Well, good morning. So as Jay mentioned, my name is
Andrew. I'm still reacclimating to
Frontier and still getting to meet you guys.
So if I forget your name when I see you and I just say hey
brother, let's play because I can't remember your name in the
moment, so forgive me of that, but I am excited to be with you
this morning. And so yeah, we're going to be
continuing our journey through Genesis.
And so if you while I talk, when I get your Bibles acclimated to
Genesis chapter 2, verses 4 to 9, feel free to do that.
If you didn't bring a Bible with you this morning, we'll have the
scripture on the screen, but there's also Pew back Bibles
right in front of you. But so far we've looked at in
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
So God is the originator of everything that exists.
And then we looked at how in particular, he created things.
He created all the plants, created the water, created the
landmass, He created the animals, He created the trees
that were good for fruit. He created all these things.
So we've looked at that so far. And then we've looked at how God
created man in his own image and why that's important.
And we've looked at God creating those humans and blessing them.
So we're going to build up off of that today.
So just so you know, today is going to be another, they keep
giving me like the teaser sermons where I get to talk
about a little bit and then somebody else gets to have the
really fun parts. What that's hyperbolic.
But anyway, I'm what a lot of what we're going to look at
today is it's kind of set up the the coming sermons.
So there are going to be some things that I would really,
really, really enjoy talking about today, but that's not my
purpose. It's not my time to do that.
So I'm going to set us up, build a little tension, have a
cliffhanger. So just know if I don't talk
about something, I'll hint at it because I'm just going to, but
it'll be fleshed out later on. But before we get started, I
just want to one just as I was singing with all of you, just
reminded of how unique Frontier is and the amount of like people
that have come here that God has gifted them with.
Great musical skills and vocal skills really early on in
Frontiers life, God just like was pouring in all these like
former worship leaders or people who are really good at playing
drums. Joseph Donifro is one of them.
Like day one. He's like, I can play drums and
frontier was is really unique in that.
So when you see our worship team later on, just encourage them
and stir up their affections for Jesus because they get here
early and they love Jesus and they love you.
And it was just a a good reminder of God's goodness to
this church. So this morning, Genesis chapter
2, verses 4 to 9. If you are able to stand, do
that. If you are not able, stand in
spirit. Which is the sliding.
My wife keeps telling me to wear glasses, but she's not in here
right now, so she can't make fun of me.
All right. These are the generations of the
heavens and the earth when they were created, and the day that
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no Bush of the
field was yet in the land, no small plant of the field had yet
sprung up. The Lord God had not caused it
to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,
and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole
face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man
of dust from the ground and breathed into it, into his
nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living
creature. And the Lord God planted a
garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had
formed. And out of the ground the Lord
God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to sight and
good for food. The tree of life was in the
midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. This is the word of God.
Brothers and sisters, it is true and good.
You may be seated. Father, we thank you for another
morning to gather together as a church family.
And we're thankful that as we've sung earlier, that you are the
breath that gives us life, that you fill us with life.
And so even if we sung that song before, even if we've heard that
saying before, I pray that we would not take that for granted
this morning, that all of us in this room are here because you
have breathed into us that you've created us.
And we don't just have to be just a random collection of
strangers, But in this room right now, we are family, not
because of shared genetics, but because of the blood of Jesus
that covers us. And so help us to contemplate
that and help us to worship you in spirit and in truth.
It's in the name of Jesus that I pray, Amen.
So Tracy is my wife. I'm sure you've met her or
you've seen her because Cole made us come up here a few
Sundays ago. She's serving in Roots right
now. So I get to talk about fun
stories since she's not here. But we dated for six months.
We were engaged for four months. We've been married for this
year, will be year 14. But there was a phone call.
Tracy was went home for the summer during break from
college. And so we talked on the phone as
all dating couples do. And I'm not going to hang up.
Are you going to hang up? I'm not going to.
So we went through like a period of time like that, but there was
one night and I can still remember it my mind, I was still
living. I was living at my in my
parents' home, my little bedroom.
I can remember the whole setup of the bedroom, but we were
about to hang up and Tracy says, I love you and then hung up.
She was the first one to say it. And then she texted me back.
I think she texted me there. Yeah.
She didn't call me back. She texted me back and said I
didn't mean to say that. And I said, really?
And so that just created grounds for our relationship to grow.
I say I mentioned the story because what we see here in the
early pages of Genesis, we kind of see a shift.
And to our eyes it might look like an accidental shift, or it
might look like just a hodgepodge of things, but it's
really pointing us to the more particularities of what God is
doing and creating the world. So what we've seen so far is
God's creation. So Genesis chapter 1, we see all
of God's creation and then we get to Genesis chapter 2 and
there's another creation story. And so this causes a lot of
people to say, well, how can you trust the Bible?
Why are there 2 creation narratives?
Why does it say God created all these things and now we're going
back into God creating man again?
This has to be a mistake. The Bible is not trustworthy
because of these two creation narratives.
And so it leads many of people to not trust the Bible.
It leaves many of people to deconstruct their faith.
It leaves many people to look at the Bible and just say this is
not doing anything for me. You said this one page ago.
Now we're on this page and it's saying the same thing, like what
in the world is going on? Why should I shape my life in my
life? Be informed around this book and
so I want to walk through why you can still trust the Bible
because of this and I want to walk through why this is in this
particular section. There is a theory for there's a
bunch of people who are way smarter than me, but they talk
about like textual criticism and they believe that at different
times different people inserted things into the Bible and by
people I mean scribes and from different parts whether they
were part of. If you want to talk to me about
I don't need to talk about this right now you can talk come and
talk to me afterwards. I don't want to detract from the
point, but anyway, what I want to do today is to not just get
in the weeds like that's where I like to live.
As I was mentioned the last time I preached, but I want to show
you the position that God holds, the personality of God and the
personable miss of God and the purpose that God is showing us
in this passage. I'm not going to use that
language over and over again. I don't have, I'm a good Baptist
boy, but side stretched the limits of my alliteration and
three points right there. But I'm not going to dissect the
the sermon into those 3 categories, but we're going to
kind of, but there's going to be a lot of overlap and then coming
back to each of those categories.
But I want to show you why this passage is beautiful and why
this passage is where it is. So we've seen just the general
creation of God and the specific creation, the general creation
of man. Genesis chapter 2 is honing in
on specific creation. So God looks and he sees the
heavens and the earth. They were finished and the all
the host of them at the beginning of chapter 2 and God
takes a rest. And so we had Cole last week
talking about the the resting of God.
He enjoyed all the goodness that he had just brought into
existence. And then we see in verse 4,
these are the generations. OK, so our minds we hear
generations and what do you think like?
Well, my mom and dad, my grandma grandpa like we think of
genealogy, but this word generations has a has a
different meaning. It the, the Hebrew word for
generations is tolido. And this word is going to be
used over and over again in the book of Genesis and throughout
the rest of the, the Torah really.
But what it is used for is an introduction of new content
like, hey, we're going to talk about this now.
We're, we're shifting our focus. And so if in Genesis chapter 1,
it's talking about God creating the world in general, in
general, now we see that, hey, these are the generations.
So new section of content of the heavens and the earth when they
were created in the day that the Lord God had made the earth in
the heavens. OK, so we're shifting our our
gaze somewhere else like, OK, if we talked about this, here's
something new. So that's a really important
thing to notice because what we're going to see here is some
other words like in our English translations that are translated
the same word, but they are different in the original
language. So we kind of miss a little,
some little crumbs on the on the trail here when we're trying to
discern why isn't why is there a second creation narrative in the
scriptures? So new content.
So that's one thing to consider, but also what I want you to
think about is, and Cole did a great job at the beginning of
our Genesis series of talking about there are all these
creation narratives, right? Ancient Mesopotamian people,
they had their creation narratives and they came out of
violence that came out of I'm creating you so you can serve me
and feed me and grow food for me.
So everybody in the ancient Near Eastern world had a God in mind
that was being created. And so in Genesis chapter 1 we
see God, God, God, God, God. And that Hebrew word is elohim.
But we get to chapter 2 and something interesting happens.
Maybe you've already seen what happens verse four in the day
the Lord God made the earth. So now we see something very
interesting. God, God, God, God, God.
Now Lord God, God is revealing himself in a different way.
So we don't just have a generic God, we have a personal God.
We have Yahweh God. If you're probably looking at
your Bibles right now, you're going to see Lord and it's all
capital letters, but that word Lord is Yahweh, Yahweh God.
And I'll unpack like why this is even more significant in just a
moment. But the shift, and This is why I
want to try to show you like the the transition and and why you
can trust the Bible is that this isn't because somebody else
decided to just put things in here.
One of my favorite theologians, he says that Genesis 1 and 2 is
like an ancient tract, like anybody grew up with tracts
having to go do door knocking and try to evangelize the
neighborhood, So little pamphlets.
But he he says it's like luring someone into a story.
Like you're looking at Genesis 1 and you're being told God
created this and God created that and God created the
mountains over here. You're luring people in because
they're like, Oh yeah, I believe God.
And then you get to Genesis 2 and it's like the question would
be, but what God? And Genesis 2 says Yahweh God.
So it's God revealing himself in a, in a particular way, like
just like teasing along a story, just like having a a phone call
and you know that you love someone and then you tell them I
love you at the end. And you're the first one to
break the ice, right? The Genesis chapter 2 is
breaking the ice of this concept of, yeah, we know that God
created the world, but what God? Well, I'm telling you here in
Genesis chapter 2, this God created the world.
Yahweh God, the God of all gods, the supreme ruler.
This God has revealed himself to us and he's the creator.
Because who wrote Genesis seemed I want to take a stab at that
Moses. OK, so if Moses wrote this, what
did Moses go through prior to writing this?
Well, he encountered in Exodus the burning Bush right where God
comes to him and says, hey, this is who I am.
Because Moses is conflicted in Genesis or in Exodus chapter 3,
Moses is told, here's what I want you to do by God and he
doesn't want to do it. And then he just kind of as a
way to shrug off his responsibility.
He goes to, well, what am I supposed to tell him?
Your name is? And God tells him, tell the
people I am, I'm Yahweh. I just, I absolutely exist.
This is who I am. I'm the one that exists.
I've never been created. I'm never going to die.
I am. I absolutely existentially
exist. So go and tell the people this
is my name, right? So if that Moses, so if Moses
wrote Genesis under the influence of the Holy Spirit and
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, if he encountered Yahweh
God in the burning Bush and he inserts that here.
I think what he's trying to do is to show that God doesn't just
have the position or the job title of God, but he also is
personable, that he reveals himself to his people
individually and collectively. And, and what we'll see here
with another word that I've been looking at this week, it just
shows that Genesis chapter 2 is just kind of taking things from
here and squeezing them down here just to prove the point, to
show the fine tuning of God, to show the forming and the molding
and the shaping that God does in creating the world.
It's not a retelling of the same story, but it's, it's a telling
the same story. Again, to prove a point, to show
that our God doesn't just throw things over here, throw things
over here and not care about them, but He fine tunes it and
he takes something that already exists and He fine tunes it and
He brings it into the shape that He desires.
And so we see in verse 5 it says this is a fun thing.
I read and nerded out a lot about this verse 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.
So again, you go back to well in chapter 1, it said that God
created all these plants, that God created man.
But what we're seeing here is that God is setting up a unique
space in the midst of everything that He already created.
So God is building out Eden. This is what I wanted to talk
about, but I was told I can't talk about it because we're
going to talk about it later. But God is creating his, his
home, the place that he is enthroned.
And he is specifically creating this, right?
So he's already created all the plants.
He's already created created the earth.
He's already created water. He separated the waters above
and below. He's already created man.
But what does that mean? Why now is he creating what
we're being told that he's creating these things?
Well, it's because he is creating a special unique place.
He created in general. Now he's creating in specific.
He's creating a location or something to happen and somebody
else is going to get the glory of being able to talk about that
specific location. But but it talks about a mist
was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of
the earth. Then the Lord God formed the man
of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living creature.
So now we see the word formed come in here.
We've seen created several times already, right?
If you've been here and if you've read your Bible, you see
that over and over and over again.
But now it shifts to formed, the man of dust from the ground.
So this word form in Hebrew is yatsar, and it's synonymous with
created. So Barack Cole has talked about
that word. But this word is really
interesting because it's more of turning something into a desired
purpose. So God created, but now he's
taking what he has created and he's taking it further and he's
getting his hands dirty and he's turning it into what he wants it
to be exactly. Notice the the specificity of
what God is doing. He's created everything.
And I use the the Plato analogy last time I preached in Genesis,
He's got this. He created the Plato.
Now he's. Molding things out of this ball
of Plato that he's created. This is what this this section
of scripture is trying to point us to.
He not only creates, but he forms things into exactly what
he wants them to be. The ancient other ancient Near
Eastern myths, they don't get into this sort of specificity
because if you are molding, forming, shaping, that means
that you are more involved into the life of your creation.
That shows that God is intimately involved in his
people. That shows that God is
intimately involved with a tree. Like he cares about what type of
tree grows in this place he cares about.
Like I've got bird feeders. Like God created a cardinal that
is beautiful and all these little sparrows that just make a
mess of my bird feeders. And he created the blue Jay that
randomly appeared and he created the eagle that I saw fishing out
of the Des Moines River. But God is intimately involved
in being specific in what he creates.
Like that's amazing to think about.
He doesn't just say, you know, just like you pop something in
the microwave, like, hey, I made this meal versus like when my
wife stays up late and gets her, you know, gross looking
sourdough starter working and kneading it and rolling it.
I don't know, use that. Real people know what I'm
talking about. And then wakes up the next day
and then bakes it and does all that stuff like that's more
intricate, that's more specific. So when I'm thinking about my
wife working with her sourdough starter and riser, that's what I
think about here. God is intimately involved in
this process. He's getting his hands dirty.
That's what the imagery here is. Because what does he do?
How does he create and specify in shape, man?
He scoops up some dust and the liturgy that we had earlier was
perfect for this because we were created out of dust.
And God takes something that he's already created, scoops it
up, and then what does he do? Does he just look at it and hope
that something happens? Does he just throw it against
the wall and see what happens? No, he breathes life into it,
breathes life into the nostrils. It's, it's specific, it's
intimate, it's personable that God is not just like, you know,
and God could do it. He could just make things in a
way that they just happen. But that's not what text tells
us. It tells us that God is
intimately involved in the creation of man.
He could have just created the dust and then been like, well,
we'll see what happens. I'll wait a couple of centuries
and then if something happens out of this, that would be
great. That's not what he, that's not
what the Bible tells us. It tells us that he scoops up
something he's already created and he breathes life into it.
And this is unique language, like he gives life to the
plants, He gives life to the animals, but it says here that
he breathes life into man, into this dust, into the nostrils of
man. He and he creates what He wants
to create. So again, like we've seen like
separations in Genesis. So here's another further
separation of animal life and plant life versus human life.
God has provided this distinction.
Just as man is created in the image of God and animals and
plants aren't. They still reveal the glory of
God, but they're not created in the image of God.
God here separates how man was created breath of his breath
breathed into the nostrils of this this dust.
That's how God creates me. So there's a further distinction
and then we see in verse 8 again, I have to skip over some
stuff. I would like to nerd out with
you. We can get coffee this week, but
verse 8 and the Lord God planted the garden in Eden in the East.
I wrote, sorry, I want to talk about that so bad.
And there he put the man whom he had formed.
So again, it's a reminder he formed him.
He didn't just create him, but he formed him.
He got his hands dirty. He shaped and molded him in the
way that he wanted him to be. And out of the ground the Lord
God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the site,
and good food for and good for food.
The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So this is another interesting thing.
So in our English translations we see the Lord God planted the
garden, and then it says, And there he put the man whom he had
formed. Those words are pretty much the
same. So God plants a garden, then he
plants man in the garden. He, he rests the man.
So it's, it's a word that's similar to Sabbath.
It's a word that's similar to Noah's name.
Noah, like he rests him in the garden.
God rests this garden and then he rests his man in the garden.
If you think about those two things and then think about God
resting after he's created everything, and that's just,
that's very interesting to think about.
It's very beautiful to think about that God rests his people
in the place that he is just created and rested.
And then he rests over all the things that he has just brought
into existence and didn't do it Willy nilly, but did it very
specifically. So this is God forming Eden and
resting Eden. This is God setting up his
earthly home where heaven and earth overlap.
And that's your teaser for later on.
And then we see the tree of life.
So this place that God has created his heavenly home, he
places the tree of life, which is the source of renewal, the
source of life giving fruit. And then he also places this
thing called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And we'll talk about that later, which is super fascinating.
The payoff will come. I want to talk about it right
now so bad, but we'll we'll talk about it later.
So what do we do with all this stuff?
Thinking about God who recreate, we see.
We see a God as revealed to us in Scripture who creates things
in general, but then also is in the mess of creating things.
It gets his hands dirty. He shapes things, He forms
things. What do we do with that
knowledge? And why should we care about it,
right? Why should that cause us to
worship him? Why should that sway our opinion
of whether worshipping God is worthy?
Why? I think on a very human level,
if you just think about the people in your life just
talking. I've talked with a couple of
people about this, but you have like your two PM friends and
your two AM friends. You got the friend that you can
call it 2:00 PM on a Saturday and can come and help you with
whatever you have. And then you have your two AM
friends who you can call and no matter what, they'll drop it at
a moment whatever they're doing and they'll show up.
Judy Maxwell was our 2:00 AM friend when we lived in Des
Moines. Like whenever Tracy was going
into labor, like hey Judy, can you please come and watch our
other kid and take care of them while we go to the hospital.
I think the shift is we see a 2:00 PM friend in chapter 1,
which I'm not taking anything from the glory of the Lord, but
what I'm trying to say is he's also the 2:00 AM friend.
He's both of those. He's there for you in general,
but he's there for you in specific terms if you're in
Christ. And we see that shift here.
And so I think that's that should lead us to worship him to
know that he doesn't just care about you as Oh, you're my
little pet, give you a pound in the back.
But he's like, no, you're, you created my image.
I did this on purpose. I shaped you to be who you are.
I love you. I want you to be in my family.
I think it's that leads us to worship.
And there's a lot of times where I don't feel like I'm worthy of
that. But why?
And so I think it's, we have to go to Scripture and see you
decided God, you decided to do things the way that you did.
So even if I don't feel like I'm worthy of it, you say that I'm
worthy of your attention, worthy of your shaping, worthy of your
forming when we see people suffer and it makes no sense.
We talked about this earlier with the worship team, like
there's so much suffering that goes on and so much pain and
hurt and bad experiences and doesn't make sense.
But we know that God has shaped those people who are suffering.
He's shaped us as we're experiencing other people's
suffering. Like we can step into that too
and, and dirty our hands just like God dirtied his hands when
he created man. I want to end with this because
this is something I was thinking about today.
So not only did God dirty his hands and breathe life into dust
and create man, he also sent his son who didn't just dirty his
hands, but bloodied his hands so that you and I could be brought
into right relationship with God to be brought back into that,
that that shape that God had originally intended man to
experience and be molded into. And just like God created things
in general and then created them specifically and shaped them, if
you're in Christ, he's not done with you yet.
He's sanctifying you. He's still working on shaping
you and molding you. So I would encourage all of us
to think about that, to see that parallel of creating and
shaping, saving and sanctifying. Like those two ways of thinking
will change the way that you read the Bible.
It'll change the way that you wake up in the morning.
It'll change the way that you go to bed at night.
So think about your Yeah, think about those things that.
And that should lead us to try to meet our church's mission
statement of being the most joyful church in Des Moines.
If we understand who God is, we understand who we are and we
understand what God is doing through us.
And if you have any questions about any of that, go talk to
one of the pastors. Come find me, Talk to somebody
in your community group. And if you don't know that you
were created in God's image and that he has formed you, and if
you don't know that salvation alone is only in Jesus and that
you can be sanctified and changed, talk to one of the
pastors. We've got amazing pastors here.
I'm not one of them, so I get to brag on these guys.
So just, yeah, go talk to them. Don't, don't leave here today.
If you've got a question about any of this, don't leave today
without asking that question. Let me pray for us.
Father, I thank you for your goodness.
I thank you that you have created us, that you have shaped
us. And Father, I'm thankful that
because of Jesus that you create a new life again and that you
shape that new life. So help us to trust in Jesus.
Help us to see Him as the only, only way that we can experience
transformation in this life. Because we can try and try and
try to change things. We can try to change our diets,
we can try to read all the books, we can try to go to
counseling, and those are all good things.
But the only thing that can transform us inside and out is
Jesus. So help us to run to Jesus.
Help us to see how when we run to him, he points us to places
for transformation. But the place that he points to
the most is himself,