The year was somewhere around 1996 or 97.
I was sitting there in my humanities class at Diablo
Valley College in the San Francisco East Bay.
I knew the Bible and I would regularly defend it if I needed
to. My humanities teacher asked
something like who in here is a Christian or or if you believe
the Bible was true, something like that.
I don't remember the exact substance of her question.
A few of us brave souls in a class of around 100 students
raised our hands. The teacher then proceeded to
hurl criticisms of the Bible and the Christian faith at us.
Normally I would defend the Bible, but she said something
that I just didn't know what to do with.
She said the Bible's story about the flood was just copying the
Epic of Gilgamesh. I'd heard of the Epic of
Gilgamesh before, but I had no idea what was in it.
I knew there was some dude named Inky Doo and and of course
Gilgamesh, but beyond that I had no idea what it was and when it
was written I was stunned and had nothing to say she had won
because I had no idea what the Epic of Gilgamesh was and and
the notion that that the foundation for the flood
narrative in Genesis seemed blasphemous to me, and rightly
so. Well, in the years since, I've
come to learn a few things. First of all, every ancient
culture has its own creation story and flood narratives are
quite widespread, especially throughout the ancient Near
East. However, Genesis stands apart
from these other narratives and who communicates the creator,
Creator to be and the nature of his relationship with his
creation. And I will talk more about the
flood when we get there in a few weeks, probably more than a few
weeks. So our next series is going to
be in the book of Genesis. So where did this book come from
and what is the purpose of it? Now, of course, the astute Bible
student will natural place Genesis in the Pentateuch, the
first five books of the Bible, which we sometimes refer to as
the Torah or the Law. God gave Moses the Torah when he
was up on Mount Sinai. Genesis was written to Jews who
are likely about to settle the Promised Land.
It's possibly. We don't know for sure whether
it's to those who personally experienced the Exodus or
whether it's to their children, the next generation as they're
about to cross over the Jordan River to conquer the land.
And the text serves both as an encouragement to them in their
faith as well as a reminder of how God had worked not only in
their lives, but in the lives of their ancestors.
The title for this book, Genesis stems from the Septuagint and
and the word Genesis means or or beginnings In Hebrew, it's a
different title. The word is better sheets, which
means in the beginning which is taken from literally the first 3
words that we have in our English Bibles.
So while Genesis serves as the creation account of Yahweh's
people, the Genesis account differs from other accounts in
that one creation isn't a result of cosmic conflict between gods
as is often the case in in other creation accounts and Yahweh.
Yahweh is depicted. Our God is depicted as as
transcended. He not only transcendence,
though, He's loving, He's ordered, and He's purpose
filled. Now it's no secret that I have
an affinity for the Old Testament.
There's so much to be found in the Old Testament and it serves
as a foundation for what you see in the New Testament so often.
I was talking to someone recently.
Oh yeah, her son. He just want, he just wants to
read Paul. Paul is great.
But it's important for us to understand the 1st 3/4 of our
Bible because when we understand what's in the 1st 3/4 of our
Bible, then it makes the last quarter make so much more sense.
Unfortunately, today there are so many people who don't really
know what's in Genesis, or in the rest of the Old Testament
for, for that matter. So it seems fitting for us to
start here at the beginning of it all, in one of my favorite
books, Genesis. So here we go.
I'm going to cover the entire book, Genesis one one through
5026 in the next few minutes. Actually, this may be my
shortest sermon that I've delivered here, and I cut pages
from this message sometimes. What you don't know is sometimes
when we write a sermon, you can have just as much stuff that you
cut out as what you include, and this is no exception.
There's a lot to cover here. Now, it all starts back in the
beginning. Before time began, God spoke
into the nothing and he called nothing.
It's a something and and then he hung that something on nothing,
hung it there in space. It's truly profound to consider
the thoughts of the universe and the Earth hanging there in
place, spinning at the right speed, tilted at the right
angle, covered with the right amounts of oxygen in order to be
able to sustain life. All of this is called the fine
tuning of the universe. Now remember, I'm flying over
this at a high level. I don't even know if it's 30,000
feet. We're almost at like 60,000 feet
Here is what we're doing this morning.
So we're just hitting some some big issues here.
The main topics. Then on the 6th day, God created
his crowning achievement. He'd made the sun, moon, the
stars separated the waters from the land.
He filled the waters, He filled the land, but nothing was as
great as mankind. Previously everything was
declared good, but now after he created mankind, it was very
good. So here we have the first
humans, Adam and Eve. We consider the fact that no
other creation accounts depicts a God creating in his own
likeness, but that's what God did.
He created man and woman in his own image In the garden.
Everything was good. Life was complete.
It was full and it was easy. Man would work the garden, but
it would be easy and and it didn't feel laborious.
It didn't feel like work. There was only one rule, and
that was to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good
and Evil. Everything's going along fine
until this sneaky, sly serpent entered the scene.
He was naturally rebellious against God, and he wanted to
lead the humans to rebel against God as well.
The serpent was able to deceive them when he called God's words
into question. Did God actually say you shall
not eat of any tree in the garden?
Well, no, that is not what God said.
And Eve told the serpent that that they would die if they
touched the tree. And of course, you know how it
ends. She saw that the tree was good
for food. It looked good as well.
And, and it would make her wise. She gave in to the lust of the
flesh, to the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
And she took a bite, and then she gave some to Adam.
Before this moment God had decided what was good and right.
But here humanity was deciding what was right and wrong on
their own terms. Instantly everything changed.
The easy relationship between the man and the woman was now
broken. They couldn't trust each other
and and they were now ashamed of their naked bodies and life
became difficult. Sin had significantly changed
the mindset of these humans, even their very own DNA.
As I talked about last week, sin has consequences and death had
entered the world. The relationship with God had
been broken and they were exiled from the Garden.
But not all was lost as God promised to one day defeat the
serpent. Fast forward hundreds of years,
sin has advanced on the earth and Noah was told to build an
ark. People were evil so God planned
to destroy the earth with a flood, performing a hard reset
on humanity if you will. So for 40 days, water poured
forth from the deep and and the heavens opened up.
OK, this reboot should work, right?
Well, not exactly. Even from the first moments,
Noah gets drunk and his son Ham does something sexual to him,
earning a curse for his son Canaan.
And in spite of the restart, sin continued to run rampant.
Pride was on the upswing. A skilled group of laborers
gathered in Babylon and decided, let's build a tower up to the
heavens. But God intervenes.
He humbles them, gives them different languages, and
scatters them all over the known world.
Remember the command was be fruitful, multiply and fill the
earth. And here humanity is, living in
a city confined to one place when they were supposed to be
filling the earth. Despite humanity's evil, God was
determined to bless and rescue the world.
So what does he do? He calls out to an idol
worshipper who's living in what is now southern Iraq.
He says to to Abraham, he says go to a land that I will show
you. So Abraham doesn't even know
where he's going, but he was obedient and in faith he
responded to God's promise. God had planned to rescue
humanity through Abraham, so he made a covenant with him, and he
said he would give Abraham a land.
And he also says, I'm going to make of you a great nation.
You have many, many, many descendants, and I'm going to
bless the people of the world through you.
Abraham had become the father of our faith, but he, like others
before him, was deeply flawed. Twice he betrays his wife
claiming she was his sister, which was 1/2 truth.
It wasn't entirely true. Yes, in a way she was his
sister, but she was also his wife, and he didn't want to
acknowledge that for fear of their lives.
He also slept with his wife's maid, Hagar, in order to
conceive the child that was promised to he and Sarah.
Abraham trusted God's promise, and this faith was what made him
righteous. But here he took matters into
his own hands and actually created a separate line of
people. And this separate line of people
was not the people through whom God wanted to pass on His
blessing. It was not the people that God
had sovereignly chosen to be His.
It wasn't until 25 years after God had promised them a child
that Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac the child.
A promise. When he was born, Sarah was 19,
Abraham was 100, both well past the age of producing an heir.
But this was God's awesome power at work.
The story about Isaac, which people are most familiar with
happened when he was maybe 17/18/1920.
We don't know exactly, but God told Abraham to take Isaac, the
son of promise, up on the mountain and to offer Isaac as a
sacrifice of worship. It's important to understand
Isaac's age. I think it's easy for us to
think, oh, this, this was a little boy.
He was 567. He was just carrying some sticks
up up the mountain, just trying to help out his daddy, oblivious
to to what was going on and the need for a sacrifice.
Yet this was not the case. Teenage young man Isaac knew
what was happening. He certainly didn't have to lay
down on the altar that this 115 year old man told him to get on.
He could have walked, but he was obedient and an Angel interrupts
the moment and God provides a ram for the sacrifice.
Many years later, Isaac is 60. His wife Rebecca gave birth to
twins Jacob and Esau. Jacob means heel catcher and is
figuratively figuratively interpreted to mean deceiver.
This character trait actually becomes a hallmark of his life.
He stole his older brother brother's birthright by tricking
his old blind father Isaac. The identity of this man in
front of him. Are you sure you're Esau?
Jacob's mother had helped him soul, so he is working to
convince Isaac. Yes, I'm Esau, feel my arms.
I'm Esau your oldest. Sure, Jacob got the birthright,
but he knew it wasn't safe for him to stay, so he fled to his
Uncle Laban's house. It was there that Jacob got a
taste of his own medicine, as he was cheated out of 14 years of
his life. He'd fallen in love with Rachel,
but he was subsequently tricked into marrying her older sister
Leah instead. And Laban also tried to cheat
Jacob out of any prophets. However, God was constantly on
Jacob's side and working to bless him.
Jacob essentially ends up with four wives, 2 actual wives, +2
concubines and there is a competition that ensues to see
who can have the most children. And he's able through these four
women's to four women to produce 12 sons, the favoured 2 of
course coming from his favoured wife Rachel.
When Jacob finally returned back to Canaan, he had an interesting
encounter with an Angel. It seems this was likely a pre
Incarnate version of Jesus says the words used to describe this
being are ish, which is the word for a man, and L which is a word
for God. This was the God man that Jacob
wrestled with it and he was adamant about being blessed.
He won and he received his blessing, but not until his hip
had been taken out of socket by the God man and his name is
changed on the spot. And Jacob would no longer be
called a deceiver, but rather he would now be called Israel, one
who struggles or strives with God.
And in this moment, God's people receive a name.
They are now the people of Israel.
While Jacob had twelve sons, it was one in particular who was
most special to him. The oldest son of his favored
wife, Rachel. This was Joseph, and you're all
familiar with his Technicolor dreamcoats.
He was a bit presumptuous and and proud as a young teen.
He even had the audacity to tell his older brothers that one day
they would bow down to him. I don't know of any brothers who
want to hear, oh, you're going to bow down to me someday.
So they concocted a plan to kill their father's favorite son, the
oldest brother. Ruben, though, felt a little
guilty about the plan, so he thought it would be better to
just sell Joseph off into slavery.
You see, this would get Joseph out of their lives, and they
wouldn't have to live with the guilt of actually having killed
him. So they sold Joseph into
slavery. They took his coats, put an
animal's blood on it, and sent it back to their father, Jacob.
There are many ups and downs in Joseph's life.
God's hand was clearly on him, and everything he touched turned
to gold. Potiphar was captain of
Pharaoh's garden. Joseph became his slave, leading
to Potiphar's prosperity under the virtuous Joseph.
Unfortunately, Potiphar's wife was not so virtuous, and when
she tried to seduce Joseph, he ran.
She wasn't pleased with this, so she claimed he tried to rape
her, leading to Joseph's imprisonment.
A lot transpires in prison, but it all culminated in his ability
to interpret Pharaoh's dreams. God was active and working in
Joseph's life, causing him to be elevated to #2 in the nation of
Egypt. God had used Joseph's gift to
save the Egyptians from famine, as well as Joseph's own family
who came to Egypt in search of food.
And Joseph's story is powerful. Pride, betrayal, death,
injustice, reward, reconciliation and restoration.
The great grandchildren of Abraham have performed this
heinous act of selling their brother into slavery, but God
transforms their evil act into something good.
We see this all through the Genesis narrative.
Humans doing something evil and God turning it for good.
So what's the importance of all this?
Is it even relevant to us today, these things that happened
thousands of years ago? Well, obviously, yes, it is very
relevant. That is why I have chosen this
book for our first book study. The first thing we learn from
Genesis has to do with cosmology.
Genesis teaches us about the origins of the universe.
This is cosmology. How did this world get here?
There's a lot of there's a lot of debate about this even in
Christian circles, and we'll talk about this some later.
Did God create the world in six literal 24 hour time periods?
6 literal days, or or are the days analogous to ages of time?
Christians have been debating this for a long time.
What we can absolutely, unequivocally state without a
doubt is that God created it all.
No amount of time can account for the onset of the universe
without something to 'cause it. How did it all come to be?
The origins of the cosmos came about by God's very own words.
He spoke. God spoke and created it all.
The opening lines of Genesis tell us there was no order in
the world. Everything was wild and waste.
But our Creator God spoke into the void and and he ordered it
appropriately. In theology terms, we say that
God created X Niallo, that is, he created out of nothing.
So God spoke and created it all. Then Genesis also teaches us
about anthropology. We're we're going to school this
morning, in case you didn't already realize, it teaches us
about anthropology, about humanity.
There are two main categories of anthropology.
There's the biological aspect of anthropology as well as the
cultural aspects. Anthropology that means that is
our archaeology, things that humans build and make, as well
as their language. But more than simply answering
the question of where life came from, Genesis also answers the
three big questions of life that I mentioned early this summer.
You may recall. Where did I come from?
The meaning of human origins is a bit more personal when it's
viewed through the lens of Genesis.
Why am I here? What's what's my purpose, and
where am I going? Is there an afterlife or is this
all there is? Because if this is all there is,
throw the chains off. Do whatever you want.
Live life without restraints. Genesis provides the answers the
world needs. Secular humanism answers that
question with Darwinian evolution.
If your answer to the question of origins is evolutionary
processes, then the answer to the second question, why am I
here? Will leave you wanting.
Our purpose is derived from our origins.
If humanity is simply an exalted ape, then humanity has no
intrinsic value or purpose. Where am I going?
Genesis points to the answer to that question as well.
On page three, we get a glimmer of hope for humanity, knowing
the serpent will receive a mortal blow and things will be
made right. As Christians, we also believe
that humanity is more than just what we do.
The things we make, people, we marry, the language we use.
We also believe that humans have greater value than the rest of
creation. And the reason for this is
because we were created in God's image.
We were created in God's image, where unique representations of
God's nature and and to be created in God's image means
that we reflect both his character and his authority on
earth. So those next blanks are to
reflect God's character and to be representatives of God's
rule. It's our task to to harness
creation's potential and to use it for God's good and God's
purposes. Now, it's natural for us to
think of Genesis as as telling our story, telling humanity's
story. But it's not telling our story.
Genesis is history. Generous Genesis is his story.
Genesis teaches us theology. It teaches us about God.
He's the focal point of this book, not us.
It's important to learn about God and who he actually is.
You see, today there's a tendency to redefine God.
And when people describe God, God actually sounds a lot like
them. He acts like them, he thinks
like them. He he's a God fashion basically
in their own image and consequently that God doesn't
ask anything of them. But in the pages of Genesis and
and scripture you see who God really is.
Genesis reveals God to be pre existence all powerful creator.
He is the pre-existing all powerful creator and scripture
is the revelation of God himself.
It's not only God disclosing truth to us.
Yes, scripture is truth, but it's God actually revealing
himself to us. Genesis 11 says in the
beginning, God. If we're not careful, we'll only
catch the latter part of that verse, which is God created the
heavens and the earth. While it's important to know
that God is the source of all creation, this verse also tells
us the Creator God. He was around before it all
began. He's the unmoved mover that
Aristotle speaks of, the one who caused all to function and move
as intended without himself being moved.
He is consistent. He is unchanging.
As we further look at what Genesis teaches us about God, we
see his justice. We learned that God is just.
This means that he's concerned for the marginalized as well As
for the need to punish sin. Those who walk in disobedience
receive what they deserve. Adam and Eve were kicked out of
the garden after they sinned. Cain, after killing his brother
Abel, was exiled in the ground, cursed for farming.
Noah's generation lost their lives when they lived in open
rebellion against God and mocked the man who was obedient to
God's commands. But there's a positive side to
justice as well. The good are rewarded.
Abel's sacrifice was accepted, Enoch walked with God, Noah was
chosen to relaunch humanity, and Abraham's obedience was rewarded
with being declared righteous when he followed God's call and
became the father to a nation. We also see that God is
faithful. God is faithful.
He's faithful to keep his promises, and we see him making
covenants with his flawed followers, Noah and Abraham.
His people will sin, but he remains committed to them
through it all. Lastly, the last area of study
that we see is soteriology. Soteriology.
Genesis teaches us about salvation.
The Greek word for salvation is sotair, so we call the study of
salvation soteriology. What's the basis for salvation?
How is it that God would even seek to save us?
Genesis provides the answer for these questions and before we
fully close out the message, I'm going to ask the worship team to
come on up. I know this is different, but
you see, it's only appropriate when we're talking about
salvation naturally takes us to sitting at the Lord's table.
So if you haven't received grabbed the communion elements,
we have them available. Raise your hand if you would
like to receive have not already received, we have Brendan,
Brendan in the booth there. Anyone else?
Just raise your hand and Anita will get those for you.
Anybody else? So God's grace and mercy are on
full display all throughout this book as we routinely see broken,
flawed, sinful people being used for His purposes.
The Sinner isn't automatically cast off, but rather is offered
a second chance of third chance, and so on.
God's grace was on Cain when he when he received a mark in order
to prevent him from being killed.
God's grace was on Sarah when, in her old age, she doubted
God's provision of a child. God's grace pours through the
pages of this book. In fact, God's grace shows up
just as quickly as sin does. In Genesis 36, the woman sinned,
and in a mere 9 verses later in verse 15, a foreshadowing of
God's grace is revealed. God says to the serpent, I will
put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring
and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and
you shall bruise his heel. The serpent Satan bruised the
heel of humanity, striking A superficial blow to Jesus on the
cross. But Satan didn't get the last
word. It's God who got the last word
when Jesus conquered sin and the grave.
We call this the proto evangelion.
This is the first gospel, or the first good news.
God longs to redeem humanity from the penalty of sin, to make
things right, and in fact, the blood of Jesus is pouring
through this book. When Adam and Eve sinned, an
animal paid the price and was killed to provide covering for
these sinners whose relationship with God had just been broken.
When Abraham took the teenage teenager Isaac up on the
mountain to offer him as a sacrifice, God provided a ram, a
way out. Joseph, who seemed to live a
very virtuous life, suffered but proved to be the physical savior
of his family and the Egyptians. God's grace, Mercy and salvation
are demonstrated over and over again in this book.
Without this book we miss the meaning of what happens in Jesus
life later in the New Testaments.
The prototype is here set. Sin has a cost, and the cost has
to be paid. This morning we can approach
this time at the Lord's table because Jesus paid that cost.
God's justice doles out a penalty for our sin.
Jesus stepped up to pay the price we couldn't pay.
He bore our sin in Himself on the cross, and because He paid
the price, we are now made new in Him.
This is the glorious, marvellous truth that because Jesus Christ
paid all of our debt, we are now made new.
We're not the same old thing that we were, but we have been
completely transformed by Jesus Christ.