Creation and Fall

Good morning. Great to be with you today. I'm excited about this new series. And before we dive into that, I want to take just a second to update you about a couple of really cool new online tools and resources that are available here through our church. One of those has to do with that song, Unite Us that we just sang.

Anybody else love that song? Yes, absolutely. Last summer, in preparation for a message series called for the One, Joel, our worship minister, and Chris, our production director, wrote that song together. It's become a regular part of our worship rotation. But as of today, you can download that song or stream it wherever music is streamed and sold.

So if you want to add it to a playlist, you can now do that. And I did that myself this morning, so we want you to know about that. The second thing is you. Just to let you know that our sermons are now available as podcasts on Apple and Spotify and Amazon. Now, you can still go to our website and you can still watch past sermons on YouTube if you wanna do things that way.

But if you wanna listen to them on the go or if you wanna share them with a friend, this is a really easy way to do that. And one of the things I love about the podcast platform is that it generates an automatic AI transcript of the message. So sometimes I have people that email me and say, wow, there was a lot of scripture in that message. Or you talked, which I do, and I didn't catch all of that. So could you send me a copy of your notes?

Which I'm glad to do, but you don't even need to reach out at this point in time. You can just get that transcript that way. If you'd like to read the message or reread it so that you can do some further study, we just want you to know that those tools are available. We hope that that is encouraging to you. And we hope, because our desire is to share God's truth with others, that tools like these will make it easier for us to.

To do that. Now, having said all of that, as we jump into the Greatest Story Ever Told, let me ask you this question. Do you have certain movies that you just love to watch over and over? Anybody else have some of those classics that you just go back to again and again and again? I mean, for me, that would include fantasy movies like Avatar.

Never get tired of watching those. The Lord of the Rings is right up there. For me, that's a pretty powerful cinematic kind of experience. I have some sports movies, like virtually anything in the Rocky franchise, Remember the Titans falls in that category, as does Hoosiers. I was living in Missouri the first time I saw Hoosiers, but I've loved that movie ever since.

And then there are some dramatic masterpieces like A Few Good Men and Christmas Vacation. Right. And I'll bet. There we go. I mean, all of those movies have certain scenes and certain quotes that I love.

Right. We could waste a lot of time right now. We won't. But we can waste a lot of time right now just swapping quotes back and forth. Now, I'm curious.

Do you ever find it fun to watch a movie that you know really well and that you love with someone who's never seen it before and watch their reaction to it? Isn't that cool? I love to get to do that. Now, having said that, I've seen a lot of movies that I don't feel any need to rewatch. I'm sure you have too.

And the reason I bring this up is because I think that sometimes we, we adopt a similar attitude about the Bible. I mean, it's easy to think that because we're familiar with certain parts of scripture or because we've read it before that we are ready to move on to new and better things. And I want to challenge us to rethink that for a couple of reasons. Number one, Scripture is about knowing God. It is not just about knowing about God.

And there's a difference between knowing God personally and simply memorizing facts about Him. It's entirely possible for us to understand something cognitively without ever applying it to our lives. And when it comes to Scripture, it's really easy to do that. We know the stories, we know some memory verses, but we don't necessarily apply it to our hearts and to our lives. Those of us who know scripture have a responsibility to help those who don't.

So we never outgrow the basics. There is never a time when we move past the Gospel of Jesus. And so it's good for us to review those things. And for all of these reasons, we're launching into this series called the Greatest Story Ever Told. It's actually been inspired by a study written by Eric Geiger called the Story of God.

And over the next seven weeks, plus today, eight weeks in total, we're going to just take this high level overview of the Bible's overarching story just in really, really broad strokes. I sometimes talk to people who say, you know, I just don't really understand the Bible. I've never really read it. It's big. It's thick.

It has a lot of words I don't know how to pronounce. It's confusing, it's intimidating. And if that describes you, my hope is that what we're going to do over the next few weeks will help you in some really big picture conceptual ways to understand who God is. And if you're one of those people like myself who's been in church your entire life and you're sometimes inclined to think, I've heard all this before, like, tell me something I don't know. I want to pray that for all of us.

This series would renew our joy over what God has done for us and that it would equip us and mobilize us to share his story with other people. The Bible is not primarily an instruction manual. We sometimes see it presented that way. Now it does contain some important life instructions, but its main purpose is to tell the story of God. Just like you could go home right now and you could pull up any random Netflix series season four, episode seven and watch that and maybe gain a few insights into those characters, you're not going to understand the full story.

And it's entirely possible to grow up in Sunday school to know a handful of Bible stories without ever connecting the big picture dots of God's story. The Bible is 66 individual books spanning some 1500 years. But it's one story. The Bible is two testaments. There is an Old Testament that tells all about the world before Jesus, and a New Testament that describes the life and ministry of Jesus and his calling to all of us.

But even though there are two testaments, there's one story. Scripture is fundamentally the story of God who wants us to know Him. And this initial episode, this first dive into the greatest story ever told is, is gonna have three acts today, and the first act is about God. There's a lot more than we could say about God than we have time this morning. But there are five fundamental truths about God I want to orient us to as we begin this journey together.

Number one, God is when you first meet someone and they say, tell me about yourself, you might share your name, maybe where you're from. You might talk about your family or your job. You might share some of the things that you like to do. But you would not begin by trying to prove your existence, would you? Because the person you just met already accepts that you exist.

They're having a conversation with you. They're asking about your life because they're pretty convinced that you're real. And for that very same reason, the Bible doesn't set out to prove God's existence to us, it foundationally assumes it. In order for God to tell his story, he has to exist. Before anything else existed, God was already here.

Second thing I want to highlight is that God is the Creator. The very first scene in God's story is about his creation of all that exists. The Bible's first book, which is fittingly called Genesis, a word that means beginning. It opens with this simple but profound statement that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the first chapter of Genesis goes on from there to describe how God took a formless and empty earth and he separated day and light from night and darkness.

He separated the seas from the atmosphere above, he separated land from water, he filled the land with reproducing plants, he set the solar system in place. He created sea creatures and birds and land, and he created humans to manage all of that. Now we also see in the Bible's opening chapters that number three, God is self sufficient. Because before anything else existed, God was already on the scene and God was already complete in himself. When Genesis chapter two says this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

And it asserts that God is the original self sufficient source of everything that exists. Now, Scripture goes beyond that to describe God's character and his nature to us and to make clear that number four, God is gracious and loving. This is really important for us to understand. God created everything not because he was bored, not because he was lonely, not because he was incomplete or somehow lacking, but because God has incredible love to share. From the Bible's very beginning, we are told about his relational nature.

The first two verses of scripture say in the beginning, God, that's God the Father 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, the Holy Spirit was hovering over over the waters. The Bible's first two verses introduce us to both God the Father and the Holy Spirit. And if we dive into the New Testament centuries later we find the New Testament referring to Jesus, God the Son as the Word.

John chapter one describes Jesus like this. In the beginning was the Word and the Word. Jesus was with God. And the Word was was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. Jesus was there in the beginning. He collaborated with God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the work of creation, which is why God refers to himself in the plural. In Genesis chapter one, Genesis 1:26 says, Then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.

God is not bad at grammar. God refers to himself that way because Father, son and spirit are all right there. As father and as son and as spirit, God lives eternally in relationship. He is a perfect community within himself. He didn't create us because he needs us, but because he is relational and he wants to share his love.

He wants a relationship with us. He wants to know us and be known by us. And we see in the biblical creation account that number five, God is powerful and wise. In the book of Genesis, we see it played out that God's power, his miraculous ability to simply speak and have things come into existence, that's played out for us alongside God's wisdom, His careful, well thought out plan for both light and darkness, for days and months and seasons and years, for land and sea, for vegetation, for different kinds of animals to live in the air, different than the animals that live on the land and different still than the animals that live in the sea. God is the creative mastermind and the brilliant engineer of life and ecosystems and worlds.

And the Bible is God's story. And he, as father, son and spirit, is its central character. So naturally, the story starts with Him. But even before we get through the Bible's very first chapter, we enter its second act, which focuses on humanity. Near the end of Genesis chapter one, people enter the scene and we learn three things about the first, man and woman.

Their names were Adam and Eve. The that are also true of us. Number one, we were created to reflect God's image. This isn't true in every instance, but many times kids resemble their parents. I look a lot like my dad, who looked a lot more like his dad as he got older.

And both of my boys look a lot like me. This is one of my favorite pictures of my boys. And as I look at that, you can see there's a fairly strong resemblance there. And that means I have a pretty decent idea of what Colin and Brendan are going to look like a few decades from now. Sorry, guys.

This is what you get. Well, Genesis explains that God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them male and female. He created them. Our being created in the image of God means that you and I reflect God in a variety of different ways, like our ability to think.

God created us as human beings with a capacity for thought, for science and philosophy and problem solving. Our desire to understand things like where did I come from? Is A part of God's image in us. We reflect God's image in our sense of morality. Our consciousness of things that we call right and wrong is a reflection of God's moral character.

Even though people don't always agree on what is right and what's wrong, the fact that we identify certain things as right and we for those things, and we are repulsed by things we consider wrong, is a part of God's moral wiring. In each one of us. God has hardwired into us a capacity to make moral and ethical judgments, and his character is the ultimate standard of what is good and what's bad. We reflect God in our ability to communicate. From talking to writing to texting to posting.

We are incessant communicators, aren't we? We are constantly exchanging messages and information, and we reflect God in our bent toward creativity. We have a love of storytelling and music and movies and painting and poetry and graphic design and architecture and construction, all of which illustrate that God, the artist, designed us to create. We reflect God in our desire for order. Whether you're filing documents or folding laundry or straightening the garage or balancing a bank account, our desire to organize things is a reflection of God's image.

We also reflect God in our consciousness of eternity. You know, dogs and cows don't spend a lot of time pondering what happens after they die. At least not the ones I talk to.

But we do, don't we? We ask those questions all the time. Ecclesiastes, chapter three says that God has set eternity in the human heart. We think about things bigger than ourselves. We think about things beyond ourselves.

And the intentionality of God's design is what gives meaning to our existence. We are not accidents. We are so much more than randomly assembled lumps of molecules wandering the earth and killing time. God created us to reflect his own image. And that means that you and I will never meet a person without a purpose.

Now, there are plenty of people who live in ways that are harmful to them and harmful to others because they don't understand their purpose. But I think CS Lewis hit the nail on the head when he wrote, there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Every person who has ever lived was created by God. And that means every human life has purpose.

Not just the people that you and I like the best and love the most, but. But the people you find most repulsive and irritating are created in the image of God too. And part of God's purpose for us in recognizing that is that we were created to rule over creation. Right from the beginning, Scripture says that God gave humanity a key role in supervising everything he'd made. God created this lush garden full of fruit bearing trees and watered by a network of rivers.

And Genesis 2:15 says the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. God made Adam responsible for the garden and all that lived in it. A few verses later we read now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, Bob, whatever it was, that was its name.

So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. And just as God rules us with kindness and wisdom, he empowered us to manage the earth and its resources in the same way. Kindly, humanely, responsibly, sustainably. To plant and grow crops, to harvest and manage natural resources, to hunt, fish and raise livestock for food. But our God given calling doesn't stop there.

In addition to ruling over creation, because of God's relational nature that has been imprinted upon us, number three, we were created to relate to others. Because God is relational. We are designed for relationships. God didn't just create Adam from a piece of Adam. God made Eve a woman who Adam said was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones.

She was like him in many ways and yet distinctly different from him in some really significant ways. Now our relational nature has implications far beyond just romantic relationships. But God's male and female design for us is actually a direct reflection of his own. Three in one. Diversity as father and son and spirit.

That's the basis for marriage. That's the basis for sexuality. Genesis chapter two ends with this statement that Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. I'd like to see your hand. If you've ever had a dream about being naked in public.

Ever been there? Or naked if you're from the south, right? Or you ever had a dream about maybe showing up for work or for school in your underwear? That's awkward, isn't it? Those are kind of anxiety inducing dreams.

But in the beginning, in a world without sin, in a world without secrets, without guilt, without shame, there was no embarrassment, there was no concept for, nor was there a market for a reality show like Naked and Afraid. And there are multiple seasons of shows like that. Now. Every great story centers around a conflict. And God's story is no exception.

The Bible's third act. This third act of our first episode here introduces that conflict. And I would simply call that conflict corruption. God's perfect, harmonious, shameless, life giving design did not last for a couple of specific reasons. Number one, because instead of reflecting God's image, we rebelled.

Genesis chapter three introduces us to an enemy. Satan. The devil disguised himself as a snake. He approached Eve and he did what he has always specialized in. Satan exaggerated God's restrictions.

God's garden had only one rule. There was one tree in the middle that God had declared off limits. But the serpent implied that God had forbidden Adam and Eve to to eat from any of the trees. It was a big fat exaggerated lie. Satan also contradicted God's instructions.

God had warned that if they ate from that one tree, they would die. But the devil insisted that God was lying. That if Eve ate the fruit, she wouldn't die, she would actually become just like God. That God was weak and insecure and jealous and he was holding her back and keeping her down. And that is exactly how the devil operates today.

He questions God's goodness and truthfulness. He insists that our best life lies on the other side of God's instructions. That real life is found not with God, but somewhere beyond him. Adam and Eve listened and they bought the lies and they ate and everything changed. Their intimate fellowship with God was broken because of the conflict that is inherent between God's holiness and Adam and Eve's sinfulness and the rest of us.

I would put in that same category. They were ejected from the garden. They could not continue to live there in the intimate presence of God like nothing had happened. They were ejected from the garden. They were cut off from access to the tree of life, which brought death into the picture.

And as a result of that choice number two, instead of ruling over creation, we became ruled by it. When Eve and then Adam lunged after power and control by disobeying God, life changed. And as a part of God's curse on their sin, Scripture says work became much more tedious. Childbirth became painful. Good things that God had designed for their benefit became more difficult and more life dominating.

And that's really the story of, of our world today, isn't it? Materialism, this obsession that many of us have, especially living in a capitalistic consumeristic culture like the one that we're a part of. We have this obsession with keeping up with others and getting more and more and more stuff. And that's just one of the ways that we give control of our lives over to things. That we were meant to manage.

You go to any public place today and you're going to see that the phones that were invented to serve us and simplify our lives now control many of us. We carry bosses around in our pockets and our purses. Every time they make a noise, we feel like we have to drop everything and attend to those things that was never intended to be that way. The many varieties of addiction in our world, whether we're talking about addiction to shopping or food or alcohol or illegal drugs or prescription drugs or caffeine or sex or porn or whatever, these are all different forms of our being controlled by created things rather than ruling over them. See sin brought, and it continues to bring shame and separation from God, who is the author and source of life both then and now.

The wages of sin, Scripture says, is death. That's the Apostle Paul writing in Romans 6, simply saying that when we reject God's way, the paycheck for that, the long term consequences of that is death. Sin has so damaged God's creation that mortality and death are now the norm for all of us. Living forever in this broken world is no longer possible, nor is it desirable. And if God's story ended right there, it would be a pretty sad story, wouldn't it?

Well, thankfully, God's story doesn't end there. After the Apostle Paul wrote that the wages of sin is death, he added this. He said, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. See, even as sin broke and cursed our world, God had a plan from the very beginning to set things right. And that plan revolves not around something that we have to do or, or earn or achieve or work our way up to.

It's about a gift that God wants to give us. And we see a couple of prophetic hints about that plan, about that gift right here in the opening chapters of Genesis, when God pronounced judgment and he spoke that curse against Satan, this is what God said. He said, I will put enmity, hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. God predicted that there would be ongoing tension between Satan and humanity.

And there is. We see that all the time. But he also predicted that there would be a climactic showdown in which the woman's offspring, Jesus would be struck in the process of crushing and killing Satan. And there was all of that foreshadowed Jesus victory thousands of years later through his death at the cross and his resurrection from the grave. And that's why Bible scholars often refer to this verse Genesis 3:15 as the proto Evangelion.

That's just a fancy Latinish way of saying this is the first announcement in Scripture of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus. We don't even get three chapters in before God has already said, there's more, there's a bigger plan than what you've seen thus far. God hinted at that victorious good news in the way he provided for Adam and Eve in their shame. Scripture tells us that when they first disobeyed God and they became self consciously and shamefully aware of their nakedness, Adam and Eve made clothing for themselves out of fig leaves. They were so uncomfortable with their, their nakedness and their painful awareness of it that they grabbed anything they could find to cover themselves.

But after his prediction that Jesus would eventually crush Satan, God gave Adam and Eve a wardrobe upgrade. Verse 21 in Genesis 3 said, the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. God graciously covered Adam and Eve's shame with the skins of animals. And I believe that this was the first of many sacrifices for sin offered in the Bible. And it foreshadowed the moment when God himself, in the person of Jesus, would put on flesh and sacrifice himself at the cross to cover our shame with his righteousness once and for all.

John Stott summarized this central essential theme of God's story when he wrote these words. He said, the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be, on the throne. God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be, on a cross in a tomb. And we're going to see in the weeks ahead that God's story, the way that it's presented to us in the Bible, contains some dark and difficult chapters, but his promise of rescue and redemption and restoration is at work in all of them.

So in every chapter of God's story, there is hope. And that hope has a name, Jesus. Today and every day. We exist as a church to help, you know, Jesus, to help you trust him and follow him. And we're going to share more in a few minutes about how you can connect with us, how you can connect with him, whatever questions you might have.

But for now, let me just say I'm grateful that you're here with us as we start this series. And I want to encourage you to be with us for, for the next seven weeks as we continue to unpack this, this big, grand narrative. That God has been working out since before time even began. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you today that you're a God who loves us.

We don't add anything to you that you don't already have. You're not lacking or incomplete without us, and yet you. You love us and you have. You've stamped your imprint on each one of us in so many different ways. And we're thankful, God, for the life that you offer to us, the relationship that you make possible for us.

God, I know there's a lot about scripture that for many of us it can be confusing. It's a big book full of lots of faraway places and names that we have a difficult time making sense of. It uses terminology that sometimes is very, very outside the norm of our daily vocabulary. And yet, God, in the midst of all of that, we. We see these broad strokes that you love us, that you are providing a way out of the brokenness that our sin and the rest of the world's sin has.

Has brought into everything that you've made. And we thank you, God, for your love and your persistence in seeking us, seeking us out individually and inviting us into relationship with you. God, we're thankful that we have this time together. And I pray that you would use even these next few moments as we continue our time of worship together, just to lift our eyes up, help us to see you more clearly and impress upon us all over again, God, your love for us and your desire to be known by.