Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
Well, today we begin a new series, and the new series that
we are beginning today is called Faith Begins.
And the first message that begins the new series that we're
beginning today called Faith Begins is called In the
Beginning. To which I have to ask you, Are
you ready to begin? Are you ready to begin
Mezzanine? Hi.
Yeah. Not only are we beginning a new
series today, but we're beginning the journey that will
take us through almost the rest of the year and what's called
the biblical meta narrative. Look at you and every say meta
What? Meta What?
Yeah. A meta narrative is the thread,
the grand overarching story that brings all the smaller stories
into focus and gives them purpose.
So you have Luke and you have Leia and Yoda and Darth.
Somehow over the all those movies, the Star Wars universe,
there's an overarching story that's happening, not just the
individual stories. You have Harry and Hermione and
Ron. Seven books turned into 8 movies
and into 53 puke inducing rides at Universal.
Anyone? Hallelujah.
Velocicoaster. Oh, that's not a Harry Potter.
Anyway. OK, I love that ride.
But what ties it all together? What about Adam and Eve and Noah
and Moses and Ruth and Esther? In the first service I combined
them and called them Rooster. David, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and
Daniel and Jesus and Paul and Peter and Ringo.
How do they all? It's a Beatles joke.
Some of you don't get it. OK, I get what?
What is it that ties all of it together?
That's the marinara. The marinara.
Some of y'all. I just decided your lunch for
you. Like oh, what?
What is the meta narrative? The biblical meta narrative, I'm
just going to tell it to you right here from the jump, is a
messianic narrative. That's the overarching story.
It's not a ROM com. It's not a war story.
It's a Messiah story, which means it's a story of a people
that have been trapped in the plague of darkness and a hero
that comes to rescue them. That hero is called the Messiah.
The word Messiah, the name Messiah, actually means deliver
or savior. People don't need delivering or
saving unless they're in trouble.
And the story of the Bible is there's trouble and there's a
savior who's coming to redeem it.
And I would tell you that the Savior, the Messiah, is not just
the star of the story, but it's the heart, the motivation of the
Savior that becomes this grand ark that we see from Genesis all
the way through Revelation. The heart of the Savior, His
desire unrelenting to be with his people that he loves so
much, even though these people revolt against him, even though
these people are hell bent on destruction, even though we
often choose our flesh instead of the Father.
Yet there was not a price he would not pay to try to ensure
this oneness. The lengths that he would go so
that he could have oneness with humanity.
And all of this begins in the book of Genesis, which as we
explore Genesis in this series, you're going to find it's not
just about faith beginning. It's about recognizing the
always faithfulness of God from before the beginning.
We're going to see a singular thread from Genesis into the
parables that we'll study this summer into the Book of
Revelation that we'll look at in this fall.
This thread is painted and Crimson.
It's woven together in love. And I pray that as we study this
great and grand thread of our Messiah, that you will fall more
in love with him than you ever have before to the extent that
you, you learn to worship Him by serving him.
You learn to worship him by honoring him with your choices.
You learn to worship him by bringing other people to know
this great God that has saved you and the saved myself.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Genesis.
Amen. All right, so why don't you do
this, open your Bibles to Genesis chapter one.
That's where we start because that's where it all starts.
If you need a Bible, raise your hand and our ushers will be glad
to bring you a Bible. We gave out 131 last week, but
we have more an endless supply of Bibles in Jesus name.
As you're getting your Bibles ready, I want you to know that
Genesis is our, is the story of our spiritual family.
It's where and who we came from. These often asked biographical
questions. When you're at a gathering with
people you don't know. They're like, where'd you come
from? Who are your folks?
Like our ancestors are in the book of Genesis.
All of us can look back and have the same answers.
Where are you from? Who'd you come from?
It all goes back to Genesis. Genesis, the actual word, is
derived from the Greek word, which means origins or birth.
We still got, we still need Bibles.
I see your hand. You're being so patient.
Thank you. Anyone else?
We're here. We're coming.
Andy's coming right in the middle.
I see you, ma'am. Right in the middle, too.
And he's literally running and Usher running.
Chunk it, Andy. Right in the middle.
There we go. Getting people.
The Bible matters to be. So we just slow down here.
Is that all right with everybody?
We're coming to you. Kerry's got you still back
there. We got it.
Everyone good. Say yes, Yeah.
The word Genesis means origins of birth, which means that the
book of Genesis is the origin of everything except God.
All the vast force of Scripture that come after Genesis have
their seedlings inside of Genesis.
Right here. We got facts.
We got first. We got faith.
Interestingly enough, at least to me.
Maybe it isn't to you. We'll see.
I've been knowing about this series since last August when I
go away with the Lord and listen about what are we going to what?
What do you want me to preach on in 2026?
And I pray and I listen and I write and I pray and I listen.
So since last August, I've been kind of thinking about Genesis.
And then during spring break, I went and spent a week just
studying Genesis, sitting at the table, reading the commentaries,
reading Genesis, praying, writing, taking notes, soaking
in Genesis. I just can't get enough of
Genesis. Well, Christine, myself, Eli, we
flew up to visit our daughter Audrey at Liberty University.
Any fans? Yep.
And we go to what's called Convocation.
I've never been to 1:00. They have them on Wednesdays and
Fridays. The entire student body comes.
There's like 10,000 people packed in the Vine Center and
they worship. And it's incredible worship led
by the students. And then you think it's a church
service and it kind of is and it kind of isn't because then they
bring up all these different kind of presenters, like famous
politicians that may or may not be believers.
Vivek Ramaswami, he's not a believer, but he was there,
right? They have athletes and actors.
They have influence. We have pastors.
They have all sorts of different people stand up and speak.
This last week they have Webb Simpson.
Anybody. He's a golfer and it's the
Masters week, so they have Webb Simpson.
Anyway, you don't care. I could.
I thought it was cool. So we go and the first time I've
ever been there and I don't know who's going to be to speak, but
randomly the guy speaking just three Fridays ago right before
I'm about to preach this series happens to be 1 of, if not the
foremost theologian in the world in regards to Genesis.
His name is Doctor Ken Ham. Maybe you've heard of Doctor Ken
Ham. He founded a ministry called
Answers in. Answers in Yeah.
He's a guy who created the Creation Museum and the
life-size biblical scale arc called the art Exhibit in
Kentucky. Because where else would the ark
be in Kentucky? Yeah.
So I'm like, I cannot believe that the one time I come to
convocation randomly, not randomly as I'm about to preach
Genesis, it's Ken Ham and he exposited for the next tower
long about Genesis. His main point is this and it's
the main point of the series. It it coincides with exactly
everything that the Lord has put in my heart, which is everything
we need to know about anything has its roots in Genesis,
specifically the 1st 11 chapters.
Genesis is the foundation for everything.
It's the basis for our Christian worldview.
If we want to know where all our doctrines come from, you find
them in Genesis. If you want to know where the
Gospels begin, it begins in Genesis.
Everything finds its origin, its design, its purpose.
In Genesis. You got questions about
creation, Genesis. You got questions about
marriage? Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you.
You got questions about the sanctity of life?
Way to go. I heard you.
You want to know why there's sickness and broken things and
death in the world? It's all in.
You want to know where the cure is coming for all that
brokenness and sickness and death.
It's found in the second book of the Bible is no got you.
The second book of the Bible is yes, after Genesis, Genesis,
yes. Let's begin Genesis chapter 1.
And as you look at the scripture, I don't know how you
can possibly comprehend this, but I try to, when I read
Genesis 1, feel the poignancy of the moment before it all
started, the stillness, the expectancy of the Lord God and
what's about to happen. It all begins here.
Genesis chapter 1 verses one and two.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the
surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over
the waters Here church from moment one God and all the
fullness is present. Verse 3 begins and God said
before history exists, God is. In fact, many people want to
debate the seven day timeline as its found in Genesis.
Is it 7 literal days? Is it one day Is 1000 days?
Is it one day? Is 1,000,000 a million days?
Or is it one day is an age like the Ice Age or the Mesozoic age
or you name it. All of these ages, What is it?
Well, we can have those discussions.
I think they're worthy discussions.
Go to answers in Genesis. You'll get some very clear
answers about the timeline, but what I want to focus on today
that is absolutely clear in Genesis, that Genesis wants us
to know is not so much concern about the exactness of the
timeline as this. From the beginning, it was God.
Nothing existed without God. Everything is Genesis from the
person of God and God alone. All of our stories, no matter
how far you look back in your story, your family's history,
all the way back, no matter what path you walk down, go to the
beginning of that path and we'll all find the same thing.
The Lord God, benevolent God, the loving God, the all powerful
God at the beginning, He's an ever existing God and he creates
everything that you see, the chair you're sitting on, all the
things you smell and hear, everything he created.
Listen to this from absolutely nothing in Latin is called ex
nihilo. From nothing.
The Hebrew word is Bora. Can I Bora a dollar?
That's not what it means. Bara is Bara.
In the beginning, God borrowed the heavens and the earth.
He creates from nothing. This word is found about 50
times in the Old Testament. It's a verb create.
And every time that we see this word Bara, God is the subject.
And if you remember grammar, the subject is always the one who
performs the verb. So Bara create is always
connected to God. It only happens when God does it
every single time. When David prays in Psalm 51, he
says create in me a clean heart. The Hebrew is Bara me a clean
heart. David has some sort of knowledge
that in him was nothing, able to regenerate his soul and his
spirit, and so he had to look to an exterior agent, a
supernatural agent, the Lord God, who can and does create and
say God says I can't, I know that you can, so you borrow,
create in me from nothing, because there's nothing in me.
A clean heart. Only God can do this work of
creation, and he's done it from the beginning.
It has always been this way. Only God, no other being, no
other Angel, no other human, no one else borrows except for the
Lord our God. Amen.
Indeed. Maybe you've heard this
illustration before. I love it.
But God is in the sandbox creating aardvark palm tree,
right? Human.
And Satan walks up. He's like, anyone can do that.
What's up? Anyone can do what you do, God.
I could make an aardvark. That's this.
I could do that. I may, I think I can make a
human. And guys like, OK, you think you
can make these things and go ahead and make them and Satan
steps into the sandbox and God's like, wait a second, first you
need to make your own sand. Do you understand what I'm
saying? He creates from nothing.
There was nothing and now there is everything by his own will
and nature from the beginning God creates and therefore God
owns everything. This ever existing, all creating
God is in fact the Godhead present at creation, the Person
of God, the Word of God and the Spirit of God, Creator, Agent
and Presence, the three in one Trinity of God.
A special note here, the Spirit is present and we begin to see a
biblical theme from the beginning that extends all the
way through Scripture. Know this from the beginning, it
is the Holy Spirit that brings order, excuse me, out of chaos.
It's part of the meta narrative. It's part of the overarching
story. In Luke chapter one, verse 35,
it is a spirit that once again hovers over Mary and suddenly
where there is nothing, there's the Messiah.
It is the Spirit of God that comes and hovers over Jesus when
he is raised out of the waters of baptism.
All four gospels record this. The Spirit alights on him as if
to say I'm anointing the one who will bring order out of the
chaos in the tomb. In the chaos of death, Jesus is
raised to life. How?
Romans chapter one verse 4. He was shown to be the Son of
God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy
Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord.
From the beginning. The Holy Spirit has brought
order out of chaos. I'm wondering how your
relationship with the Holy Spirit is.
It's not the point of the message, but it's a point of the
story. This ever existing, all
creating, three in one. God then makes the earth and
everything in it. And let me just pause here.
You're going to feel like you're eating, drinking from a fire
hose today. There is a ton of information
coming and I want you just to think I'm receiving all these
things like it's going into a pot and we're cooking something,
all these ingredients and we're headed somewhere.
And here's where we're headed. We want to understand why on
earth did God create the earth. We want to understand why in the
world that God put us in the world.
What's He up to in Genesis 1 and 2?
Because it's the beginning of the story.
It tells us the why for everything.
And if we don't understand it, the rest of the story is just
like some episodes. You can watch this one and that
one, but they're not connected together.
You have to understand it from the beginning.
So here God goes creating. I'm going to read these very
quickly. They're going to come on the
screen very quickly. If you take your notes, it ain't
going to happen. Day one light and darkness are
created. Day 2, the sky, the expanse, the
atmosphere is created. Day three, dry land, seas,
vegetation. Day 4, the sun, moon and stars.
Day 5, the sea creatures and birds.
Day 6, land animals and us humans.
And then day 7 God creates rest. He creates the Sabbath.
Now you may know this, but there are plenty of creation myths in
antiquity. How the world came to be.
Which one is correct? Let me tell you a few of them.
The Egyptians believe that there was an egg in an ocean.
They never explained where the egg or the ocean come from.
They don't have how they made their own sand, right.
This egg births somebody. And that somebody is the sun
God. The sun God has four children.
Geb or Jeb Shoe, Tefnut and Nut. I want to see is there anyone
here who is descended of the tefnuts?
You Pastor Kim Tef? Yeah, Anyone here descended?
Just. I'm from the nuts.
Any ladies here say I think I descended from shoe.
Not funny. I I Yeah, I feel the.
The story goes that these children fought in sibling
rivalries. And as they fought, continents
were formed. Oceans were dug up by their feet
and swiping. The same thing with the
Babylonians. The Babylonians believed that
there were gods and these gods would war together.
There are plots and subplots and as they fight, when they strike
their sword over Yosemite and denial, right?
The Greeks believe that there's a God who holds the earth, but
they don't tell us how they created the earth.
Atlas just has the earth on his shoulders.
That's all we know. The Hindus believe that the
world is rested on three elephants, and those elephants
themselves are sitting on top of a giant tortoise, and the giant
tortoise swims around in a cosmic ocean.
And here we are. The point is this.
Genesis 1 stands as the only document that comes to us from
ancient history that is seriously considered.
When the origin of the universe is discussed, it's typically the
Bible or The Big Bang, and we can have the discussion that the
two of them might be both true. So which do you believe?
I'm going to give you a proof of why maybe you should believe the
creation story. Doctor Peter Stoner, he lived in
the 50s. He was a mathematician,
theologian. In 1958, he came out with a
study that says essentially, there are 13 essential
components to creation. For Earth to become into
existence. And he notes that not only did
Moses, who was not a scientist, had no telescopes or
microscopes, could not understand what an atmosphere
was, lived his entire life in a small portion of the world,
doesn't even know the circumference of the world,
hasn't even seen the magnitude of the oceans, of the mountains,
the stars flowing in the sky. Moses got all 13 components
right, and he got them in the correct order.
Like, what's the big deal? Doctor Stoner estimates that in
order for Moses just to have guessed this, like, I'm just
going to throw something out there, see if it's right because
Moses was southern. Yeah, Southern Israel, in order
for him to have just guessed it right by chance, it would be one
chance in 31 sextillion. That's a 31 with 21 zeros behind
it. He goes on to say, I, I don't
think you understand what I'm saying.
And he goes on to say that the chances of this happening
because we don't understand how big a #31 sextillion is, is like
finding one lottery ticket marked with the right creation
order in a bucket of 31 sextillion tickets.
You reach in your hand and find one.
You still don't understand how big 31 six trillion tickets is,
he goes on to say. It would take 8 million printing
presses, 8 million hello, 8 million printing presses,
printing day and night, 2000 tickets a minute for 5,000,000
years to get 31 sextillion tickets.
Then you put them on the earth somewhere and you fly around,
you drop in one place, you reach in your hand and pull out the
right one. So all I'm trying to say is
there's no way Moses just guessed it, and he wasn't a
scientist, so there's no way he reasoned it, for it was not
reason. He has a creation story because
it came to him by revelation. The one who created downloaded
it to Moses, who wrote the book of Genesis, and we have it now
into antiquity. It's when, when, when you think
of something this incredible happening in this revelation
happening, it begins to help you understand me.
Maybe, just maybe, the creation account in Genesis is the actual
account that we ought to put our faith and trust in. 1st the Lord
frames everything. He gives us light and limits and
land, and then He fills everything beyond lights,
limits, and land. Then he gives us life.
Animals, birds. Do you know that animals display
the glory of God? Not a lot of pet people in here,
I guess. Yeah.
The variety, the colors, the uniqueness.
In fact, do you know that all of creation speaks of His glory the
way He intended it? Romans chapter one.
For since the creation of the world, God's invisible
qualities, He's spirit, we cannot see him.
His eternal power and his divine nature have actually been
clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that
the people are without excuse. God created a sunset so that we
would say Oh my God, intelligent design, purposeful design.
Even Darwin looked at the eyeball and it said he it's
recorded that it made him shudder.
Darwin, who believes in evolution, looks at the eyeball
and like maybe, maybe we didn't come from pond scum.
How about that we think that David and Solomon built the 1st
and most fanciful temple in human history, but God in
creation built a temple for himself more glorious than
anything humanity can or ever will build.
And you have to begin to ask yourself why?
Why do you do it? We're headed somewhere.
Stay with me. Why did he create the earth?
And secondarily, why did he create humans?
Why? What's going on?
Let that simmer as we continue next in the book of Genesis in
chapter 1 and continuing on in the chapter 2, we get some major
themes of origin, the origin of humanity, the origin of
marriage, the origin of rulership.
And I want you to know that all of these speak to one thing as
God's creating this, what you should when you read Genesis 1
and two, what He's also creating is order through humanity,
through marriage, through rulership, order.
In Genesis, God gave order to creation.
Meaning I'm going to set this up so that it's going to thrive.
I'm going to have you participate with me under my
instructions so that the earth and you all as humans will
thrive. Let's see how He does that
together in Genesis chapter one. Look down at 26 verse 26.
Then God said, let us make mankind in our image and our
likeness so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the
birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild
animals and over all the creatures that move along the
ground. So God created mankind in his
own image, in the image of God. He created them, male and
female. He created them.
God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase
in number, fill the earth and subdue it.
Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and
over every living creature that moves along the ground.
Then God said, I give you every seed bearing plant on the face
of the whole earth and every tree that is fruit with the seed
in it, they will be yours for food.
And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the
sky and all the creatures that move along the ground,
everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every
green plant for food. And it was so God creates humans
in his image. Then he gives order saying be
fruitful and multiply so that you can rule the earth.
It's going to take more and more image bearers to carry my heart
into the world and rule it, Keep it in order, not in chaos.
Then we get another angle in chapter 2 of the same story but
very much the same themes. Genesis chapter 2 is a zoomed in
snapshot of creation day six. Genesis 2 gives us more detail
and what we as image bearers are and what we are to be.
Verse 7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and
the man became a living being. Hey come on, it gets me too.
I want you to know that image bearers, us humans are created
differently than all of the creatures and were created
personally. Maybe it's because we're created
personally that we are created differently.
Everything else is spoken into existence.
Humans, however, are formed from the dust.
The Potter's hands, personal, intricate.
Psalm 139 says that he knit me together in my mother's womb.
His hands personal, intricate. And then he bends low in a very
intimate moment. And he breathed his own breath
of life into our lifeless bodies, which he does for no
other creature, at least that we read of Hallelujah.
He's a personal God creating you differently.
In chapter 1, his name is God. And God said and God said God
created the heavens and the earth.
God, God, God, God. This is the name Elohim.
Everyone say Elohim. Elohim is the name of God.
That means God as power. God is the generator of
everything. And then you move to chapter 2
where we zoomed in snapshot of the creation of humanity and we
go from God. And now Moses says Lord God.
Look at your Bibles chapter 1, God chapter 2, Lord God.
Lord God is a different name. It's the name Yahweh.
Everyone say Yahweh. Yahweh is the personal name of
God. In chapter 1 it's God as power.
In chapter 2, it's God as person.
You're made intimately, you're made differently, you're made
personally. Every single human being
reflects the image of God in the womb, out of the womb unto
death. It's why the sanctity of life
should matter intensely to the Church.
In the womb and out of the womb and on to death all the way
through. Each person has his image
bearer. We're to personally reflect his
character, his conviction, his calling, his culture, his
community. This account of humans creation
in Genesis chapter 2 is not primarily, if at all, a
scientific description of how we were made.
We don't read in Genesis 2. This is how I made an aorta or
your amygdala, or your hypothalamus are just other fun
words to say. We don't get that.
What we do get is a theological account about who we are in
relation to God. We are valued because He made us
personally, but we are humbled because we're made from the
dust. We are physical because we're
made from the dust, yet we're spiritual because He's put His
breath into us, which again, He's done for.
No other creature valued A humbled physical, yet spiritual.
You are created differently and personally this matters.
I love it. Genesis chapter 2.
Now look at verse 8. Now the Lord God had planted a
garden in the East in Eden, and there he put the man he had
formed. The Lord God made all kinds of
trees go out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the
eye, good for food in the middle of the garden where the tree of
life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Now skip down to verse 15. The middle verse is about a
bunch of rivers. Verse 15, The Lord God took the
man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of
it, and then the Lord God commanded the man.
You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must
not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for
when you eat from it, you will certainly die.
I don't know if you're picking up on this, but first Adam is
created and the next thing that happens is he's commissioned.
It means that every person is born with purpose, means that
nobody is born on accident. Nobody is created without the
commissioning that God has given to Adam, and thereby all of
Adam's descendants, of which we are, many of them, lots of them,
billions of them. Your purpose is this image
bearers are created to rule under rule.
We are to rule under His rule. Genesis chapter 2 uses the word
work. We are to work the land to care
for it. What does this word mean?
The best way I can describe it to you is if you look ahead to
Numbers chapter 3, you don't have to turn there.
And Numbers chapter 3, God is building the temple where He's
going to bring His presence, and He appoints the Levites as
priests over the temple. He says you're going to work in
chapter chapter 3, verses 7 and 8.
You're going to work at this temple and it's not just like I
got to go punch the clock and do my job.
My trabajar? Is that how you say it in
Espanol Trabaja Trabajar Trabajo.
I'll just stop. I'm quitting Duolingo today.
Useless 285 day streak, OK? He says work it and it's not a
job, it's an honor. Is the responsibility to care
deeply for the furnishings and the practices of the temple, The
responsibility of it, the reverence in the work to care
for this temple and this word work is the exact same word that
God uses for Adam here in Genesis.
I want you to care for this place like the priest will one
day care for my temple, diligently, reverently care for
it. God wants us to care for this
creation. This is His first order to us,
this temple that he has built for himself, our first
responsibility. And just a major note here,
every time that God gives orders and which starts here in
Genesis, the first thing He tells us to do is to care for
the earth. Every time that He gives an
order, He is saying to us, this is how it will go well on the
earth. This is how you can sustain this
temple. I'm putting it in order and I'm
entrusting it to you. And note this, every time that
we do not follow the orders, some not good stuff happens,
which we'll talk about in a minute.
God continues His instructions. First of all, He leads with what
we can do before stating what we can't do.
He says you may eat from every of these bazillion trees that
are here, but you can't eat from this one.
And don't you know that the devil will often have us fixated
on God's prohibitions at the expense of His permissions?
Everything that He has said that we can do, that He wants to do
in US. Love, peace, joy, all of these
permissions, life, freedom, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and a
few things those aren't good for you, withhold from them.
But our minds, through the devil, through our own minds, we
fixate on the prohibitions. I wasn't going to do it anyways
until you said no, and now I think I might.
I wonder if Adam and Eve would have just been satisfied with
what they were permitted to do as opposed to what God limited
them from doing, if the whole story would have been different
for them and for us. By the way, the permissions and
the prohibitions of God were for their good and for our good
today, both of them. What He says we can do is for
your good. What He says we can't do is for
your good, and not just your good, but the good of the place
that God created. It's the order of God for how
things will go well on the earth if we do them.
And if we don't, we get Genesis chapter 2, verse 17, the first
mention of death. It's the outcome of
disobedience. We are going to need help here
lest we die. We're going to need a Messiah.
You put this all together, our Trabajo.
Our job here on earth is to rule the earth for the benefit of all
humanity of the earth, of all the animals, according to the
rules of God. He's calling us the stewards.
That's the modern day word, to care for another person's
property of the earth so that it will all go well with humans and
animals. And if we don't, if we don't
abide by His rules and His orders, then we and the earth
will experience death first spiritually for us as humans and
for us and the earth, eventually physically death.
I want you to know that death is not the punishment of God for
disobedience. He's not up there to say, oh you
messed up, guess what, you're going to die.
What kind of guy would that be? Did I miss something?
Death is an outcome of our choices, not a punishment of
God. If I went home and chose to eat
my laptop, it would not go well for me, nor for my laptop.
It sounds silly, but there's a design and we know the way that
things should work and if we don't use them as they were
designed to work, it's painful, it's destructive.
I've told you this before, if you put milk in your gas tank of
your car, it's not going to go well.
It's not a punishment, it's just an outcome of consequence of
what you've done. And when we don't live according
to the order that God has given us in Genesis, the roots, the
design, the purpose in Genesis, that it all begins to fall
apart. It begins to break down, which
we'll talk about next week. Aren't you excited to talk about
sin entering the world next week, Everybody?
No, Here's an example of God's order and rulership.
The next thing that happens, marriage.
Genesis chapter 2, verses 18 to 24.
I'm not going to read the creation of marriage account,
but I want you to know it falls under the same wisdom.
God created marriage as he created it, a husband and a wife
and he put them in place as part of the created order so that the
new creation will continue to operate well.
Go and produce more image bearers and allow them to
flourish on the earth. To continue to rule over the
earth, to care for the earth. When you hear the word rule,
it's really to care to steward the earth well.
But anytime that we live outside of that, any aberration of his
created plan leads to the same place, death and the need for a
Messiah. You, you better believe it's
from the garden that the devil start attacking marriage.
The devil didn't show up till Adam was married.
Any aberration of his creative plan leads to the same place,
death and the need for Messiah. But let's have some good news.
Genesis 2 ends in a very great place.
We get the perfect picture of things as they should be for all
image bearers. Genesis chapter 2 verse 25.
Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.
Image bearers rest with God, at ease in creation with the Lord
our God. And Genesis chapter 2 verse 25
where it's like an aha moment. I see it now.
It's all becoming clear. Why did God create the heavens
and the earth? Why did God create humans?
What's going on here? This is the original design from
the beginning, the intent of God to forever dwell in a glorious
place with a glorious people. This is what's happening in the
beginning. This is Genesis chapter 1.
Genesis chapter 2, we see the heart of the Father say I'm
going to create a beautiful place and I'm going to go and be
there with these people that I love intensely and spend all of
eternity living like this in this place with these people.
I can't wait. And he starts creating and now
y'all take care of it. It's going to go great.
Just take care of it. Do what I say, it's going to be
great. This is another view of Sabbath
by the way, not just time set apart for the Lord, but it's
time set apart with the Lord. Genesis 1 says that he rested on
the 7th day and he's not like laying back in a hammock
drinking lemonade. He's not tired.
The word rested here. Is better understood as like, I
took my glory, my presence, and I rested it in this space.
I created all this and then I rested.
I decided to make this my home. I'm resting my glory here.
I'm setting it down. His intent to dwell with
humanity in a glorious place is the single driving theme of the
entire meta narrative. You'll see it all throughout
from beginning to end. It's here in Genesis in the
garden. His intent to dwell with us in a
glorious place. You'll see it in the wilderness
Tabernacle. Exodus chapter 40.
They build this beautiful movable temple and God comes and
he rests his glory there. They build this the temples
David and Solomon the one that Solomon inhabits First Kings
chapter 8 Second Chronicles 5 and God rests his glory there.
John chapter one verse 14 says that the word Jesus became flesh
and dwelt among us. He made his glory present here
Matthew chapter 28 verse 20. Jesus says I'm going to be with
you forever. Lo, to the end of the age.
I'm going to be with you, my intent to dwell with you.
And then he backs it up in Acts chapter 1 and 2 by imparting the
Holy Spirit to the church to be with us now until the age to
come, which is in Revelation chapter 21, verse 3.
This is the end of the story from the beginning.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's
dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with
them. They will be his people and God
himself will be with them and be their God.
From the beginning, God has just wanted to be with you, and in
the end, he'll do everything necessary to ensure it.
And one day, pray it, soon he will return.
And these bodies, these temporary failing tent suits
that we wear, this earth which has now been corrupted by sin,
will fade away and we'll be given glorified bodies.
It'll be a new heaven and a new earth and Revelation 21 three
will look like Genesis 225. We will be with God naked and no
shame. Amen.
Go ahead. When you hear the word naked,
don't think about the removal of clothing.
Think about the removal of anything that would keep us from
the presence of God. No sin, no shame, no guilt, no
condemnation, no regrets, no tears, no cancer.
Just you and the Lord and the cool of the evening and His
intent fulfilled. We get a snapshot of it briefly
in Genesis, and we'll live it eternally when He returns.
So just a question for you. What do you choose to believe?
Because the creation story, the creation of marriage, the
creation of order all gives us a choice.
Do I believe that God has set up this earth as his temple with
Eden as the most holy places, throne room, And his intent was
for us to always be with him in this throne room.
And then sin comes, which we'll talk about next week.
And we're kicked out because of our own choices, not because
he's you're out. But in the design, our reward,
what we've earned is a removal from Eden, the removal from his
presence. And then the Messiah comes and
it restores the ability of any human to enter in to Eden again,
enter into the most holy place in the throne room and begin to
live life even today in His presence, where He will be your
God and you will be His person. All He's ever wanted is to be
with you. Sin separates you.
Jesus makes the way that you can be with him again.
Thanks for joining us today. We hope God is speaking to your
heart through this message. If you'd like to connect with
us, you can text connect to 407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate
dot church. Have a great week.