Go ahead and turn. You know where we are.
We're on page 2, Genesis chapter 2.
We are going to cover a lot of ground this morning, though.
Yeah, quite a bit. So I would encourage you if you
are not normally in the habit of turning to the text, maybe pull
it up on your phone. We're going to have a good
number of verses that we're reading for this morning's text
when we get to that point. So Genesis chapter 2 will be in
verse 4 is where we'll be at this morning.
Late last year, 20 year old James Clarkson won AUK lottery
jackpot worth about 9.2 million U.S. dollars.
The National Lottery app on Clarkson's phone first notified
him that morning that that he'd won the UK National Lottery
Christmas Day drawing. When he got to his parents house
that morning they they called the National Lottery line as
soon as it opened in order to confirm the win.
Was this really happening or was it just a dream?
News of the windfall spread fast and his family all celebrated as
at his grandma and grandpa's that evening with roast beef
dinner and champagne. But by Monday morning he was
back at work on blocking drains for his parents business.
He said I need to have a purpose in life.
Plus dad wouldn't let me not work anyways.
I know people might think I'm mad to still work, but I want
to. And of course there will be some
nice holidays in between. Clarkson believes it's important
to have a reason to get up in the morning, and rightfully so.
Work is part and parcel to the human experience and it's
command is found here in this morning's text.
So this morning, if you're able, would you stand as we read from
Genesis chapter 2, beginning at verse 4, reading all the way
through verse 20. So it's going to be a moment.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they
were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the
heavens, 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.
And the 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 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 the sights 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.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and they're
divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the
Pishon. It is the one that flowed around
the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of
that land is good. Delium and Onyx stone are there.
The name of the second river is the Guihone.
It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Kush.
And the name of the third river is the Tigris.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it
divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the
Poshone. Oh sorry, I lost myself.
Verse 14 OK And the name of the third river is the Tigris which
flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the
Euphrates. Verse 15.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to
work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, You might, you may surely eat of every tree of the
garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you
shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall
surely die. Then the Lord God said, It is
not good that man should be alone.
I will make him a helper fit for him.
Now out of the ground 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. The man gave names to all
livestock, and to the birds of the heavens, and to every beast
of the field. Before Adam there was not found
the helper fit for him. He may be seated now.
Again, this morning leading up to this, I have already cut out
about 1/3 of my sermon that I could have delivered.
There's a lot that could be said this morning in this passage.
Some of it will be said in coming weeks, but we're not
addressing every single little detail here this morning in this
passage. But as we begin to look into
this passage, there are a couple points that I want to make.
First of all, some critics will look at this text and assert
that chapter 2 is a is a second completely different creation
narrative. It's it's their way of
discrediting what we read in chapter 1.
They don't want to believe that God created everything, so they
adopt the position that these are two different creation
accounts. In chapters 1 and 2.
The logic goes like this. If there are two different
accounts, they can't both be rights If they say different
things, which means you can't trust the Bible and then you get
to throw the whole thing away including Jesus.
That's how their logic goes. These are not 2 separate acts of
creation. What's happening is Genesis 2 is
zooming in on the 6th day of creation.
Chapter one said that God created all living creatures and
and humans, but but chapter 2 gives us a bit more insight into
what some of that might have looked like, what the conditions
would have been. Second, those same critics also
examine the language for God in chapters one and two.
You see from chapter 1 verse one up through chapter 2 and verse
3, God is simply stated using the Hebrew word for God, that is
Elohim. However, in chapter 2, verse
four and throughout the remainder of chapter 2, this
changes. Instead of writing only Elohim,
Moses writes Yahweh Elohim. Now this is significant because
this is the very first time in scripture that God's actual name
is used. In English, we see it written as
Lord, God with Lord in all caps. Anytime you see the word Lord in
all caps, it's a reference to God's name, Yahweh.
The scribes, you see, had such high respect for God's name that
that they didn't want to write it down and instead they
inserted the word Adonai, the Hebrew word for Lord.
Then the translators of our English Bibles chose to respect
that tradition that our New Testament authors picked up on
also they also referred to him as Lord.
So our our translators of our English Bible respected that
tradition and and chose to use Lord setting it apart with
capital letters so the reader would know that God's name was
in view. Yahweh was being used.
Now why does it matter that this is the very first time the text
says Yahweh Elohim? Well, KA Matthews writes, Elohim
is appropriate for the majestic portrayal of God as creator of
the universe since it properly indicates omnipotent deity.
The use of Elohim points more towards God's power and
transcendence, the Yahweh. Elohim is the name commonly
associated with with God's covenant relationship with his
people, Israel. It's very, it's very personal
when God is referred to as Yahweh.
So Yahweh Elohim speaks more to God's eminence, his his being
personal and near to us. These are not two different gods
as as some critics would argue. Rather, these are two different
aspects of the same God, and each chapter is communicating
something specific about God. So it's entirely appropriate for
chapter 1 to focus on God being all powerful as and it's equally
as appropriate for chapter 2 to look at God as more personal as
it talks about God's crowning creations, humanity.
The astute reader will notice that in chapter 1 God caused
everything to grow, but here in chapter 2 it says there was
there was nothing out in the field.
First of all, both accounts are right.
The true source of it all is of course, God.
He's the 1 causing the growth. Second, there was no rain in the
land, the text says. And when there's no rain, then
what do you need to do? You need to irrigate the land.
You need to find a way to bring water out to the fields in order
for things to grow. Only the garden, the place that
had the headwaters of these of these four rivers, the Tigris,
Euphrates, Guichon and Pichon, had water.
That when there's plenty of water in a place, what happens?
Things grow naturally, right? And so this was a luxuriant,
beautiful paradise. Now this garden isn't like the
little gardens some of you have where you grow your vegetables
and and go out to them and bring them in, cook them, enjoy them
in this little space of land, a little plots that you call your
garden. This garden, the Garden of Eden
is more of a park like setting featuring trees and even
animals. You'll recall one of the wonders
of the ancient world, the the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built next to King
Nebuchadnezzar's palace. And of course, this is just a
rendering of what it might have potentially looked like, being
that we don't have any photographs, of course, from
this moment. And there's a lot of discussion
over whether or not this happened in Babylon or whether
it happened in Nineveh. And there's actually evidence
for for both locations. So it's possible maybe that
something was built in both locations.
I don't know exactly. But regardless if this was a
remarkable feat of engineering because what was happening is a
garden was being built in the desert.
So they had to take all sorts of engineering marvels and and
inventions to bring the water to this place so that then
everything could grow in this garden, in these hanging
gardens. Now, as grand as that was, the
first Garden in Eden was even better.
Now Eden means delights or pleasure or paradise.
And when we consider what we know of Eden, those words all
make sense. But then other scholars maintain
that the word Eden actually means abundant.
And if we think about that, that makes sense as well.
There is in the Garden of Eden, there's an abundance of water
and there's an abundance of precious resources.
That was the the gold delium and Onyx that are mentioned.
There's an abundance of water and abundance of precious
resources. Now, there's something else
that's very important for us to take note of in regards to the
garden. This is actually something I
hadn't realized until the last couple years.
You see, the garden actually prefigures the Tabernacle and
the temple. It's temple like.
It is actually a predecessor to what we see in the Tabernacle
and temple and is the place of God's presence.
The Tabernacle and and temple housed God's presence and and
they are intended to remind us of the garden.
When you start comparing the garden to the Tabernacle and
Temple, the similarities become quite clear.
First of all, Eden as a whole is like the courtyards of the
temple. It's a place approaching God's
presence, and the further in you go, the closer to God you get.
Whether you end up in the Garden or in the Holy of Holies, these
are the places where God's presence was found.
Both are oriented towards the East.
Eden has an abundance of water and a river that feeds four
other rivers. Ezekiel and Revelation both
describe the future temple as having a river flowing from
under it that goes out. The Tree of Life is the
prototype for the tree shaped lampstand.
When the temple is built, it's decorated with carvings of
fruits and trees, immediately reminding you of the garden.
Ezekiel 28 refers to Eden as the holy mountain of God, and this
is language that is used to refer to the Tabernacle or
temple. So that that Eden is a
predecessor to the temple is without disputes.
Eden is a special place, but Genesis 25 tells us there there
were no bushes or plants outside the garden out in the field
because there was no rain yet and and there was no man to work
the ground. Then in verse 15 Yahweh gives a
command. The Lord God took the man, put
him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Man was expected to work. It's part of his purpose and
it's part of God's plan for the land.
The words used here work and keep.
These are actually the very same words used in referring to the
priestly duties in the Tabernacle and temple systems.
The man had become a priest. He is tasked with taking care of
God's sacred space. Notice, Notice sin hasn't even
entered the human realm yet. And still the man is expected to
work In their book, How Now Shall We Live?
Chuck Coulson and Nancy Pearcey make the following assertion.
In our materialistic culture, work is reduced to a utilitarian
function, a means of attaining benefits for this world, this
life. Whether material gain or self
fulfilment, work no longer has a transcendent purpose as a means
of serving and loving God. No wonder then that many are
questioning the very meaning of work.
It is time for the church to reclaim this crucial part of
life, restoring A biblical understanding of work.
So in our remaining time, I want to briefly look at biblical
understanding of work as derived from this passage.
Now I know many of you are retired.
Well, I would like to refer you back two weeks to the message
that my father delivered. Still, there is some application
to be found here even for the retired person.
So first of all, our first points, we jump back to Genesis
126. Man was given dominion over the
fish, over the birds, livestock and over every creeping thing.
To work in God's image is to exercise dominion.
A work in God's image is to exercise dominion.
A few weeks ago in the message on the 6th day of creation, I
talked about what it means to have dominion end and the call
on humanity to rule the world in a God honouring manner.
Part of ruling in this world is being obedient to God's command
to work. I said more in that message.
But just as a quick fly over, exercising dominion isn't to
abuse the land and the resources available to us, but to act in a
manner consistent with God's expectations of Israel's kings.
Man exercises royal authority and he's not to live in excess,
whether it be in relation to wealth or military power or in
accumulating wives. He was to be obedient to Yahweh
and show wholehearted devotion to him.
Humanity should lead with justice and righteousness, doing
all they can to help everything function at its full potential.
So this is what it means. To have dominion.
A part of exercising dominion is having authority over it.
Now you can say that that home is my domain, if you will.
God has given me authority at home.
Some of the members of our household respect my authority
and some, like our cats and dog, don't.
For me to exercise dominion at home is to help everyone be the
best that they can be. For me to lead our home well, to
lead Louvienne, Arya and Michael well, and following God and
being all that God has designed them to be.
It means for me to help all four of us in navigating life while
accomplishing all the things that need to be done.
Whether it be taking care of a couple bathrooms that have been
in some sort of state of construction for quite a while
now, or ensuring that the cats, Elsa, Raja and the dog London
are all fed and cared for. My authority doesn't grant me
permission to be a harsh dictator, but rather to to lead
and steward our home well as I'm accountable to God for my
family. So God commands us to work.
But but that's not a problem because you see, we were
actually created to work. We were created to work.
It's not just an arbitrary command.
We were created to do this. And that's the next point.
Verse 15 assumes that that someone is needed to work the
ground and it tells us no one yet existed who could do the
job. Man wasn't just given a task
that God didn't want to do. That's actually how the
Mesopotamian gods functioned. They didn't like doing work, so
they created man so that man could do the work.
That's not how Yahweh is. Yahweh created humanity with a
purpose, and that purpose is to work.
God commanded Adam to keep and tend to the garden.
Now, of course, this was this was much easier before sin came
into the world than it was after the curse.
At first, work wasn't laborious like we like we think of it now.
So we were commanded and created to work.
Next, to work in God's image is to work in relationship to
others. To work in relationship to
others. At the end of each creation day,
God said it was good. Then at the end of the sixth
day, he said it was very good. However, as the Creator gazes
upon this new creation, the man, he found something that's not
good. Verse 18, God said it's not
good, that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for
him. And then the last phrase of
verse 20. But for Adam there was not found
a helper fit for him. The man needed a helper, someone
to come alongside him and and help him with his work.
The man was created for relationships, so God created a
woman to be his counterparts, his compliments and help.
There was much work to be done in exercising dominion and in
subduing the earth and the woman Eve would help in accomplishing
the various tests of cultivating the garden, pruning bushes and
plants, and harvesting fruits and vegetables.
It is important to say being a helper doesn't mean Eve was
inferior to man as as many have supposed she was his equal.
The Hebrew word for helper is azare, and in Psalm 115 we find
it used to speak of God as our helper.
Certainly God isn't inferior to humans, so it would be
inappropriate to view the woman as inferior to the man.
Eve would be a fit for him, a sort of maybe opposite of him.
She was his compliment and and this relationship served to
augment humanity's capacity for work.
We were made to work in relationship to and with others.
Next, to work in God's image is to be fruitful.
To work in God's image is to be fruitful.
It's interesting to think about what God created in those six
days. He could have created
everything, the entire earth completely full of vegetation,
all the people. He intended all the vegetation
to automatically take care of itself.
He could have created the earth as fully complete and full, but
he chose not to. He created the animals, the
vegetation in the garden, the man and woman, and then he
stopped there. The humans would need to be
productive and and fruitful in their working and keeping the
garden in order for that to happen.
They needed to use their imagination to envision what the
end product would be like, to take steps to enact that vision
and then bring in the harvest, reaping the rewards from their
work. For those of you who have
gardens, you understand what it takes to create a garden.
You remember what it was like before that garden was there.
It may have just been grass, or it could have been weeds, or
perhaps you even had to clear a little bit of timber in order to
make room for the garden. Whatever the case, you came up
with an idea in your mind, and you took the next necessary
steps to enact that vision and make it a reality, and in turn
to make that garden fruitful. That is exactly the task that
was before Adam and Eve. In Ecclesiastes 3, the teacher
addresses the issue of work and and its usefulness.
In verses 12 through 13, he says, I perceive that there is
nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long
as they live. Also that everyone should eat
and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.
This is God's gift to man. So we are to take pleasure in
our work and in the fruit of our labor.
That is what Ecclesiastes 3 is telling us.
Take pleasure in our work and in the fruit of our labor, our work
and enjoyment of it. He's a gift from God.
Doing the work is a blessing, and the bearing of fruits is
also a blessing. Adam imagined what needed to be
done in the garden and then took the appropriate actions to
realize the dream of making the garden fruitful and productive.
Next, to work in God's image is to receive God's provision to
work in God's images to receive his provision.
Back in chapter 1, verses 29 and 30 read, God said, behold, I
have given you every plants yielding seed that is on the
face of all the earth, and every tree was seed in its fruits.
You shall have them for food and then verse 30 and to every beast
of the earth and to every bird of the heavens, to everything
that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath
of life. I have given every green plant
for food. God had provided for the man's
needs. He provided for all of the
animals needs. Sure, the man would put in in
the work, but man isn't the source of the the provision
here, right? God was.
He was the source of everything the man and woman needed.
When I think of God's provision, I'm reminded of a season that we
went through in 2020. Louvianne was in school so she
could be officially licensed as a teacher in Iowa.
You see, back in California, she was never officially licensed.
Even though she got her bachelor's, she never got her
license because she was always teaching in the private schools.
So in order to become an official teacher in Iowa, she
went back to get another bachelor's degree and get
officially licensed. Now in 2020, she was set to do
her student teaching from January through May.
We were a little anxious over over losing her income.
Sure, we try to live reasonably and with within our means, but
losing her income for what would be a total of 8 to 9 months from
December all the way through until she started working again
probably in September, that was quite, quite a while.
It was going to be difficult for us.
I remember how in in late 2019, we were constantly reminding
ourselves that God was our provision, not the North Scott
Community School District and not Cornerstone.
Those were merely tools that God used to provide for our for our
needs. So as we entered 2020, we were
diligent to thank God beforehand for how He was going to provide.
As it turns out, 2020 was a spectacular year for the Webs on
numerous levels. But here, related to this, we
saw God's provision over and over and over again.
I can vividly recall one Monday morning I got into the office
and and there was a small note envelope in my box.
All it said was I hope this blesses you along with $100 in
cash. I was stunned.
I knew God was going to provide for our needs but this was
completely unexpected and and humbling and I was just
dumbfounded. But I don't even know how many
more times that happened. I would come in on a Monday
morning to the same exact notes. I hope this blesses you and
$100. It would just happen randomly.
God was providing for our needs. I wish I knew who that person
was because I would have thanked them profusely, but God was
using them to help provide for our needs as we trusted in His
provision. He proved Himself faithful.
Now, since work involves being active and is and is usually on
behalf of someone else, we need to be careful to not place our
trust in our work, not place our trust in our employer, but
rather to trust in God and His provision.
Our last principle related to work is this.
To work in God's image is to be blessed by the limits that He
sets. It's to be blessed by the limits
that he sets. Last week I focused on God's day
of rest, Shabbat or Sabbath. God rested not because he needed
the rest, because he didn't need rest, but has assigned to us for
us to rest also, the Old Testament scholar and theologian
Walter Bruggeman wrote. Sabbath provides a visible
testimony that God is at the center of life.
The human production and consumption take place in a
world ordered, blessed, and restrained by the God of all
creation. By taking note of God's limits
on our work, we're declaring our freedom from work, that we are
not enslaved to work. As I engage God during Sabbath,
I'm resting in His provision and visibly demonstrating my life is
ordered by God in His ways, not man's.
And I said much more about that last week, so if you want to
know more about that, check out that message now.
By God's grace, we have been gifted something better than of
winning lottery tickets. We are declared a royal
priesthood and now we get to assist God in ruling, not just
in a future sense, yes, we will do that, but here and now as we
get to work each day and upholding God's creation and
helping all around us live up to their full potential.
That is God's desire for work in our lives.
Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.
God, we are grateful that you have given us this task, that it
isn't meaningless but but the task of work fulfills purpose as
we serve you. We work as to you, not as to our
employer or as to a man, but as to God is how we work.
So we are grateful for the work that we have.
May we be diligent to work in relationship to others, to be to
be fruitful in our work, trusting in your provision and
living within the limits that you have set.
Work is good, but let us not become workaholics, constantly
driven to work, work, work, but to rest in our Creator who
modeled this for us. So this morning, God, we thank
you that you are our provision. You provide for all of our
needs, everything that I need. God, you provide as we thank
you. Thank you for meeting here with
us in this time. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.