have prepared for you to grow." Home is where God sets you down. And those who have lived in very different places over their lives know how important this is. How can I feel at home? Where can I feel at home? Home is where God sets you down, and you can be at home wherever God places you. That's a wonderfully helpful truth.
And notice how from the beginning, God is actively engaged in every part of our lives, including where you live, where you worship, where you serve. None of this is by random chance. God plants a garden, and He puts the man. "This is the place where you will know and enjoy my blessing." It's the first great gift, the gift of home.
Second, the marvelous gift of work. Verse 15 of chapter 2: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden, to work it and to keep it." So, straight away, we are told, and this is before sin ever entered into the world, God has work for Adam to do. He is to work this garden, he is to keep it. Later, in chapter 1 and verse 28, after the creation of Eve, God says to Adam and Eve together that they are to fill the earth and they are to subdue it. A lot of work in that. And this work is a good gift from God.
Work is one of the ways in which we reflect the image of God. Think about it. When God introduces Himself to us, the very first thing He introduces is His work. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God works. And for six days, we read about God working, and on the seventh day, God resting from His work. And now Adam is made in the image of God, and so because he reflects the image of God, um, there is work that God has for him to do. And the work he's given to do is described in verse 19: "The Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name."
Again, two things to notice here, very briefly. Is the first that the work God gives reflects the work that God does? See, remember in Genesis chapter 1, God gives names to things. He calls the light Day, and He calls the darkness Night. It is the work of God to name things. Now, Adam is made in the image and in the likeness of God, and God says, "Brother, the work that I do, I want you to do. I want you to do the naming of these animals, and I'm going to participate in this work. I'm going to bring these animals to you, and you're going to do the work of naming these things. You're going to do what I have been doing because my work will be reflected in your work."
Now, you may find it very helpful indeed to ponder how the work God has given you to do is a reflection of the work that God Himself does. It will lift your own estimate of the importance and the value of the work you do if you can see how there is some reflection of the work that God does in the work that He has given you to do. For example, God brings order out of chaos. Remember that next time you clean out a closet. What are you doing? You're bringing order out of chaos. There's a tiny little reflection there of the work of God. But think about this: you bring order to a home, you bring order to a business, you are reflecting God's work.
Or think about this: God creates that which is beautiful. So, when you paint, when you decorate, when you are involved in anything that is creatively artistic, you are reflecting the work of God. Or think about this: God protects. Think about this. When I drive to church and come at the time when there are children either arriving at school or leaving at school, if I happen to be there at that time, and here is this person on the crossing, and she is protecting children so that they can cross safely, and I think that's a beautiful reflection of the work of God, the protection of God, that is coming actually through this person's remarkable and wonderful and very important work.
God provides. So, any person who is in any way involved in any part of the vast process of growing and transporting and selling and cooking and preparing and serving food is doing part of God's work. Now, I've given you some examples, you can take it from there. But you will find immense help in pondering how the work God has given you to do is actually a reflection of His work, because His work in the world gets accomplished through His partnership with people who share in His work.
And then I want you to notice this that's in the verse, how actively engaged God is in the work that He gives. "The Lord God had formed every beast out of the field and every bird of the heavens, and Adam's work is to name them." But notice that God is involved in the work. God brought them to the man, which I think it's just as well, because I don't know how he would have caught up with them all otherwise. But God brings the animals to, to, to the man, and the man has the job of naming them. Now, do you see what is being expressed here? The active engagement of God in the work that He has given this person to do. That is a wonderful truth. God worked with Adam, God worked through Adam, and it was in this way that God's purpose was actively advanced in the world. God is actively engaged in your daily work, working with you and working through you. And it will lift your whole experience of work if you remember that when you are at your desk, in the shop, on the site, by the sink, or whatever the particular working environment to which you have been called should turn out to be, God cares about your daily work, and through that work, His purpose in the world, in some way, is advanced and accomplished.
Now, we will see, as we follow the Bible story, we'll see as soon as next week that when sin came into the world, it changed everything. And the experience that we have today of work, of course, brings a great deal of frustration, very often, as well as fulfillment. But never forget this: that work remains a good gift from God, and your employment is work that God has given you to do. And when you find it most frustrating, remembering that He is actively engaged in it with you will help you. And don't limit this to employment, because remember, Adam didn't get a salary for his work in the garden, but it was the work that God had given him to do. And in every stage and in every season of life, whether you're formally in employment or not, there is work that God has for you to do. And as you engage in that work, God's purpose will advance in the world.
So, wonderful gifts of God here: the gift of a home, the gift of work. Thirdly, the gift of relationship. The gift of relationship. Chapter 2 and verse 18: "The Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him.'" Last year, I had the pleasure of endorsing a new book by a pastor, Drew Hunter, who serves a church in Indianapolis, in which he applies this verse, I think helpfully and insightfully, not only to marriage, which is its obvious first application, but also more widely to the gift of friendship. Drew makes the point that the first problem in the world was not sin, but solitude. Think about it. When God looked at what He made, again and again in Genesis 1, His God looks at what He made, and He said, "It is good." "It is good." God saw that it was good. And here, in chapter 2, for the very first time, God looks at something and He says, "It's not good." "It is not good that the man should be alone." Why was it not good for Adam to be alone? Answer: Because he is made in the image of God, and God enjoys relationship, fellowship, love within the triunity of His own nature. That's the significance of the word "us" being used in reference to God, being used by God. "Let us create man in our own image." God existed in three persons, and for all eternity, before the world ever began, love flowed between them. It's very important today, by the way, in the way in which many people fear that the only thing there is is power. And the Bible, from the very nature of God, tells us that from the very beginning, there was love. And that the man and the woman are made in the image of this God, whose very nature is love. And therefore, to be made in God's image means we are wired for relationship.
"It is not good for the man to be alone." That's why in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 18 and verse 1, we read this: "Whoever isolates himself breaks out against all sound judgment." Isn't that a fascinating proverb? Proverbs 18 and verse 1. Whoever isolates himself, you cut yourself off from other people, you break out against all sound judgment. Why? Because you're made in the image of God. And to be made in the image of God means that you are made with the capacity to give and to receive love. To be made in the image of God means that you are made not for isolation, but for relationship. Therefore, let us follow this line: It is not good for any Christian to be alone. And that is why God brings us into relationship in the body of Christ, in the church. What is God doing? He is bringing people who love Him together, in order that together we may love Him and love one another. And His ultimate purpose is a gathering of a great company of people who love Him and who love each other, in which there is no loneliness, in which no one is finally alone, but rather made one in a body, the body of Christ, in which relationship with God and with each other spells the joy and the richness of the life that He will give forever and ever. And our great privilege in the life of the church is to pursue this, the beginning of this life for which God is preparing us in the restoration of all things that will come about in His grace and in His mercy.
And then, of course, there is very clearly here a statement that is of great importance in relation to marriage. Look at it again: "And the Lord said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him.'" God created Eve. And then I want you to notice this in verse 22: "He brought her to the man." Brought her. I had the privilege, as a pastor, of conducting wedding services from time to time. And one of the most sacred moments in a wedding service is when, as a pastor, you have the privilege of taking the hands of the husband and the wife as they've made vows to each other, and joining them together, and placing your own hand over the top and making this pronouncement that you are husband and that you, your wife, you know, the very first person who did that? God Himself. Brings her. Adam. Joins their hands. Love one another. Help one another. Go through life together. We're going to see next week that this marriage between the first man and the first woman had more than its fair share of troubles. But they could never have doubted, even at their most troubled moments, that they were joined together by God. And I say to every husband and wife, that if a marriage should go through a time of trouble, it will greatly strengthen you to remember this: that to be married means that you were joined together by God. That's what it means.
And then there is a fourth marvelous gift. Here's God, the Creator, and He's revealing what we need to know about ourselves, and He's telling us about where the good gifts of life come from. The gift of a home, the gift of work, the gift of relationship. It all comes from the hand of God. But here's the greatest gift of all: it's the gift of God Himself.
Chapter 3, in verse 8: "They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day." Now, here we come to something really important and very wonderful. And you may have been wondering about this already. God is Spirit, and that means that God is invisible to the human eye. But throughout the story we have been reading of God relating to Adam and to Eve in such a way that they could clearly see Him and hear Him and enjoy Him. God brought the woman to the man, He put the man in the garden, the Lord God walked with the man and the woman in the garden in the cool. I mean, how does an invisible Spirit do that? It's not possible, right? God appeared in visible form because He wanted Adam and Eve to know Him. We call these appearances that you find especially in the earlier part of the Bible, we call these appearances theophanies. That is, appearances of God in a visible form. And what they show is, right from the beginning, the intense desire in the heart of God to establish deep and meaningful relationship with all who He has made. It's a wonderful, wonderful truth.
Now, of course, these theophanies, these temporary appearances of God for the purpose of being able to communicate and relate with the man and the woman that He made, they clearly point forward to what is going to happen at the center of the Bible story, which is not simply that God appeared as a man, but that God became a man. Not just that He became visible, but that He actually became incarnate. Why did He do that? Well, all of these earlier theophanies are pointing forward to this. He did this because of the intense desire in His heart that we should know Him and to establish relationship with us. It's almost as if, in the book of Genesis, when you have these theophanies, as if the Son of God couldn't wait to come. He could hardly wait to come. And He's there, He's present in the book of Genesis, and He's walking with the first man and the first woman, who, in the fullness of time, through His incarnation, His death, and His resurrection, He will redeem, as He becomes the redeemer of all who were before Him and all who lived after His incarnation into the world.
What are we to take away, then, from this first step in the journey through the Bible story? Above all else, I would want you to take away this one thing: that God is good, and that God is love. In fact, the very essence of faith is that you come not only to believe that there is a God, but that the God who made you is good, and that every good gift in your life has come directly from His kind and generous hand. And because He is good, He has made you for a life filled with good things: a happy home, fulfilling work, loving relationship, and fellowship with God Himself.
Now, you say, "Well, that's a long way from what is experienced in this world." Yes. And the Bible story is going to tell us how this life was lost. And next week, we'll see how the man and the woman who were so blessed by the abundant goodness of God, how when they became alienated from God, they became dislocated from their home, and they experienced difficulty in their work and dysfunction in their relationships. Paradise was lost. So that the world that we live in today is a long, long way from the Garden of Eden. But here's what you can take away from the very beginning of the Bible story: however good your life in this fallen world is, God made you for something more. And however bad, hard, difficult your life in this world may be, God offers to you the promise of something better.
The Bible story is all about how the life that was lost may be found again. So, when Jesus Christ came into the world, He said this: "I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly." So, Jesus says, "I come into the world, I went to the cross, I rose from the dead, so that you can have more life than you are able to experience here and now. So that you will know the restoration of all that Adam lost, and more besides." And whatever it may cost you to follow Jesus, however hard may be your experience in this fallen world, the promise of Jesus is that one day, if you follow Him, you will enjoy a life where you will finally be at home. I tell you, in God's presence, you will say, "I'm more at home than I've ever known myself to be in my entire life." A life where your work will bring fulfillment without frustration and blessing without burnout. That's an amen moment, by the way. And that will be in a world of love, where no one will be alone, and we will live in the presence of God, and we will enjoy Him forever.
Father, Your Word ignites within our hearts a great longing for that which only You can give, and that which in this world has been so largely lost. Help us to treasure every good gift in our lives as a gift from Your hand. And help us, looking to Your Son who came to restore that which was lost, to follow Him irrespective of the cost, until the day when faith is turned to sight, and all that He came to redeem us for is ours forevermore. And these things we ask in Jesus' name. And everyone said, amen.