Speaker 1: I love that Mike was in the first service this morning and you know, when I came up in the first service, I almost said right here that what happened was Mike found Jesus.
Speaker 1: And that's true, mike found Jesus and his life was radically transformed by the grace of God.
Speaker 1: But what really happened was the goodness and the mercy of God chased Mike down and the more Mike ran, the more God pursued Mike and there came a day where Mike's eyes were opened to the glory of God and Mike's a new man.
Speaker 1: And I love that because that's on the table for every single one of us.
Speaker 1: The goodness and the mercy of God has followed us in to 2024, and isn't that good news for all of us today.
Speaker 1: So, father, we're grateful.
Speaker 1: We're grateful to be in your house, we're grateful to be here.
Speaker 1: Father, we pray now that, as we go to your word, that you would speak loudly and clearly by the power of your spirit In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: And everybody says amen.
Speaker 1: Hey, kids, why don't y'all head out to kids?
Speaker 1: Men, let's give it up for our kids as they roll out this morning.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being in church at the start of a new year.
Speaker 1: You know, all throughout the scriptures, you see, the principle of giving God our first and our best.
Speaker 1: So I love the fact that we're gathered together on the first Sunday of 2024, just believing that God's got something he wants to do.
Speaker 1: God's got something he wants to say to us today.
Speaker 1: So we're kicking off today a new collection of messages titled Vapor and Rust, and that title will make a little more sense as we go, but here's the premise God has given us one life to live and he invites us to steward well the life that we have been given.
Speaker 1: He invites us to use the life that we have been given not to glorify ourselves, not to lift up our own name, but to give him glory and to lift up his name.
Speaker 1: The question is what does it look like to live a life of purpose to the glory of God, and what does that mean for me as an individual?
Speaker 1: What does that mean for you as an individual and what does that mean for us as the body of Christ?
Speaker 1: As we go through this series, we're going to hopefully ask and answer two major questions.
Speaker 1: The first is why is the world the way that it is?
Speaker 1: You ever wondered that?
Speaker 1: You ever looked at life and be like why is this the way that it is.
Speaker 1: You ever looked at somebody and be like why are you the way that you are?
Speaker 1: You know like, why are things the way that things are?
Speaker 1: And the second question is this what are we, as the church, supposed to do about it?
Speaker 1: Why is the world like it is, and what are we, as the people of God gathered in the name of Jesus, supposed to do about it?
Speaker 1: It's a series about purpose, about stewardship, about why we are on this planet.
Speaker 1: You know the question of purpose the topic of purpose has been studied a lot by psychologists and scientists and researchers over the last couple of decades.
Speaker 1: I am neither scientist, psychologist or researcher, but I can read and Google and so I was doing some reading this week about the science and psychology behind purpose and what a sense of purpose actually does for us.
Speaker 1: And the statistics, the studies, are fascinating when it comes to what living with purpose actually does for our lives.
Speaker 1: The studies found that for youth, for young people, living with a sense of purpose leads to higher levels of happiness and greater satisfaction in life, and all of us can look at that and say, absolutely, of course.
Speaker 1: For a teenager who knows why they're on the planet, of course they're going to be more satisfied with life than somebody who has no idea what they're doing here.
Speaker 1: For adults, a sense of purpose, a clear sense of who we are and why we're here, is directly linked to greater longevity.
Speaker 1: So you stay sharp for longer and greater cognitive functioning, right?
Speaker 1: You think clearer when you understand who you are and why you're here.
Speaker 1: A sense of purpose is linked to overall lower stress levels.
Speaker 1: We want some lower stress levels in 2024.
Speaker 1: That just sounds great to me, and we know what stress does to our health.
Speaker 1: So greater sense of purpose, lower stress, better health I'm all in on all of that.
Speaker 1: And then studies also found y'all and maybe the most interesting of all people who live with a clear sense of purpose floss their teeth more.
Speaker 1: Now I'll be honest, I don't know what that says about my sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: I go to the dentist.
Speaker 1: My dentist is like, do you floss?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, every six months when I come to the dentist, you know and I'm just confessing today, maybe that's you, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: When the other three, I can see.
Speaker 1: But that question of purpose, like if somebody comes to you and says okay, what is your purpose?
Speaker 1: Why are you on this planet?
Speaker 1: Why is there breath in your lungs and a beating heart in your chest?
Speaker 1: Why are you here?
Speaker 1: David says in Psalm 90, verse 12, he says teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Speaker 1: Teach us to number our days to recognize that we are limited and finite, that we have a start and we have a stop, because, when we see it that way, there's wisdom that comes from that.
Speaker 1: James.
Speaker 1: In James, chapter four, verse 14, he puts it like this he says so what is your life?
Speaker 1: What is your life?
Speaker 1: Isn't that an interesting question?
Speaker 1: What is your life?
Speaker 1: You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Speaker 1: Mist can also be translated vapor.
Speaker 1: You're a mist, you're a vapor, you're temporary, you're here for a moment and then you're gone.
Speaker 1: And, by the way, the context of this verse 14 in James, chapter four, it's in the context of a conversation about the future, about what comes next.
Speaker 1: James is warning us not to look at life and go here's where I'm going tomorrow and here's where I'm going next year, and here's what's going to happen Ten years from now.
Speaker 1: Planning is great, long range planning is great, but we've got to hold our plans with an open hand.
Speaker 1: James says you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker 1: You're a mist here today and gone tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And then Jesus in Matthew, chapter six, sermon on the mount principles of the kingdom is the context of this passage.
Speaker 1: Jesus looks at his followers and he says this don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves can break in and steal, but rather store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also so.
Speaker 1: If we were to combine all of these scriptures into one thought, it might sound something like this when we number our days, we focus on what matters most and we trust God with the future.
Speaker 1: As we learn to number our days, we're able to focus today on what matters most today and entrust the future that we don't know and we can't control anyway to God, who is in control and does know.
Speaker 1: And that sounds great, does it not?
Speaker 1: How many of you in 2024 would like to have a clear sense of focus today, no anxiety and stress about the future, and to know that in everything, god was in control.
Speaker 1: That sounds pretty good, right, but isn't what we often do?
Speaker 1: Something like this, we do this.
Speaker 1: We're not that great at numbering our days, and so we worry a lot about the future.
Speaker 1: It often leads us to focus today on the wrong thing Rather than seeing our limitations, embracing our limitations, doing today what God's called us to do and trusting tomorrow to Him.
Speaker 1: We are much more prone to thinking that we are infinite, thinking we got all the time in the world stressing about the future, being anxious about what is to come, and then it causes us to lose perspective and purpose in the day to day.
Speaker 1: So what do we do with that?
Speaker 1: How do we navigate this world?
Speaker 1: How do we not waste the vapor that is our life, and how do we fight the temptation to store up temporary treasures that will one day rust away?
Speaker 1: Vapor and rust that's what we're talking about for the next few weeks together, and today, to kind of put a framework up for this series, we're going to go to Genesis, chapter one.
Speaker 1: We're going to look at the first three chapters of Genesis today.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, we're not going to read every verse in three chapters.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be here till this afternoon.
Speaker 1: I promise we'll get you out in good order today.
Speaker 1: But the goal today is simple we want to see the character of God in the creation story and develop some confidence in God because of who he is and what he's done.
Speaker 1: Character of God in creation.
Speaker 1: Confidence in God.
Speaker 1: Contacts for Genesis, chapter one.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you're in a life group, this might be a little bit of a recap, and I love that.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize we were going to be studying Genesis in the new year, when we begin to kind of kick around the ideas for the series at the start of the year.
Speaker 1: I love how God lines things up.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool to me.
Speaker 1: Contacts for Genesis.
Speaker 1: Genesis was written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by a guy named Moses.
Speaker 1: Familiar with Moses if you've been in church before.
Speaker 1: Moses was the one who, under the hand of God, under the power of God, led the Israelite people out of slavery.
Speaker 1: Israel had been enslaved in Egypt for 430 years.
Speaker 1: Generation upon generation upon generation grew up captive in Egypt, enslaved, without a home, under the authority of a people who worshiped not just one God but many gods.
Speaker 1: And then one day, a guy named Moses shows up on the scene and says hey, god sent me to deliver you from the hand of Pharaoh, from the people of Egypt, and so there's some plagues that happen.
Speaker 1: You can read about it in Exodus.
Speaker 1: There's a parting of the Red Sea.
Speaker 1: As Israel leaves Egypt, the Red Sea comes back and covers the Egyptian army who's in pursuit of the Israelites, and Israel finds themselves at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Speaker 1: Moses goes up, he meets with God, gets the Ten Commandments and sometimes in that wilderness period is when most scholars and theologians say Genesis was written down for the very first time, nearly roughly 2,500 years after Adam and Eve walked the planet.
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve's story is written down and handed to the Israelites in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Now, that context is important.
Speaker 1: In the first service I told them it was 2,500 years after Abraham, which messed up the context completely, because that'll make no sense and it's bad math.
Speaker 1: But it's Adam.
Speaker 1: 2,500 years after the events of Genesis, chapter one, moses writes this stuff down and he reads it, or somebody reads it to the Israelites as they're in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Now, james, why are you telling us all of this this morning?
Speaker 1: Because that changes the questions that we ask about Genesis.
Speaker 1: See, a lot of times we come to Genesis, chapter one and we're reading the creation account and we're like, okay, well, how old is the earth and where are the dinosaurs?
Speaker 1: That's what I want to know, right, earth, dinosaurs, what I need to know.
Speaker 1: And those questions are great questions.
Speaker 1: They're significant questions, they're meaningful questions.
Speaker 1: I am just more and more convinced that they are not the main question that Genesis is answering.
Speaker 1: Think about the context Moses, people of Israel in the wilderness, 430 years of captivity in a pagan culture, polytheistic worship.
Speaker 1: They're asking one question who is this God that has the power, by the hand of Moses, to lead us into freedom, to wipe out the entirety of the Egyptian army, to overcome the power and the authority of Pharaoh?
Speaker 1: Who is this God and what is he like?
Speaker 1: And why can we trust our lives to him?
Speaker 1: And so, with that in mind, let's read a little bit in Genesis, chapter one In the beginning, god created.
Speaker 1: What a start to a phenomenal theological foundation.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, god.
Speaker 1: In the beginning God.
Speaker 1: The story begins with the eternal, pre-existent, uncreated creator.
Speaker 1: In the beginning.
Speaker 1: Who is there, god?
Speaker 1: This isn't one of the little G gods worshiped by the Egyptians.
Speaker 1: This is the one true, sovereign God, who is over all.
Speaker 1: And what does he do?
Speaker 1: He creates.
Speaker 1: Now you need to know this morning that that every ancient Near Eastern culture had some form of a creation myth and you can research and we don't have time to get into all of them today, but but there are a lot of similarities in the other ancient Near Eastern creation stories.
Speaker 1: There's oftentimes a war amongst gods and there's violence and there's chaos and there's disorder.
Speaker 1: And in these Creation accounts what often happens is the gods create humanity in order to have forces for battle and slaves for service, and that's the culture of the Egyptians.
Speaker 1: The Egyptians believed that their gods created them to be Servants, to be slaves, to serve the needs of Pharaoh, who was like a god to them.
Speaker 1: Keep that in mind in this account you have.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth.
Speaker 1: Now verse 2 is interesting.
Speaker 1: The earth was without form, void, darkness was over the face of the deep.
Speaker 1: You may be wondering well, god's creating?
Speaker 1: Why is there without form and void and darkness in this new creation of God?
Speaker 1: A lot of explanations have been offered.
Speaker 1: I personally believe that when God creates the heavens and the earth in verse 1, that includes all of the spiritual beings that Inhabit the heavens, the angels created by God for the worship of God.
Speaker 1: Somewhere between Genesis 1 1 and Genesis 1 2, I believe Satan Rebels against God.
Speaker 1: 2nd Peter, chapter 2, verse 4, says that Satan and his demons, his fallen angels, didn't stay in the position Established for them by God.
Speaker 1: Rather, they tried to overthrow God and take over, and I think what happens here Is God creates the heavens and the earth.
Speaker 1: Satan rebels and is cast out of heaven, and so you end up with, in verse 2, an earth that is without form and void.
Speaker 1: In Hebrew it's tohu and bohu, which is just a great thing to say, is it not tohu and bohu?
Speaker 1: And it's only used to describe really, really chaotic moments.
Speaker 1: So the earth is Chaotic, it's dark, why, I think Satan has rebelled, he's been cast out of heaven, but in that moment, the spirit of God is hovering over the face of the waters verse 3.
Speaker 1: And God said Let there be light.
Speaker 1: Let there be light and that, what in the world is going on?
Speaker 1: Well, here's the point of all of that this morning.
Speaker 1: God is Overall, he's sovereign, he's creator.
Speaker 1: God has the power to bring order to chaos, and God has the power to bring light in the midst of darkness.
Speaker 1: What a theological foundation for the Israelites as they're wondering through the wilderness, going who is this God and when is our life heading?
Speaker 1: Hey, you can trust God, because he brings order from chaos.
Speaker 1: He brings light in the darkness.
Speaker 1: When God speaks, things happen, unlike all of the other little g gods that people worship, who are Engaged in conflict and they can't win a battle, so they need to create people to help them out and to be servants and slaves to them.
Speaker 1: This God has the power, by himself and with his word, to bring order and light.
Speaker 1: And can I say to you today, I don't know what 20, 24 holds for you, I don't know what it holds for me, but the same God Is present in our world today.
Speaker 1: Maybe you feel like the Israelites wondering through the wilderness, wondering what the future holds.
Speaker 1: God still has the power to bring order to chaos and light to the darkness.
Speaker 1: And If we had time, we would read the rest of Genesis 1 this morning.
Speaker 1: But if we did, we would see this repetition.
Speaker 1: That happens multiple times in Genesis 1 you see the phrase and God said, highlighted in yellow.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can see it from where you are, but if you highlight in your Bible, I would challenge you go through.
Speaker 1: Highlight every time.
Speaker 1: You see in Genesis 1 the phrase and God said and God said and God said and God said how does God do his work of creating?
Speaker 1: How does God do his work of bringing order to chaos, light to darkness?
Speaker 1: God speaks.
Speaker 1: God speaks Unlike these other little G gods that are engaged in conflict.
Speaker 1: They can't win.
Speaker 1: Our God only has to speak a word and Things happen.
Speaker 1: Things change, things that were not come into existence.
Speaker 1: Universes are created, solar systems appear, planets and animals and Dinosaurs and whales and sharks and all the stuff that we see around us today.
Speaker 1: It's here because God said Second repeated phrase in Genesis 1 is and it was so, and that good news what God says.
Speaker 1: It is so you can trust the word of God.
Speaker 1: When God speaks, it is so, and so if God looks at me and says I love you guess what it is.
Speaker 1: So If God looks at me and says you're forgiven, it is so.
Speaker 1: When you come to the word of God and you read the word of God, it is so you can trust his word, because he's the one true God, sovereign over all.
Speaker 1: There's another phrase in Genesis 1 that's repeated and I love it, and God saw that it was good.
Speaker 1: Can we say good together this morning?
Speaker 1: One, two, three.
Speaker 1: Now if somebody invites you over for dinner and you go and you sit down and you're at the table and they start pulling stuff out of the oven, pulling stuff out of the fridge and they lay out a spread on the table and it is an epic spread.
Speaker 1: They have been working for hours and hours and hours in the kitchen and it is clear they have gone to great lengths, spared no expense, to cook you this meal and you sit down and you dig in and you go to town on dinner and at the end of dinner they look at you and they say hey, how did you like the meal?
Speaker 1: And you look back and you say it's good.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen?
Speaker 1: They're going to be like you ain't never coming back to my house for dinner again.
Speaker 1: Or if you do, it's McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Next time I'll pick up some pizza.
Speaker 1: You get the $5 hot and ready little Caesars on the way you bring dinner next time.
Speaker 1: If all you got to say is it's good, some of the parents in the room you're like kids pay attention.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 1: In our culture, when we hear the word good, we're like well, there's a lot of levels above good that I would much prefer to hear than good.
Speaker 1: It could be great, it could be amazing, it could be epic, it could be incredible, it could be phenomenal, but good good's just like, it's just good.
Speaker 1: But when Moses writes the word good in Genesis, chapter one, in the Hebrew language, to say that something was good means that it is exactly as God intended, without fault, without flaw, without error.
Speaker 1: It is exactly as God intended it to be.
Speaker 1: So for us to declare today together that God is good, what we are saying is that, through and through, 100%, god is perfect in all of his ways.
Speaker 1: He's without flaw, without fault, without error, in everything he does, everything he says, everything that he thinks, and we see in Genesis one that he makes a world and he sees that it is good, exactly as he intended.
Speaker 1: So here's the first big theological framework for the Israelites and the wilderness and for us today.
Speaker 1: God is the one true God, the sovereign and good Creator.
Speaker 1: He is the God over all, and in all he does and in all his ways he is good.
Speaker 1: Aren't you glad he's the same yesterday, today and forever.
Speaker 1: His character doesn't change, his power doesn't fade, his authority never ends.
Speaker 1: The sovereign God, good through and through, over all of his creation.
Speaker 1: And what happened?
Speaker 1: Well, let's keep going.
Speaker 1: Genesis, chapter one, verse 26,.
Speaker 1: Then God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Speaker 1: Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
Speaker 1: So God created man in his image and the image of God.
Speaker 1: He created in male and female.
Speaker 1: He created them.
Speaker 1: So what happens?
Speaker 1: Day six of creation?
Speaker 1: God makes people Adam and Eve in his image.
Speaker 1: Which means Adam and Eve were created by God to reflect the glory of God.
Speaker 1: They weren't created to be servants and slaves, simply existing to do the bidding of the God over the world, like no, they were created in the image of God, to know God and to reflect God to the world.
Speaker 1: Isn't this beautiful, created with dignity and value and worth.
Speaker 1: Every human being who's ever lived on the planet bears the image of God, and so for us, in our world today, every human being we encounter is created in the image of God.
Speaker 1: Genesis one, 26 and 27.
Speaker 1: Every human being that you encounter is inherently valuable, inherently worthy of dignity and respect.
Speaker 1: But I know some bad people.
Speaker 1: Well, we're all bad people.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that in just a moment.
Speaker 1: And every human being carries, even in our sin, shame and guilt, the image of God on our lives dignity, value, worth.
Speaker 1: Not only that God creates humanity with a sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: What does God say?
Speaker 1: Genesis 26, god says let them have dominion over the fish or the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
Speaker 1: Now, who's over all this stuff?
Speaker 1: God is right.
Speaker 1: Only God has the right to tell other people and created things.
Speaker 1: Who can be over what?
Speaker 1: And here is God in all of his authority saying to humanity made in his image, I made you to partner with me, I made you to work with me, to be in relationship with me.
Speaker 1: We share in the ruling of God's good world.
Speaker 1: God invites humanity, say I want you to be part of what I'm doing in the earth.
Speaker 1: And just in case we miss it there, in verse 28, god blessed them and God said to them be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subduate, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Speaker 1: Did you catch the beginning of verse 28, by the way?
Speaker 1: And God blessed them.
Speaker 1: So God creates people in his image, gives them a purpose, a partnership with him in the running of his world, and he blesses them.
Speaker 1: Go back and read Genesis one this week.
Speaker 1: That's the only time in Genesis one that this phrase and God blessed them appears.
Speaker 1: God creates people and he elevates them above every other aspect of his creation.
Speaker 1: He blesses them.
Speaker 1: Look at good news for you today.
Speaker 1: You bear the image of Almighty God and his blessing is on your life.
Speaker 1: His blessing is on your life.
Speaker 1: Like I don't feel blessed.
Speaker 1: It's not about how you feel.
Speaker 1: It's about what God says in the beginning God blesses humanity.
Speaker 1: God invites humanity to partner with him in the way that his world works.
Speaker 1: So here's the second big theological anchor for us in this series.
Speaker 1: It's this that you bear the image of God and you're created by God to partner with God in the running of God's good world.
Speaker 1: What should you do in 2024?
Speaker 1: You should bear the image of God and you should partner with God in what God is doing in the earth.
Speaker 1: If the story just stopped right there, wouldn't that be great.
Speaker 1: We just like hey, that's great, amazing.
Speaker 1: God's good, he made us and now we get to partner with God and end of story.
Speaker 1: Genesis one was the end of the story.
Speaker 1: That would be pretty epic.
Speaker 1: Genesis two a little bit of a retouch.
Speaker 1: Genesis two a little bit of a retelling of the creation account.
Speaker 1: You get some more details on Adam and Eve, a beautiful verse on marriage at the end of Genesis chapter two.
Speaker 1: And then Genesis three hits and it starts with this phrase now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast in the field that God had made.
Speaker 1: Now y'all, there are a lot of questions that show up in Genesis chapter three, are there not?
Speaker 1: Where did this snake come from all of a sudden?
Speaker 1: Why is he in the garden that God plants and makes for Adam and Eve?
Speaker 1: Why is he talking?
Speaker 1: Why does he appear to have legs?
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot happening here with the serpent in Genesis chapter three, some of you are like he's got legs.
Speaker 1: Go read it Right.
Speaker 1: He's here in the garden and he shows up speaking to the woman and he says this did God actually say which has been his strategy from the beginning?
Speaker 1: That's still his strategy today?
Speaker 1: Did God actually say Satan from the beginning, has wanted to introduce doubt about the truth, the validity of what God says.
Speaker 1: Because if he can get us to doubt what God says, he can get us to do what he wants.
Speaker 1: And so he says to Eve did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
Speaker 1: The woman said to the serpent you may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.
Speaker 1: But God said we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.
Speaker 1: But God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden.
Speaker 1: Neither shall you touch it lest you die.
Speaker 1: But the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die.
Speaker 1: You will not surely die.
Speaker 1: Maybe God doesn't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: Maybe God's holding out on you.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a better option available to you.
Speaker 1: For God knows so, the snake speaking, god knows that when you eat of that tree your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Speaker 1: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes, the tree was to be desired to make one, why she took of its fruit and she ate.
Speaker 1: She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Speaker 1: Now here's the lie at the heart of what the snake says God's holding out on you because he doesn't want you to be like him.
Speaker 1: Snake says to Eve God knows, if you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.
Speaker 1: But think back to Genesis, chapter one.
Speaker 1: What is Genesis one?
Speaker 1: 26 and 27?
Speaker 1: Say God says let us make people man, male and female in our image, after our likeness.
Speaker 1: Guys, we were created by God to be like God.
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve were already like God.
Speaker 1: They weren't God, but they bore his image, they lived in his presence, they dwelled in his good garden.
Speaker 1: And the snake says you know what.
Speaker 1: You actually can't trust what God says.
Speaker 1: You need to lead your life by your own understanding.
Speaker 1: Don't trust what God says.
Speaker 1: Trust what you see, follow your heart, trust what you feel, look around you and you make your own interpretation of the world and you go your way, even if it goes against what God says.
Speaker 1: And isn't that exactly what happens all around us and within us every single day?
Speaker 1: Trust what you see, trust what you think, trust what you feel and follow your heart In church.
Speaker 1: We have to get to the point where we say, hey, you know what, I know that I have feelings and I know that I have thoughts and I know that there are people around me that are telling me how I should live my life.
Speaker 1: But if any of that is in conflict with what God says, I'm going to go with what God says, because he's the sovereign and good creator, he is consistent, he is good through and through, and so if he says it, I can trust it, even if it seems to butt up against my feelings and my thoughts and my interpretation of how I think the world ought to run.
Speaker 1: I'm going with Almighty God In this moment.
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve do their own thing.
Speaker 1: They trust their own understanding interpretation.
Speaker 1: Take the fruit they eat it.
Speaker 1: Paul makes clear in the New Testament y'all, if we had been there, we'd have done the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's easy for us to sit here and be like Adam Eve.
Speaker 1: Come on, y'all.
Speaker 1: You're in the garden, god's with you.
Speaker 1: What are you saying?
Speaker 1: We'd have done the same thing?
Speaker 1: We'd have done the same thing.
Speaker 1: And so what happens?
Speaker 1: Well, they eat the fruit.
Speaker 1: They realize they're naked.
Speaker 1: They're so in fig leaves together to cover their shame.
Speaker 1: God shows up.
Speaker 1: Where are you?
Speaker 1: They're hiding.
Speaker 1: So it's shame and blame.
Speaker 1: Shame and blame.
Speaker 1: This is what sin does.
Speaker 1: Shame and blame.
Speaker 1: And Eve's like well, you know, god the snake did it.
Speaker 1: This is the snake's fault.
Speaker 1: Adam's like God, it's actually Eve's fault.
Speaker 1: She told me and you made her.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to point to Vingor and you and her Like we're just shame and blame and everybody in Genesis, chapter three.
Speaker 1: And you're like well, it's 1130 James, which means we got to be coming to the conclusion of this.
Speaker 1: And it feels a little bit like the Empire strikes back right now, where Luke gets his hand chopped off and all of a sudden he's got a robot arm and Han Solo's in carbonite and they're standing at the window and we're supposed to think everything's good.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't look that good right now.
Speaker 1: Anybody feeling a little bit of that Shame, blame, sin has entered the garden.
Speaker 1: God's not thrilled with Adam and Eve's choice.
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 1: Here's what's happening in Genesis, chapter three.
Speaker 1: Here's our theological anchor.
Speaker 1: God, in his sovereignty and as an act of love, has given us the freedom to make choices that actually shift the future.
Speaker 1: It's why.
Speaker 1: This is why.
Speaker 1: This is why, when I asked my wife to marry me.
Speaker 1: I got down on a knee and I opened the box and I said will you marry me?
Speaker 1: What you will marry me, because that's a hostage situation and that's not what we were going for.
Speaker 1: I said will you marry me?
Speaker 1: And Tara said no way, no way, no way.
Speaker 1: And I was like wait a minute, we got to clarify some things right here.
Speaker 1: Do you mean no way?
Speaker 1: Like you're really excited about this and you can't believe I'm asking you right now.
Speaker 1: She's like yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: I meant yes, I will marry you.
Speaker 1: I'm like praise the Lord.
Speaker 1: And just to clarify, I was real nervous there for a second.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing y'all, god doesn't want robots.
Speaker 1: God's not looking for us to serve him simply because we've been ordered to.
Speaker 1: God's not making us as people with no ability to choose.
Speaker 1: God is inviting me and you into relationship with him and, in his sovereignty, he's given us the freedom of responsibility.
Speaker 1: We can choose him or we can not choose him.
Speaker 1: We can say yes or we can say no, and y'all the choices that we make, they matter, they change things.
Speaker 1: Yes, god is sovereign.
Speaker 1: He is overall, 100% truth and, at the same time, the things that you and I do each day.
Speaker 1: The choices we make to choose God or to not choose God, to choose to love or to not choose to love it changes things.
Speaker 1: It makes a difference in the world around us, and we see in Genesis, chapter three, what happens when we fail to choose God.
Speaker 1: We call that sin right.
Speaker 1: It's choosing our way over God's way, and what we got to understand today is that sin has massive ramifications on us internally and externally and the world around us.
Speaker 1: Shame and blame and guilt all finds its root in Genesis, chapter three, as Adam and Eve choose their way over God's way and we in them have done the same thing.
Speaker 1: So God says to the serpent verse 14, because you've done this, cursed to you above all livestock, above all beasts of the field.
Speaker 1: On your belly, you shall go and dust, you shall eat all the days of your life.
Speaker 1: And then, in verse 15, this is what's called the proto-evangelium, or first good news, first gospel.
Speaker 1: God says I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring.
Speaker 1: He will bruise or crush your head and you shall bruise his heel.
Speaker 1: So in the garden, god looks at the snake and says hey, your days are numbered Because there's going to come one who's a descendant of woman and there's going to come a moment in his life where you take your best shot at him and you bruise his heel, but in that moment he's going to crush your head.
Speaker 1: First good news and if you keep reading in Genesis 3, what happens is God takes an animal skin and he covers Adam and Eve.
Speaker 1: Again, so many questions when did God get an animal skin?
Speaker 1: Well, how do you get an animal skin?
Speaker 1: Well, an animal's got to die.
Speaker 1: So you see in Genesis 3, 15, the first good news, you see at the end of Genesis 3, a sacrifice made for the forgiveness, the covering of sin.
Speaker 1: It's good news.
Speaker 1: And thousands of years later, there's a man in a small town called Bethlehem who's asked a question by a group of Pharisees, religious leaders trying to trap him, trick him, catch him with his words, get him to say something.
Speaker 1: They can point at him and go hey, well, you said wrong there, that's not truth, you're not, clearly not from God.
Speaker 1: They say to Jesus.
Speaker 1: They say you know, you're from God, you speak what's true.
Speaker 1: Should we, as Israelites, hebrew people who worship Yahweh, should we pay taxes to Caesar Trying to get him on the bad side of the Jewish people in Rome in this moment.
Speaker 1: Jesus responds he says well, show me.
Speaker 1: Show me a coin.
Speaker 1: It's Matthew 22.
Speaker 1: Show me a coin.
Speaker 1: So somebody digs in their pockets, pulls out a coin.
Speaker 1: Here's a coin, hold it up.
Speaker 1: Jesus says whose image, whose likeness is on that coin?
Speaker 1: The religious leaders are like oh, that's Caesar's image on the coin.
Speaker 1: The coin bears Caesar's image.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is like great, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, because rust is going to take all that one day anyway.
Speaker 1: Give that to Caesar.
Speaker 1: But he says give to God what belongs to God.
Speaker 1: And so the question for me and for you today what is it that bears the image of God that belongs to Almighty God?
Speaker 1: It's not a coin, because moth and rust will take care of that stuff one day.
Speaker 1: But your life, my life, we bear the image, the stamp, the glory of Almighty God.
Speaker 1: And Jesus says that is what belongs to God.
Speaker 1: So for the people of Israel and the wilderness, who is this God?
Speaker 1: He's the good, sovereign creator.
Speaker 1: He's the one that made you in his image.
Speaker 1: He's the one that's promised to free you from your sin and your shame and your guilt.
Speaker 1: He's the God of grace who will lead you into glory.
Speaker 1: For me and you today, who is this God?
Speaker 1: He's the same God that he's always been.
Speaker 1: He's the one whose image is on your life, who's worthy of your worship today and forever.
Speaker 1: So, father, that is our prayer this morning.
Speaker 1: We would understand, god, that in a world full of people chasing after temporary things, god, we were created to be eternally yours.
Speaker 1: God, we confess our life is short.
Speaker 1: Our life is a mist.
Speaker 1: It's a vapor, here today, gone tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But we can live our lives by your power, storing up treasure that lasts forever.
Speaker 1: So, father, in this moment, help us respond to the good news of who you are and what you've done for us in Christ, and in response, god, as Paul says in Romans 12, let us offer to you acceptable worship.
Speaker 1: It's the only response that makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's to offer you our lives In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: We're going to stand in just a moment.
Speaker 1: We're going to sing.
Speaker 1: It's a moment for you to respond.
Speaker 1: You need to give your life to Jesus for the first time.
Speaker 1: He gave his life for you.
Speaker 1: He shed his blood, he went to a borrowed tomb.
Speaker 1: Three days later he resurrected from the dead so that you would know, today and forever you can have a relationship with God.
Speaker 1: Love to have that conversation with you.
Speaker 1: I'll be at the back.
Speaker 1: If you need to join the church, would love to talk with you about that.
Speaker 1: If you just need to pray, grab somebody around you, grab somebody in a green shirt, come to the back.
Speaker 1: We'll pray with you there.
Speaker 1: We'll be at the back.
Speaker 1: Come up for you to respond to say to God God, 2024 and the future belongs to you.
Speaker 1: Here's my life, amen.