Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning.
[00:00:02] Good morning to many of you who are awake with us this morning. To the rest of us, let's say good morning really loud so we could all wake up. Good morning. Good morning. All right. Welcome to Living Hope Church. Children ages three to five are welcome to go to children's church, and as they are doing that, encourage you to open your Bibles to the first book of the Bible. Genesis, chapter one, verse one is where we will begin. So as they're going out, I want to say a few things, a few announcements that I need to make. Firstly, on the screen, you can see a slide there. And I just want to just say thank you. At the end of or mid November last year, we told you that there was a family in the church who was offering a matching challenge or challenge to us for a matching gift up until the 31st. And it was a $30,000 matching gift challenge up until the 31st for the new building fund. And we just said, what's God going to do through this? And so all on the screen, you can see the $30,000 is in green, and then the blue is what you all gave. So thank you. Over $40,000 more than that. So over $70,000 given towards the new building in the last six weeks, seven weeks or so. So thank you so much for that. You go to the next slide. We're starting the year off. There's lots of New Year's resolutions and all those things going on. Maybe one New Year's resolution that you could have is to plug yourself into one of the small groups we call Gospel Communities that are going on right now.
[00:01:27] There's one on Tuesday, there's one on Wednesday, there's one on Monday, there's a couple. There's two on Friday. In your bulletin, you can see the time slots there. If you open your bulletins on the right side there, reach out to some of those folks who are leading that and ask them if you can jump in and their answer will be what?
[00:01:46] Their answer will be yes, you can definitely join us for Pastor Les mentioned this already as well. The last Sunday of this month, we have our semiannual business meeting, and that will be at six o'. Clock. One hour before that, at five, we'll have a potluck that you are welcome to come and be a part of.
[00:02:04] So with those things kind of out of the way, as you can see a slide on the screen, we're starting a new series today called Exploring the Old Testament, Discovering the Savior. And this series is something that we're starting now. We're going to continue up through November of this year as we go through the entire Old Testament. Now, pop quiz for you. How many books are in the. You got these Awana kids putting their hands up first. How many books are in The Old Testament?
[00:02:31] 39. 39, 39 books.
[00:02:36] And also, if you forget that number on the back of your, on the back of your bulletin, it says right there. So there's the answer key for you.
[00:02:44] Speaking of the back of your bulletin, that's the outline that we're going to walk through. Today. We're going to look at the first part of Genesis and then next week we'll look at part two.
[00:02:53] Before we dive into this, let me just give you kind of a synopsis of where we are going in this series. I'll give this synopsis a few more times as we go through this as well and how you can be a part of this series with us as we're going through this. Because as you know, there's a lot in the Old Testament. And I'm gonna just promise you this, we're not gonna cover every single bit of it on Sunday morning right here.
[00:03:19] We're not gonna have time for that. But the way that you can be a part of every chapter and every verse in the Old Testament is by reading through it with us as a church. And so in your Weekend Reminder email, there's a link in the email that says you can read with us there. So if you go into your Weekend Reminders email, you can click on that and, and you can use the YouVersion Bible app and join with us as a church and you can comment and you can kind of engage with others in the church to be able to experience that journey together of reading through the Old Testament. If you're not one of those techy people and have apps on your phones and all those kinds of things and you like real paper, we have paper reading plans in the foyer that you can pick up and read through the Old Testament in a year with us. And so we encourage you to do that. One other way that you can take part in this is we have one memory verse a month also in the foyer. This is the memory verse for the month. It's Genesis, chapter one, verses one through three. You can grab one of these cards, take it and tape it to your steering wheel or your bathroom mirror or something like that and memorize one verse a month with us. You can obviously memorize a lot more if you want, but that will be our verse a month that we have. So different ways that you can engage as we walk through these. How many books of The Old Testament? 39. 39. All right, all that out of the way, let's pray and dive into this great book, our Lord Jesus.
[00:04:43] We spend time even just singing these songs that we just did, reminding us that we are forgiven, that we are made new, that we're able to stand before you in confidence, that we're able to approach you with confidence. But because of your incredible grace and your love for us this morning, we rejoice in that.
[00:05:04] Help us to deeply believe that as well.
[00:05:08] Think about so often we can believe that we're too bad, we're too messed up.
[00:05:15] We've messed up too many times for you to keep wanting us.
[00:05:21] You've promised this over and over in your Word, through your spirit, that you have made us new when we trust in you. And so as we spend time in your word this morning, I pray that you would remind us of that.
[00:05:34] You would help us to deeply believe that so our lives can be transformed as you would have them be in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:05:41] All right, Genesis chapter one is where we're starting. And so I'm holding my Bible up here. I know that a lot of us use a phone. I just want to throw out this encouragement and challenge to you when looking into the rest of this year. And hold on. Get ready for this. All right? I wanna encourage challenge you to bring a paper Bible to church.
[00:06:01] All right? I know that's strange for some of us, but bring a paper Bible. If you are like, I don't have one, let me know. I won't judge. I'll buy you one. Okay?
[00:06:11] Bring a paper. So next week, bring your paper Bible to church. There's something just special about being able to flip through pages. So don't worry. I'm not judging you today a lot, but next week, if you don't bring your Bible, lots of judgment. Not really. Not really at all. But bring a paper Bible to church.
[00:06:29] Hopefully you have one. If you don't, again, I will get you one. But we're going to be flipping through the pages of God's Word as we go through this. So the goal of this series is this, is to give us as a church, a reasonable understanding of the themes, the timeline, the theology, and also tools for understanding the Old Testament. Now, the Old Testament is broken up into three, like, big sections, if you will. The first section that we're going to start with is called. The first five books is called the Pentateuch. The Torah is the teachings, the law. Then there's the prophets and then there's the writings. And so as we go through Genesis, this is the beginning, right? It's a very good place to start.
[00:07:14] And Genesis part one, we're gonna look at particularly chapters one through 11 this morning. Now part two, which we'll look at next week, is the story of Abraham and his family. So we'll kind of come back to that. So if you like to write things down, you can write lots of things down this morning.
[00:07:35] Chapters one through 11, if we were to put maybe two words on that, is the. Is the primitive history or the beginnings, the history of the earth and of mankind. And the second part of Genesis is the patriarchal history. So that's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob is what we'll look at next week. So we're going to start off the very beginning and we have a snapshot to help us kind of encompass what we're looking at today. Now, some of it's kind of small on the screen. I'm just going to read it for you as well. Here's the snapshot in some sentences of these first 11, a 30,000 foot view, if you will, looking down at what we're looking at in these chapters. God created a universe that was good and free of sin. God created humanity to have a personal relationship with him. Adam and Eve sinned and thereby brought evil and death into the world. We'll unpack this in greater detail in the time we have here this morning.
[00:08:28] Evil increased steadily in the world until there was only one family in which God found anything good.
[00:08:35] God sent a flood then to wipe out evil, but delivered.
[00:08:41] What was his name? Who built the ark?
[00:08:43] Noah and his family, along with the animals in the ark. After the flood, humanity began again to multiply and spread throughout the world. Then God set the stage for the Savior's forefathers. And that's the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that we'll get into in the future. So with that kind of in front of us, we see Genesis is sometimes called the seed plot for the entire Bible. Most of the major themes of the Bible are introduced, if you will, in seed form, right? In small form in the Book of Genesis.
[00:09:18] Things like the doctrine of creation, imputation of sin, justification, atonement, depravity, wrath, judgment, grace, sovereignty, God's sovereignty, particularly responsibility of mankind and more. They're introduced in this first beginning portion of the book of Genesis. Also, people have lots of questions about life, don't they? Humanity around us? There's lots of questions about things like where did I come from? Genesis answers that why am I here? Genesis answers that. And, and where am I going? Genesis answers that. Genesis appeals also to the scientist, right? To the historian, to the theologian, to the husband and to the wife, to the farmer, to the traveler, and to the man and woman of God. So it's obviously a fitting beginning for us as we begin this journey through the Old Testament. So in your outline you can see that it's broken up into three main sections.
[00:10:20] The basics is where we're gonna start. Because again, why not the basics? You can write this in. We're gonna look at the author first. And the author of Genesis, his name is Moses. Moses. Let's just talk about Moses for just a minute. You go to the next slide. Moses authored Genesis and the first five opening books of the Bible, which Jesus called In Luke, chapter 24, verse 24, the law of Moses. Malachi also speaks about this. Paul speaks about Moses being the author of this book. Moses lived for 120 years and his life was split up in like 40 year segments. He was in Egypt for a while, then he was in, he was kicked out. He left Egypt and he went to a place called Midian for a while. He was there for 40 years and that's when he saw the burning bush. And God was like, go back to Egypt. And then the next 40 years was, he went back to Egypt and then he led all the Egyptians out of, I'm sorry, all the Hebrews out of Egypt, in and into the wilderness. And that was that chunk of 40 years as well. So the author of this book is Moses. The timeline. Go to the next slide. The timeline. And I put some date there on the screen. Now different people have different views on the timeline of this.
[00:11:36] So there's lots of conversation here. If you read Genesis literally rather than in something called what's called the day age theory, it places creation of man about 4,000 years before Jesus, which is about 6,000 years ago or so. And like I said, lots of discussion has happened around this. I'll touch on that a little bit more.
[00:11:57] Some would view this as the days, not necessarily as actual 24 hour periods of time.
[00:12:03] Rather than when God says day one, day two, day three, some would say that was just a large chunk of time. And so there's that view, if you will. And, and if that's the case, if that's your view, then it would be more than 6,000 years. It'd be an unknown period of time. There's a few other views of how long it took in that period of creation.
[00:12:24] Now this the time frame of the earth, how long it's been since man was created. That's not what's called an essential doctrine. Can you say essential doctrine?
[00:12:34] So that's not something like you believe something different from me, so then you're going to hell.
[00:12:38] That's not what that means. Okay, so different people have different views on this.
[00:12:43] But one of the ways that we can go about figuring how long ago this happened was simply by looking at the ages of people that lived at that time. Because Genesis lays out for us how long Adam lived and so on after him.
[00:12:59] We'll get a little bit more into that in a little bit. The location. Right. We're just looking at some basics here. Where did this happen?
[00:13:05] The garden. We start off here, obviously, the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. So we know that we're at the Earth where? The Garden of Eden. Right. That's a question. Where is the Garden of Eden? I put a map on the screen. You can see the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean.
[00:13:20] I put a red arrow on the screen. Both of those. It's further away than you can see. But both of those on the map, there's a little green circle that says Eden. And after that it says question mark. We don't know where the Garden of Eden was. Right. Where Adam and Eve started and had their time with the serpent and the tree, question mark. We also know this, by the way. You can't go find the Garden of Eden. It's not going to happen. There was a giant flood that happened a little while later. The Garden of Eden is now gone. Okay. So if you felt like you were going to go looking, it's not going to happen.
[00:13:52] But much of these first years that we see the beginning of Genesis happened in this location. Now, like I said, lots of stuff that we can see, but we know the author. His name is Moses. Timeframe, at least what we put on the screen. How long ago was did creation happen? About 6,000 years. And where did this happen, at least? Garden of Eden. We can see right to the east of the Mediterranean, Israel, Canaan. You can see on the corner there. It's most likely where this tower.
[00:14:22] So really brief snapshot on the basics. We're gonna spend a lot more time on the outline. So keep going in your Bibles. And this is where you're gonna need to pick up your Bibles. Or if you have your screen, you'll tap a lot. This morning, we are gonna look at three big words here. They all start with the letter S. The first one is the subjects that are the people who makes up key characters in Genesis 1 through 11. It's on the screen there. If you like to write things down, you can write this down as well. We see that obviously, who's the first character on the scene? God. In the beginning.
[00:14:55] God. God is the one who started all of this. And he was not only in the beginning, but he was before the beginning. God was. And then God makes man. Adam, by the way, is the Hebrew word for man. So when it says that God made man, the Hebrew word for man is Adam. Then we then name Adam Adam. And then his word wife who God made from his rib. Her name is Eve. And then they had a couple kids. They had more than just these two. Cain and Abel are key characters here. And then in chapter five, we see Adam's descendants. We'll get into that in the outline in a little bit. And then Noah and his family. And then the descendants of Noah until Abraham. Now, that's important because we need to know that we see a clear line of God saying, I have a plan. Can you someone say, I have a plan.
[00:15:47] God knew sin was going to happen. It was not a surprise to him in any way, shape or form. And when it happened, he didn't say, oh, I gotta, like, reshuffle things and figure out what the solution is. God knew what was going to happen. And so from the destruction of mankind that we see that happens at the flood to Abraham, when God says, here's the beginnings of my special nation, God knew that was gonna happen even before he created the world.
[00:16:13] So here's the subjects that we had. One of the things that's interesting to note about these individuals and many others in this time is that they lived a very long time. Did you note that? Have you seen how long they live?
[00:16:28] I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse.
[00:16:33] You look at some of you like, then they lived. They were 100 years old, and then they had sons and daughters. You're like, what? What did you do for the first hundred years?
[00:16:40] Like, we know what we do for the first 20 years of our life. It's 25. You're like, I'm having sons and daughters. And here they're like, what did you do? And then they lived to, I think, Methuselah, fun fact for you. Oldest guy, 969 years old.
[00:16:54] Many others lived a lot less. And around that time frame, my goodness. And how many of you know, 900-year-old people today, after the flood, we see the age of people going down significantly. And there's a few reasons for that.
[00:17:09] Some people believe it's because God said, look how evil the world is. And I'm gonna cap men's life at 120 years.
[00:17:17] Like I said, we saw earlier, Moses lived to 120 years old.
[00:17:22] We also see, perhaps after the flood, the world was a very different place, the way the water and the clouds and the sky was. And so that was very different. That could have attributed to it. And also as DNA begins to break down and people begin to get sick more frequently, because back then, they couldn't just run to the ER. When you're 50 years old and you fell and you hurt your knee, like that wasn't a thing for them. So their bodies were quite different. So there's some of the subjects and some interesting things about them. Let's get into the structure because this is where it's important for us to really hone in and see what we have here before. So the structure is on your outline. And if you were in VBS with us a little while ago, you'll know that there's some C words that it's not on the screen, but there's some C words that break down this structure for us. It's the creation, corruption, catastrophe and confusion. That's the first 11 chapters of Genesis. I'll say that again, but we're gonna look at some different words that start with the letter F if you like. These words, creation, corruption, catastrophe and confusion. And that's when God confuses their language. Let's look at the F. These words that start with the letter F on your outline. It's this. It starts with this, the formation in Genesis chapter one. Look with me in your Bibles. It starts with this.
[00:18:38] In the beginning, God. What's the next word?
[00:18:41] Created. That's him forming the world. And then after that, there's six days of creation. If you have your Bibles there, you're looking with me. First day God makes.
[00:18:51] Not only do we see the heavens and the earth are created, but light. Day two, he makes the sky. Day three, creates dry land in the sea and creates plant life. Day four, the stars, the heavenly bodies, the moon.
[00:19:05] Day five, he goes on a little bit. He creates all that lives in the water. And then day six, he not only creates all the animals that we see, but he creates his most special creation. All the other creations, they're called good. And then he says, good, and it's good. And it was evening, and it was morning, and it was good. And then he Makes man. And he says what? Not just that they are good, but they are very good, right? We see special creation of now that's really important for us to pay attention to in a little bit. Not only are they very good, God says, He says they were made in his image. It says in verse 27 of chapter one, it says, so God created man in his own image.
[00:19:48] In his own image, he created him male and female. God says people are different than animals. Now. Now, that seems very simple to us today, right? But there's a lot of people that believe very differently than that, that people are evolved animals. Over a long enough period of time, animals kind of turned into apes, turned into people. And we became better and better. Here's what the Bible says. People don't become better over time. People get worse over time. And we see that over and over through the beginnings of this book.
[00:20:22] And then what did God create? On the seventh day, he said, I'm going to rest.
[00:20:29] He says, I'm gonna rest. I'm gonna look back and I'm gonna rest. You know what else is unique about this, in this first section in Formation is God says, on the 24th, on the seventh day, he says he looked back at all the work that he had done. Do you know work is godly?
[00:20:42] Work is godly. It is a good thing to work. God worked.
[00:20:47] And he calls Adam to go and work the garden. There's something different about working by the sweat of your brow, right? That was part of the curse.
[00:20:55] But God worked. He did work. And then he said, I'm gonna look back and enjoy the work that I have done. So God makes man, and he says, everything is good, but man then takes things into their own hands. Will they trust God, God's decision for good and evil? Or will they say, we're going to do it ourselves? Then we look at chapters three through five, and we see the fall. So we have the formation and then we have the fall. And you know what happens here, right? All of a sudden, this mysterious figure, some of us call this a snake. But the serpent is how it's listed, shows up.
[00:21:32] And the serpent tells a different story about this tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil says, you should take it because then you can be like, who? God? Now, here's what they missed. Adam and Eve, they were already on some level like God, weren't they? God said, let me make man in my own image.
[00:21:54] But what man said was, I want to be the one to decide good and evil.
[00:22:00] I don't think God's going To be the one to do that. And they believed the deception of.
[00:22:05] Isn't this what we do today, too? We say, as we look at what God's word says, I see God what you want, but I think I should decide what is good and what's not good. I know it, but I think I should be the one to decide. We still do the same type of thing today.
[00:22:20] So we move forward from that fall. And God announces something after this. He says, there's going to be consequences over and over. And one of the greatest consequences is this.
[00:22:30] After they sinned, they run away in shame. He says, there's going to be death, there's going to be separation for the first time, there's brokenness.
[00:22:40] God made man what very.
[00:22:44] And because man took things into their own hands, things became very bad.
[00:22:49] And so what is God going to do about that? We look now at the next. In chapters six through eight, we see there's brokenness. We. We see that in the end of chapter five, the beginning of chapter six, that man is doing all the things that seem right in their own eyes.
[00:23:05] Every intention of their heart is evil all the time. I mean, we already see Cain and Abel. They've already. One's already killed the other. And God says, I am going to destroy the earth. The flood is the next one that you could write. In chapters six through eight, we see in response to this brokenness, God is full of grief.
[00:23:26] Isn't that significant?
[00:23:28] God is full of grief.
[00:23:31] Humanity ruined this good, perfect world that he had made. He says, I'm gonna destroy it all. I'm gonna wash it clean. And so he finds one man, the one man that's left who is righteous, who is blameless. And his name is Noah. Noah. And then he says, all right, Noah, spend this time. Build a boat. I'm gonna save you through this cleansing.
[00:23:52] And at the end of chapter eight, we see that after like over a year of Noah being on this boat, that God has led the animals. God says, we're going to start over again.
[00:24:03] Now, I don't know if you've caught this look in your Bibles in chapter nine, there's something significant that we see there. God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And he goes on. But that command to Noah and echoes the same command that we see God gave Adam at the beginning. Did you see that?
[00:24:24] It's like God saying, we're gonna start with Adam, Everything's good, go and multiply, fill the earth. We messed it up sin happened. All of those things occurred. And God's like, I'm gonna wash it all clean. Noah is, if you will, the next Adam. He starts off and he says, all right, Adam, go and multiply, fill the earth.
[00:24:42] And then what do we see happens with Noah just shortly after that?
[00:24:47] He makes a vineyard. He gets drunk.
[00:24:50] Some stuff happens with him and his son.
[00:24:53] Does Noah do it right?
[00:24:56] No, he doesn't messes it up again.
[00:25:00] But God says, all right, we're not. Because he made a covenant to Noah. I'm not going to destroy the earth. Even though the heart and the intention of man is evil all the time, I'm not going to destroy the earth. He says, go, multiply. Fill the earth. You can see that in chapter nine, verse one. It's the last one on your outline, the filling, the filling.
[00:25:19] Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And so we see in chapter nine that he lays out this plan. He says, go. Go out amongst the earth and take control. Start working it as I have called you to do. So as we see that laid out, we. We see something else occurs at the very end of chapter 11, God says this. I made a promise in chapter three of Genesis that there was gonna be an offspring of Eve, you know what I'm talking about?
[00:25:49] And this offspring of Eve, he will come one day and he will crush the head of the serpent. He will win over this thing that we call sin that's constantly right. God spoke to Cain. He says, sin is crouching at the.
[00:26:07] It wants to consume you. And God says, there will be someone coming one day who will crush the head of sin so that it no longer has bondage over mankind that I created very what good.
[00:26:22] One day he will come. And so God, at the tail end of chapter 11, he lays out this plan. He lays out the beginnings. And you can see that there it says in chapter 11, descendants and lays. Out. He says, all right, there's going to be a plan for a Savior to come. Now, who is this Savior? God has actually given us glimpses of this Savior already in these first 11 chapters. I want to look at just three of them with you. You can write them in as we go through this. The first that we see about the Savior is this.
[00:26:55] The Savior is also the Creator.
[00:26:59] The Savior is also the creator. In the beginning, it says of Genesis 1:1, God.
[00:27:06] Jesus is God. Amen.
[00:27:09] Jesus was there in the beginning. Jesus didn't start.
[00:27:13] His existence did not start in a little house or stable way back when, 2,000 years ago. That's not when Jesus began. Jesus existed with God from the beginning, before the beginning, Jesus.
[00:27:27] And then even in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. Look on the screen it says this or in Your Bibles verse 26 says this. God said, and this is the first picture that we see of a triune God in Genesis. Even a picture of Jesus showing up on the scene. God said this in verse 26. Let us make man in what our right. There's this picture of God's not acting alone here we have Jesus the Creator there. And at the beginning we see something else. Secondly, you can write this in. Not only is Jesus the Creator, he's also the redeemer. He's also the redeemer. You could Write that in second one on your outline there under Savior God. Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. God promised Adam and Eve that a savior would come. He says this in verse 15 of chapter 3. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. And he shall he notice that not they, he who are we speaking of?
[00:28:27] Jesus shall bruise your head.
[00:28:31] He will put an end to this and you shall bruise his heel. Speaking God, speaking to the serpent. He would make a way. God would make a way for man to be the way God intended.
[00:28:44] He would buy. Jesus would buy us back from sin and make us new. And he would set us free from the bondage of sin that nobody else could do. Over the course of many, many years, starting even with Cain and Abel, there was something called offerings or sacrifices that people would do to help their hearts be right with God, to show them. God, I want to be right with you. Jesus says, I'm going to be the ultimate sacrifice.
[00:29:09] Because you can try to be right with God of your own accord. It's not going to work.
[00:29:15] Jesus says, the only way that you can be right with God is through me. Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life. Right? Adam and Eve sinned and the consequence was death. Jesus shows up and the result of believing in him is life. The opposite of the consequence of sin. So we see that Jesus is not only the Savior, he's not only the redeemer, the one who's gonna buy us back. Who's gonna say, I want you and I made you right. I'm gonna make you whole again. He's also faithful. He's also faithful. You could write that in the third one underneath. Savior, Jesus is faithful. Noah. Where do we see this? Noah was saved. Thinking about the flood here. Saved because of his righteousness. Look at chapter six Verse nine in your Bibles, if you just flip back there, it says that he was a righteous man.
[00:30:07] Noah was a righteous man. Blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. It says in chapter 6, verse Hebrews, chapter 11 speaks about Noah's faith as well as such.
[00:30:21] Just as the ark. Follow me here. Just as ark. The ark was a way of salvation for those who said, I'm going to step on. I'm going to put faith in God's way, not my way. Just as the ark was the only way of salvation for people through the flood, so too is Jesus the only way of salvation.
[00:30:42] There is no other way. And just like most likely Noah, you know, he's building the ark. He and his kids are building the ark. And all these other people are laughing and saying, what are you doing? You're crazy. What are you talking about? We're gonna be fine.
[00:30:55] And Noah says, no, God said, you're not gonna be fine.
[00:30:59] I'm sure they had an opportunity to get on that ark. And how many did?
[00:31:05] None of them.
[00:31:07] Just Adam, his family, and the good God brought the animals as well. Humanity will continue to be unfaithful. God knows that. Yet throughout this story and the stories to come, we find the Savior being faithful in the midst of an unfaithful people.
[00:31:25] Over and over again, God says, I will show you that I care. Even Adam and Eve, they sin, and God makes clothes for them. We see a little later on that God says, I could just strike you dead after your sin, but I chose not to do that.
[00:31:38] He chose to save Noah and his family.
[00:31:42] Tower of Babel happens. He could have just said, we're done. I'm not doing this anymore. But he says, no, I want to show my love and my faithfulness over and over again.
[00:31:52] So first 11 chapters sets us up for God saying, all right, it's time to set the stage, the foundation for a Savior to come. And that's what we're going to start with next week. But before we do that, we want to look at some application for today. I made this just really simple, really straightforward. What does these first 11 chapters of Genesis teach us about God, about man, and about me? All right, what do they teach us about God and about man and about me? I put something on the screen that is a takeaway that I have. I think there's many takeaways. I know there are many takeaways for each of these. Maybe you have them. You could write them in yourself. But I want you to just think about this, because as we go through The Old Testament. It's not just what. Well, there's some people that lived a long time ago, and I don't have anything to do with that. And that doesn't make sense. And that's a confusing word. And look at that guy's name. Oh my goodness. I'm not naming my kid that. And then we move on and we're like, let's go to Ephesians. I like that one. Right?
[00:32:52] There's more to the Old Testament than that.
[00:32:56] So as we go through and as you read through, even in your daily reading, ask these three questions.
[00:33:02] As I read through this portion of today's reading, what does this teach me about God? What does this teach me about man? And what does this teach me about me? So let's start with God. It's on the screen. At least one option for this. About what these first 11 chapters teach us about God. God, the creator of all things, is a God who hates evil.
[00:33:22] God does not look at sin or evil and say, ah, it's okay, it's fine with me. He's one who hates evil. We see that displayed very powerfully in the midst of the flood.
[00:33:33] Yet his love for mankind is evident, isn't it, as he provides a way out for those of its punishment. Now, it's not to say that there's not consequences for sin, but you and I know that because of the work of Jesus, we don't have to live under the punishment that is due us for our sin. God's demonstration of his love for us will not cease because of our sin, friends. Isn't that something? Something to say Amen about God's demonstration of his love for us will not cease because of our sin. Another way of saying that is this.
[00:34:07] Our sin is not stronger than God's love.
[00:34:10] It's not like. You know what, you've messed up too many times. I can't have you anymore. He says, I'm waiting for you to come back. I'm waiting for you to say, I want you again. I want God again. Let's look at man, right? God, man.
[00:34:27] What can we learn about mankind from this? It's this God made. We've said this already. We can say it again out loud. God made mankind. Very good. But because of sin, human hearts became corrupted.
[00:34:42] Deceitful above all things, as Jeremiah puts it. And our actions reveal this. As you look and I look through the first 11 chapters, we see sin on display over and over and over. Even Cain, right, he gets mad at his brother and what does he do to his Brother, he kills him, he hates him, he kills him.
[00:35:00] Very early on. It wasn't like Cain was. And I'm just gonna like bring this way up to today. It wasn't like Cain was out there playing, killing those, killing video games and stuff. Like it's not where he got the bad idea to kill someone. That's not where evil is manifested. Just out there. We have that belief sometimes that all the evil is out there.
[00:35:19] Without Jesus, we're broken.
[00:35:23] Even as we look around us in our world and in our country, we see brokenness all around us. And it's not because it's. Oh, they're just bad because of how culture is. It's because without Jesus, we're broken friends.
[00:35:34] So what does this teach us about man?
[00:35:36] We're corrupted without Jesus and our actions reveal this. Destroying the very evil people won't fix the sin problem. We saw that with the flood. Only through Jesus can we be very good again.
[00:35:50] Jesus says, right, new creations. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. God made us very good creations. Sin wrecked us on the inside. And Jesus says, in me, you can be a new what?
[00:36:05] Creation. A new creation come to full circle, full fruition when we stand before him in glory.
[00:36:13] Lastly, what does this teach me about me? I think there's many things that we can learn about us, particularly from this. But let's just look at one. I put something on the screen. It's this. I must. And I put this in the first person. For me, I must be aware of my tendencies towards. Here's just some of the things that we see in these first 11 chapters. Pride, shame, blaming, lying or secrecy that show up in my life.
[00:36:40] And it's only through submitting to the power of the Holy Spirit. Because you and I are post resurrection people. These are all pre resurrection people. It is only through submitting to the power of the Holy Spirit that I can become the person that God wants me to be.
[00:36:54] It is only through him I can sit here and look at all of these rules and stuff and say I have to strive more and I have to strive more and I have to be a better person. Look at how they messed up so many times. The reason they're messing up so many times is because they're broken on the inside. They're not new creations.
[00:37:10] So as we look at all of this brokenness, it's a reminder to us friends that the Holy Spirit is a huge blessing.
[00:37:17] Without the Holy Spirit, our life isn't looking any better than this.
[00:37:22] So as we look at this as we think about our own life today.
[00:37:26] This Me Word, if you will. What does God want me to do with this? It's this. Rejoice in the fact that you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.
[00:37:34] If you have trusted in Jesus, and if you've never trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, today is the day to do that. Know this, that God is holy, and because of sin, you are broken in your relationship with Him. And there's no way and nothing that you can do to be right with God unless you have trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And trusting in him alone, it's not Jesus plus something else.
[00:37:54] It's Jesus alone. And he's the bridge between how you can go from, I'm running from God. I'm ashamed I'm unable to be close to him until I'm in union with Him. It is only through Jesus. One other lesson that I just think is so important that I hold onto. Maybe you do as well. And it's this.
[00:38:16] God can use broken people.
[00:38:19] God can use broken people.
[00:38:21] As we look through this, we see over and over again, and we're gonna continue to see through the Old Testament that God uses broken people, particularly broken people who look to him.
[00:38:33] It's not to say that God's gonna say, I'm gonna fix all your problems, and then I'm gonna use you.
[00:38:38] He says, I see that you're broken. Look to me and I'll keep using you. And that's such a great lesson that we see in this. If you've never trusted in Jesus and you're like, I know I'm missing this relationship that God desired for me. I know my life is experiencing this brokenness today. Trust in Jesus, In Him.
[00:38:57] We're gonna conclude right there with that. Next week. We're gonna start off with these four main characters. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then some of their kids as well, and see what God has for us there. I'm gonna pray, and then we're gonna sing a closing song. If you would just bow your heads and pray with me. Lord Jesus, we're so grateful that we're able to know you, that we're able to be in this relationship with you that is only possible because of what Jesus did, because of the work of the Savior. That we can see that you knit even into these first chapters of this book.
[00:39:33] And as we think about where we are today, maybe experiencing brokenness around us, brokenness within us, we look to you, we ask that you would help us to see you working through that. And. And help our eyes to stay fixed on you and you alone.
[00:39:50] We're grateful that you are a God of grace and a God of mercy. A God who meets us where we are and loves us too much to leave us where we are as we move on with whatever the day has for us, Lord, that these truths resound in our hearts. That we deeply believe in your incredible love, your incredible faithfulness and mercy in our life, even in the midst of brokenness. Lord, you have not abandoned us and we praise you for that. In Jesus name, amen.
