John Gunter: Here with us this morning. Glad to be beginning the story. How many have you read this week? Alright. Shame the other ones.
No. No, just kidding. I do want you to be able to keep up. I told him in class this morning, if you ever get behind, don't try to catch up like eight weeks in a row or something. That's it's gonna be impossible.
Just start reading where you are. We do have one more book over here if you need it. It's $5 If that's a problem for you, we'll cover it. So don't go away without that. I want to also mention that it is available on Kindle very cheaply and Audible.
Dollars 5. There you go. I I do. I like to when I drive around, I like to listen and if you listen on Audible, you get the dramaticized version. So, it's it is it is dramatic.
Lots of lots of big voices and sounds and everything and so, please please tune in. It it's going to be great and and if you weren't here as we led up to this coming into the story, every class we have, our sermons, our small groups are going to cover the same thing. So, week one, today's class, today's sermon, our small group are all going to cover week one. You can talk to anyone who was in here about anything and we all covered the same thing. That's beautiful, beautiful thing.
We'll get to dive into that. I hope you're a part of a small group. If you're not, you know, as mentioned earlier, you can still sign up. The way I want to begin this morning is with a prayer. I want to pray for god's blessing over us as a church as we start to encounter his word.
Will you pray with me? Our father in heaven, god, we we come to you this morning. Lord, just thanking you for your grace and your mercy. Lord, thank you for just allowing us to be here and and opening your word this morning. Lord, we pray for this series.
Lord, we pray for the next thirty one weeks. Lord, help us all to have open minds and open hearts. Lord, just help us to all be in tune with what you're doing. Lord, as we we study about your story. Lord, and as your story intertwines with ours, lord, we we just pray that you draw us close to you.
Lord, for those that are still on our minds that maybe we've been praying for to invite. Lord, would you, again open up opportunities for that to happen and lord, we're just so thankful for all of those who have already come. Would you bless each one? In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Amen. Alright. Well, we talked last week about the importance of the word of god and I ask you a simple question. Do you believe that the word of god is alive and active and like good church people, you all said yes, right? And so, what we talked about was, if you really believe that, why would you not put yourself in a place to encounter the word more and more, right?
You ever been in a hard situation where all of a sudden a scripture or a song came to mind and that brought you peace in that moment? Yeah. A lot of times like we talked last week, that the word that you read or study today might not be for today but it may be for future John in need of something, in need of of peace or comfort or a strong word for even someone else And so as we encounter the word of God, I want us to do so with open minds and as I prayed open minds and open hearts that that God can change us, that God can equip us, that we can be fully equipped because God's word is living and active. And so this morning, we dive immediately into Genesis chapter one. And so before there is anything else, before there's any kind of nations or laws or anything, we understand that the subject of the story is god and what god is about or what god is doing and it's an interesting way to kind of drop into the story about creation and we can get kind of hung up on what all happened and when.
We we talked this morning in Bible class about questions you would ask god if you're able to be in that garden with him and I would ask about dinosaurs because I like dinosaurs. What kind of questions would you ask, right? There are lots of things and I would imagine once we see god, all of those will probably go away and we're like, you know what? That's not important anymore but but we understand that that what god is doing and it is the story of god and throughout this story, we'll talk about both the upper story and what god is doing and the lower story about what we see god doing here. We may not understand all the upper story but we have the lower story of what's going on in my daily life.
You ever been confused about how things were going to work out? Yeah? I'd really like to know right now and actually, I'd really like to have it work out right now but you've probably also been through difficult times that you wouldn't wish on anyone but you came out on the other side going, thank you lord. I've been blessed. I have grown as a person and and I take that later on.
Maybe I'm able to help someone else and you see, okay, thank you lord for being there with me and so, we understand a story. Now, we may not understand what all is going on but it says, in the beginning, god and we understand from that, god is going to tell us about himself That god created beauty for man. That god looked around at at all he had. He said, you know what? I need to create something else and we get, he created this and he said, it is good.
He created this and he said, it is good and he finally got to humankind and he said, it is very good. Anybody say amen to that? Amen. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Just looking in the mirror, right? That's what you said this morning. Randy Frazee said in the video in our class this morning, he said, sometimes I look in the mirror and think, boy, it is not going well today. It's not good.
Yeah. But but god created this perfection for us and we messed it up. How many of you would love to live in a perfect place, a garden of sorts where all of your needs were met? We even postulated earlier that maybe there were no mosquitoes. I don't know how god did that but I can only imagine in a in a world of perfection, there were no mosquitoes.
Yes. But no bills, no copays, no insurance premiums, no, I've gotta get, you know, the yard mode and it's a 106. Would you like that? We also ask the question, we talked about how we still make those same decisions that they had the opportunity to make. We still make those today.
You have the opportunity every day of your life to choose to walk the path of god or to walk the path of self, don't you? And we ask the question, if you had the opportunity, would you pick the path of god or the path of self? And if we're honest, we'll say, well, sometimes one and sometimes the other, right? Depending on the day or the mood or the desire and that's what we see within the story is that it it it starts with perfection and what god has created and everything's good or very good and it's not long till everything goes south. And and this is really as we think about story, this is a picture of our own lives, isn't it?
How many of you feel like some days or weeks just go really good? And some weeks, most of the time, it's a Monday morning. Something happens and everything is derailed and you're just confused, you're you're overwhelmed, everything's going the wrong way. Yeah. And so we understand that.
And that's the story that that god gives us within scripture is that all of a sudden, everything's good and we have all okay. Now, we've decided to go another way. We're gonna start in Genesis one and verse 26 this morning. Can y'all see that okay? Okay.
Not convincing, but I'll I'll I'll raise it next week. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food, and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning on the sixth day.
So, again, we get into the good and humanity was created and it is very good and we see what god or how god feels about us. And this story that we're diving into because most of us the end of the story is going to reveal that god will do anything for us. The first act that god shows us is I'm going to create a perfect place where all of your needs are met. If you had that option this morning, how many of you are signing up? We're skeptical people, so we've got a lot of questions, don't we?
Well, what do you mean? What's the catch, right? We do. We're skeptical people. But if you knew for sure that this was on the up and up, this is the way of god.
Would you sign up for that today? That is god's first act of love for us that I will do. I'm gonna create humanity. I'm gonna give them everything that they need and so it was very good and and again, that tells us that that that god enjoyed that but it says the people are blessed, Adam and Eve, but they're even given responsibility, right? To to tend the garden, to keep it, and and basically, I mean, you're also protecting it, right?
You're you don't just exist for existence sake, but you are part of the story. And it again, it doesn't take very long, though we start with goodness, it begins to devolve into brokenness. But what we see here is what the world was meant to be. I think that's important. This is what God meant for you and me.
How many times do you look around the world and think, boy, I wish a lot of things would change. I wish it would be much better than it is. God intended from day one for this to be your existence. I like thinking about that. That God loved me and he wanted this for me.
But again, the choice was messed up. It says, Adam was in the garden to work and keep it, but god gives us this freedom one boundary. You had one choice. You had one job, we might say. Because god has given this this opportunity, this don't eat of the fruit of the tree of life or or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right?
And and so, if if god had not given us any kind of choices, what god would have created was this robotic system, right? Where we have no choice, we only have to obey and that's it and it's really no choice at all but because god gave us a choice, he's able to see how we respond to that, that we will, again, oftentimes choose, I'm going to follow my own self. But it says that we are given god's image. You ever thought much about that? What does it mean to reflect the image of god?
How is it that I can show other people? A lot of times, we will pray and we'll talk about being salt or light out in the world. We wanna reflect the image of God. But what is it that God is showing us about himself that we should reflect? That God loves, that God cares.
Only about perfect people? Unfortunately not. Those perfect people in your life, if you have any of them, I don't. But those perfect people or people that you get along with are much easier to love, aren't they? The people that do stuff to harm you or against you are much easier to cast aside.
But what does god do? How does he respond to people choosing something over him? In Genesis three verse one, now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For god knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like god knowing good and evil. And who doesn't wanna be like god? Right? So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. This is the part where I think there couldn't have been mosquitoes because I would have been covered up. How about you?
But do you see what happened here? They were tricked. They were fooled. They followed the desires of their hearts, which was I want to be on par with God. Knowing good and evil, he knows that you you won't surely die.
Now that's only partially true. Right? They weren't struck down immediately upon eating the the fruit, whatever it was like, but death has now entered the world, that you will eventually die. But they have chosen the the big choice they made was not to trust God. Do you see that?
God has told them, I've given you everything. All you have to do is do this, and all the serpent has to do is say, you don't it's not really gonna happen that way. Do you really wanna be like god? Then do this. And their desire was, I don't want to trust god.
I want to follow myself. And immediately, notice what the response was. Immediately, what did they experience? Shame. I'm going to hide.
How many of you have felt that even today? Maybe it was this week. I did something, I made a choice, I said something, or I said something in a way I didn't want to, and immediately, you felt shame. Man. You see our hearts are open there to to kind of expose what our what our thoughts are.
And so that's what we see here. It is it is not just breaking a rule that they did. They refused to trust in God who had already given them everything they needed. And how many times do we think, I need something else? Yeah.
We live in a culture designed to to pitch us on all of these things. I my my father in law's a lot of fun to be around at times at times. But he loves to say, you know, we're going to Bass Pro. And I'll say, Steve, what are you gonna get? He said, I won't know until I get in there.
They've because got to tell me what I've got to get. Right? And I bet some of us can relate to those things. Right? Some of us you you walk into a store, it's like, talk to me.
What do I need? That's the reason infomercials exist. Right? You didn't know you needed to peel that fruit in that way, but now you see it's easier. And though I never peel fruit in the first place, now I need this thing.
But but we live in a world designed to make us feel discontent. So And you can I think we can understand why all it takes is a little bit of subtle, no, this is this is better if you and then everything kind of falls apart? We are now following ourselves and not God. In verse 14 of the same chapter, the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
I will put enmity enmity between you and the woman and between, your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. And so God is saying here from this point on, there's going to be this divide between these these two and he's setting up really because we know the story. He's setting up a battle that god is going to win. Right?
That from now on, you're gonna have this issue that that I will put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel and I relate to a lot of scriptures but this one, when I think about serpents, I'd like to bruise a lot of heads. I'll be honest with you because I don't like any of em. They're not here this morning but Michael and Dusty, if you go visit their house, do so cautiously. Because Michael loves Halloween, she loves scary, and there is a very realistic fake snake on their porch.
But John didn't notice till he'd already knocked on the door. And I told her how risky that was to have a ring camera and a preacher yelling something at a snake. Thankfully, was composed that day, but it did scare me. Sorry. But you see here that that god is already saying, there's not going to be any victory for you.
That there's going to be this divide between the two of you and the lower story, Adam and Eve now have lost Eden. They've experienced shame, pain, conflict, and they've been thrown out of the the garden and now death is a part of the story but in the upper story and what god is doing, god does not just throw them away, does he? He doesn't say, you know what? This is this is oh I I can't believe I did this. Let's wipe em off the face of the earth.
God provides a way. God desires to stick with it. I had a a series a couple of years ago where we talked about a lot of us were raised in a way that we thought God was, he had the book of life open just like I've got my Bible open this morning. And I believe my name was written in there, but I believe that it was written in pencil And God was hovering over it with a big one those pink erasers, probably just the biggest one he could find ready to erase my name. Just desiring almost to catch me off guard.
And we talked about, I've I've heard it said that, the best thing, because of the way we believe, the best thing that could happen to a Church of Christ person is as you're getting out of the baptistry, so you just got baptized, you slip and fall and break your neck. And hope you didn't cuss while you were breaking your neck, okay? Because we didn't know what to do. We we we didn't know we didn't talk enough about the grace of god and really seeing the big story about how god desires that relationship us even when we don't choose him. Amen.
That's hard to think about because when I think about people in my own life, you're deciding to reject me and go away. That's kind of a hard thing to to pursue, isn't it? But god's desire is to be with you. You understand that? Amen.
God's desire is to be with you and he will do whatever it takes to write that relationship. So, when scripture confronts us, the question is still today, will I trust god or do I desire to chase something else? To chase being like god or I think my life would be better if that's still the question we ask today. So, following god means more than just believing he exist. It means trusting that his wisdom as we talked last week, his wisdom is greater than mine.
Now, I don't like to be wrong. Anybody else? Anybody just love being wrong? I don't know that I've met that person. I just love ignorance.
I love being wrong. I got corrected three times a day and I loved it. But it's like if I knew I was wrong, I'd correct it. Right? I don't I don't like to live in ignorance.
I don't wanna be wrong. I wanna I wanna be correct. But even even with that, I have to be, I have to understand and be honest with myself that god's ways are greater than mine, his wisdom higher than mine, and I want to pursue that. I want to put my trust in him. What is it you need to put your trust in God about this morning?
So next, what happens is beginning it's almost like a a virus that spreads. Evil has been opened up. Sin has come into the Garden of Eden, and now it spreads from one place to the other. It goes from Adam and Eve into now Cain and Abel. The lord said to Cain, why are you angry and why is your face fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. It is it's waiting. You don't do well, something happens, sin is waiting at the door. I think we all kind of relate to that.
It's desire is for you and you must rule over it. Be ready because it wants to get you. There's there's all kinds of opportunity for it. Right? Be ready.
You must rule over it. Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Now, all of a sudden, not only has sin and I'm not trusting god entered into the equation but that has spread like wildfire into, now, there's hatred even for my brother. Anybody have a complicated family? I'll take those laughs as yes.
Because I think we all do to some respect. Some may have to go further down the family line than others. Everybody's got a crazy uncle or, you know, a brother or sister, you don't talk too much or whatever. Right? But do you see how sin and and just being able to rebel against god has now kind of like, I think, like a virus.
Right? It has entered man and now our desire is for my own way. I have desired this. I didn't get this and god warns him, right? God warns him, if you don't do well, sin is crouching at the door.
It is waiting. All of a sudden, some frustration and that's when it gets us, right? I'm frustrated. Something happened. I didn't wake up on the right side of the bed.
And all of a sudden, sin has really entered. Now, the the best thing we know about this story if if if we put it all together, Cain is jealous of Abel, and that's it. What does that matter the way that Cain decides what I have to do with my life is kill my brother? Anybody like true crime stuff? You've heard me say it before, I love true crime.
But a lot of crimes don't make any sense. You've got a man who's been cheating on his wife, and he thinks to himself, you know what I ought to do? I I really like this woman I've been cheating with. So what I ought to do to make this all tidy is to kill my entire family. Right?
Does that make any sense to you? But when we are following the ways of evil for some way that's got to make sense, right? Something has to be going, okay. What what I need to do because I'm jealous of my brother is to kill him. And we from the outside, hopefully, are looking and going, no, there were a lot of other ways.
But in the moment, that seemed like this is the way, this is the path we have to take. Rebellion against god, violence against my brother, and sin continues to move out. In chapter six of Genesis, the lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. You see the the passion that God has for mankind.
That I hate that this happened. This is not some distant relationship. This is a a a true grieving that this has happened. So the lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I am sorry I have made them. But it says in verse eight, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Now if you go over into second Peter, you find out that that the way they say it there is that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. That that Noah responds to god in a way that that Noah is faithful. And so god doesn't look at this situation and think all is hopeless that nothing can be redeemed. He looks and he still sees with with fairness that there is still this man that is following god. And so you get this language of this wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Have you ever been there? Well, I I'm I'm on a path of of evil and and at the moment, I don't I don't necessarily even see it as evil but I was on the wrong path. You've been on the wrong path before. Needed to be corrected. Some something had to happen in your life to go, oh.
This is not where I want to be. Lot of times, that is just a couple of choices lead to another couple of choices and here we are but god looks around and this is everywhere I look, there is evil, there is sin, that's all these people want to do and then he sees Noah and says, well, when we tell the story of Noah, what do we tell? Bunch of animals. Right? That's what we know Noah for.
Trying to figure out how he got all these animals on a big boat, how big was the boat, and have we found the boat yet? You know, all the things. But it says, Noah had favor with god. Right? He was a preacher of righteousness.
He was someone who tried to follow god. And and so in verse, in chapter nine verse eight, says, and god said to Noah and to his sons with him, behold, I established my covenant with you and your offspring after you and with every living creature that isn't with you. So, on the ark, all these birds, it says, the livestock, every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth. I established my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And and God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations.
I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. How many of you still stop and look at a rainbow? Yeah. Love love to. Still haven't found that pot of gold, but we will we will pause, we will look, and and and just wonder at a rainbow in the sky.
It says, will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy, all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. And I still remember that when I see a rainbow. How about you?
That god would make a covenant with man after he's looked at the Earth and said, there's just evil everywhere. He makes a covenant with Noah. He says, this is gonna be between me and you and everything from here on out in the story will be perfect. If you were listening, no. Absolutely not.
Because God knows what he's doing, doesn't he? Do you believe that? God knows what he's doing with this. God understands that this is not gonna be perfect. People are still not gonna follow him.
We've only made it to Noah so far. And right after this covenant, you see even more evil as his his sons look on his, his nakedness, it says, and that was very shameful. And so it continues. Though we've restarted, the hearts of man are still the same. But guess what, church?
God has a plan. God is sticking to that plan and no matter what you do that you veer off, god is still sticking to that plan. He still loves you. He still cares for you and he will do whatever it takes to repair that relationship. Somebody spoiled it this morning but he even sent his own son, didn't he?
God has a desire for you. When he created mankind, he looked and he said, it is very good. Not in a distant way, but in a way that said, I'm gonna be with them from now until the end. And so that is the story. We begin with, in the beginning, God.
God creates. God sees it's good. Man has everything we could ever want or need until it's introduced that maybe we could want something else. And we immediately say, well, maybe I do want that. And we begin to not trust God.
Well, when we make those decisions just like Adam and Eve, we feel shame. We feel distant from god but again, god is here, arms open, ready to repair that relationship. So, this morning, as we begin the story, I want you to know that god loves you. You understand that, church? We do have some new faces this morning.
I don't I don't know where you are in your walk but I want you to know, if you don't walk out of here hearing a word I've said, know that god loves you. Amen. He will do whatever it takes. Don't ever feel like I'm too far gone. I haven't done enough.
No, you hadn't because god's taking care of all that. You didn't need to do anything but put your trust in him. We're gonna offer an invitation now. This invitation is just if you want the prayers this year, we'd love to pray with you this morning but we wanna encourage you to put your trust in him, to be baptized into his name. I don't know if you saw on on Facebook or on social media last week but we baptized four people last week in the pool.
Praise god. Amen. Amen. People that begin their walk with him to have their sins washed away, covered by the blood of Christ. That spoiler alert, god would do for every single one of us.
Because he loves And so if you'd like to pray this morning, if you'd like to respond by being baptized, we'd love to see that. Would you come as we stand from every Hi.