Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Who loves a good origin story.
[00:00:04] I imagine some fans of the Marvel universe are here.
[00:00:09] One reason why the Marvel movies have done so well is they've developed this genre of origin stories.
[00:00:18] And Captain America or Thor or Iron man or the Hulk, we get curious about them because they're flawed, but they're amazing.
[00:00:28] And we want to know, how have they been shaped and formed?
[00:00:33] Origin stories give us a sense.
[00:00:37] They tell us about the past in order for us to have some sense of the now.
[00:00:44] And what's true of the Marvel Universe is also true of the universe that you and I live in.
[00:00:51] So today, we're going to consider the ultimate origin story, the origin story of all origin stories.
[00:01:01] Adam and Eve in the garden.
[00:01:04] And over coming weeks, we'll take a journey through the scriptures and we'll meet some other characters along the way and get a sense of what the Lord was doing as he revealed himself to all these key players along the way.
[00:01:20] I hope it will help us to. To meet the Lord up close and personal.
[00:01:27] But the first ones to meet the Lord were Adam and Eve.
[00:01:32] We're going to go back 2,000 years ago to see when the Lord made the first two human beings.
[00:01:40] And these stories carry wisdom that speaks to every human culture.
[00:01:47] All the essentials are here in these early chapters of Genesis. You can find friendship and family and fun and physics.
[00:01:57] You can find marriage and work and identity and purpose.
[00:02:03] If you want to make sense of your life and the purpose for why you are here, this is where you will find wisdom.
[00:02:13] Let's pray, and then we'll get into this particular story.
[00:02:19] Lord God, we want to stop and humble ourselves before you as our Creator.
[00:02:25] We know this to be true because you've revealed it.
[00:02:28] But we pray that as we go back to these familiar chapters in the scriptures, that you would highlight some particular things for us, that as we believe them and as we obey them, that you would guide us in the way of life and worship and mission.
[00:02:46] Amen.
[00:02:49] There's a story of a rabbi that had the kids together, and they were having Torah reading class.
[00:02:56] And the rabbi says to one of the kids, I want you to start reading the Torah, these first five books of the Bible.
[00:03:03] He was reading in Hebrew, obviously, but I'll read in English. And the boy starts. He says, in the beginning, God.
[00:03:11] And the rabbi stops him.
[00:03:14] Start again in the beginning, God, stop.
[00:03:19] Start again in the beginning, God, stop.
[00:03:25] And the boy's getting frustrated by now.
[00:03:28] And the rabbi says to the kids, you can build your life on these four words, and it will go well, for you, in the beginning, God, before our origin story even began.
[00:03:49] God, he was there before the beginning.
[00:03:55] And then simply by Speaking in Genesis 1, he brings light to the darkness and brings order to the chaos.
[00:04:06] Now, he could have done all of this in an instant, but he was happy in Genesis 1 to slow down this process, allowing it to unfold so we could see his life giving intentionality every step of the process.
[00:04:25] At each stage he pauses, he looks, and he proclaims it all as good.
[00:04:35] The process reaches a climax in verse 26.
[00:04:39] Now let us make mankind in our image.
[00:04:43] There is a coming together of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, a discussion, a consensus, and then a next level creation in verse 27. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them.
[00:05:05] Male and female. He created them.
[00:05:10] I want you to imagine that you have a laptop in front of you and you're reading an online version of Genesis 1.
[00:05:19] As you scan over these words in verse 27, you notice it's underlined and bold. It's a hyperlink that as you click on, opens up this new page of Genesis 2.
[00:05:36] It's like a DRS review at the crickets. This key moment that then gets opened up and slowed down so we can appreciate the significance of every frame of this key moment.
[00:05:53] In chapter one, we see the big picture of creation. But in chapter two, we zoom in on the real story that God wants us to see.
[00:06:03] This intimate, relational account of the beginnings of the human race.
[00:06:09] You might have noticed a subtle change in verse four, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
[00:06:20] Here, the personal covenant name of the Lord is introduced.
[00:06:26] In chapter one, the word that's used is Elohim, and it's translated God.
[00:06:33] In chapter two, we we have the Lord God as the central character.
[00:06:41] These four English letters, L, O, R, D in small caps. In the scriptures, it's the translator's signal that we are speaking of Yahweh, the personal covenant name of God.
[00:06:57] Now, we'll explore in a few weeks, when we look at it in Exodus, something of the significance of this name.
[00:07:06] But let's just notice here in Genesis 2, by focusing us in on the Lord, we are seeing the intimate, personal, relational side of God, seeing the Lord at work up close and personally involved with the human beings that he loves so dearly.
[00:07:28] So with that background in mind, this is the plan for this morning.
[00:07:32] We'll take a slow walk through this story and see it unfold under five headings.
[00:07:39] Then we'll take a Step back and think what have we seen of the Lord and of ourselves.
[00:07:46] And then we'll have a little bit of a think about how we respond to what God has shown us.
[00:07:54] So firstly, the Lord prepares a place.
[00:07:59] We are given a wonderful description of the garden.
[00:08:02] All kinds of trees, beautiful to the eye and delicious to the taste.
[00:08:08] There is a life giving river that waters the entire garden and overflows into nearby lands.
[00:08:16] The Lord has prepared a fertile country, rich for farming and rich in resources, ready to provide for human life.
[00:08:27] And notice real geography is mentioned. Havilah, Cush, Ashur, places familiar to the original readers.
[00:08:39] This is no empty myth, but a story that is history taking place on the earth on which you and I live today.
[00:08:50] And yet we also see in verse five that shrubs and plants have not yet grown.
[00:08:58] It says for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground.
[00:09:07] Do you see our Creator's desire for relationship with us?
[00:09:13] He will provide life giving resources such as light and water, and yet he desires to work in power partnership with humanity.
[00:09:24] To work in us and through us to achieve his life giving purposes for his creation.
[00:09:33] Number two, the Lord forms the man.
[00:09:37] The Lord takes raw material and out of it he forms a male body.
[00:09:43] Now the Hebrew word play here is fascinating.
[00:09:48] The Lord takes Adama and forms Adam.
[00:09:53] He takes earthy earth and forms earthy.
[00:09:58] And then the real miracle happens.
[00:10:01] Verse 7.
[00:10:03] He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Adam became a living being.
[00:10:11] No other creature of all creation received this divine cpr, this unique link to the true and living God.
[00:10:21] This was the breath of life, direct from the life giving Creator.
[00:10:28] Now can you imagine for a moment Adam's next conscious thought?
[00:10:34] A fully grown man waking from sleep, opening his eyes and looking for the first time at this wonderful world abundant with life and beauty and not yet damaged by sin.
[00:10:50] And then his Creator takes him on a tour through the creation.
[00:10:57] Now we watched the movie Avatar a couple of nights ago.
[00:11:03] It's the biggest grossing film of all time.
[00:11:07] And in it there's a man who's been paralyzed through his time in the war, unable to walk.
[00:11:14] But through the movie he gets to control this avatar, this body in this other world.
[00:11:22] And you just see he wakes up in this other world and this body is doing incredible things that his broken legs or paralyzed legs can do no more. I got a little glimpse there of what it must have been like for Adam to go through this world, trying it out, running and jumping, testing out the physical capacities of the body that his Creator had given.
[00:11:51] Imagine him drinking cool, refreshing water from the river, eating rich, luscious fruit from the trees.
[00:12:00] And you can imagine the joy of the Lord in seeing the delight of Adam as he experienced the wonder and goodness of Eden.
[00:12:14] So number three, the Lord provides the way of life.
[00:12:20] After that initial joy of exploration, the Lord says, I've got a job for you, Adam.
[00:12:27] I want you to be responsible for this land, to work it to, to take care of it, to produce life and beauty and order from all of its abundant resources.
[00:12:41] What a privilege it must have been for Adam to receive this word.
[00:12:45] The blessing and honour of productive life giving work, of partnering with the Lord in his ongoing creative purposes.
[00:12:59] They continue to speak.
[00:13:02] The Lord says, in this world that I have made, you are to listen to my words.
[00:13:07] Verse 16.
[00:13:09] The Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.
[00:13:27] Now, Adam had no awareness of death.
[00:13:31] What is this word die?
[00:13:34] I have no knowledge of this.
[00:13:37] What innocent childlike trust of Adam before sin entered the world?
[00:13:45] Notice how the commands of the Lord overflow from his abundant goodness.
[00:13:52] Adam, I am the life giver and I've blessed you with life.
[00:13:58] Remember that true life is to trust and obey my word.
[00:14:03] It's simple and it's free.
[00:14:06] As you trust and obey, you will have great joy and satisfaction and purpose.
[00:14:14] All of my ways are good.
[00:14:19] We get to the next part of the story. The Lord forms the woman.
[00:14:24] Verse 18 comes as a bit of a surprise.
[00:14:28] It describes the one thing that is not good in the whole of creation. The aloneness of the man.
[00:14:37] Verse 18. The Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone.
[00:14:43] I will make a helper perfectly suited for him.
[00:14:49] Verse 19 and 20 add emphasis to this.
[00:14:53] One of Adam's first responsibilities was to have all the creatures being brought to him. And he would name each one.
[00:15:01] He would have had some fun that day.
[00:15:04] Hmm, I think I will call this one a hippopotamus.
[00:15:10] And I will call this one a kookaburra.
[00:15:14] And this little one I will call a turbochook.
[00:15:19] You could just see his imagination going.
[00:15:23] But still, after seeing all of these creatures, it says there was no suitable helper for Adam.
[00:15:32] So in all this good world, there was no creature able to fill this deep void in the man's soul.
[00:15:42] And so the Lord puts Adam to sleep.
[00:15:45] And in verse 22, he made a woman from the rib that he had taken out of the man and he brought her to him.
[00:15:55] Now Adam has a second wake up experience.
[00:15:58] Opening his eyes and exclaiming with wonder and astonishment and joy, the man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
[00:16:13] Adam says, I've seen all of the other creatures, but I have seen none like this one.
[00:16:21] Here is one that is perfectly like me and perfectly different to me.
[00:16:28] A perfect match.
[00:16:30] Strong where I am weak and weak where I am strong.
[00:16:36] How kind and generous of our Creator to bring us together like this.
[00:16:44] One commentator described the rib origin of Eve in these not out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him and near his heart to be beloved by him.
[00:17:10] Now those words sound incredibly modern, but they were actually written 300 years ago by an English pastor called Matthew Henry, who read this particular chapter and was moved by the beauty of man and woman serving together as one.
[00:17:34] The equality of man and woman is not a new idea from the 60s.
[00:17:39] It's an ancient truth embedded in our origin story and precious to our Creator.
[00:17:50] Number five. The Lord blesses human life.
[00:17:57] So we come to the first ever wedding ceremony and the Lord plays a few roles here.
[00:18:04] He's the proud father bringing these young ones together.
[00:18:09] And he's also the Lord, the priest and pastor, who blesses the union of the two.
[00:18:17] Verse 24. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh.
[00:18:27] Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.
[00:18:32] It's a wonderful picture of intimacy and romance, friendship and partnership. A husband and wife, naked, unmasked, vulnerable, authentically known to the other and with no experience of shame.
[00:18:52] It's beautiful.
[00:18:55] Together they were to live out the purpose of the Creator, to work the garden and take care of it and produce, to be fruitful, to have babies and grow families and to be responsible over the creation, stewarding its resources and promoting life and flourishing for generations to come.
[00:19:22] What a wonderful origin story for humanity.
[00:19:27] Here we discover identity and friendship and purpose and joy as the man and woman take their God given place in this God blessed world and begin God honouring lives.
[00:19:46] Now we know, sadly, that after Genesis 2 comes Genesis 3.
[00:19:52] Despite the abundant goodness and generosity of the Lord, Adam and Eve took their eyes off him and listened to a different voice and chose a different path.
[00:20:05] Genesis 3 and the impact of human sinfulness is also part of our origin story and part of the Explanation for why the world and we are as we are today.
[00:20:21] But for this morning, we're pausing and lingering in the garden.
[00:20:27] We're breathing the fresh, pure air of this first part of our origin story.
[00:20:34] Despite the brokenness of our world, if we listen carefully, we will hear echoes of Eden, we will remember who we are, and we'll remember what we are here for.
[00:20:49] So that's the story unfolding.
[00:20:53] And now let's take a moment to see what we have seen of the Lord, to see what we've seen of ourselves.
[00:21:02] Three things to notice.
[00:21:05] Firstly, the Creator and the creature and the relationship between them.
[00:21:11] One gives life and the other receives it.
[00:21:17] The Lord spoke this world into being and the Lord breathed life into Adam's dusty body.
[00:21:27] Our world had a beginning. The human race had a beginning. You and I had a beginning.
[00:21:34] It is our Creator who gives us life, our Creator who gives us identity.
[00:21:41] Our Creator who gives us purpose.
[00:21:45] He is the life giver and we with open hands will receive.
[00:21:53] Now this is such a countercultural idea for our day and age.
[00:21:58] The air that we breathe in in our society wants us to believe that our identity is defined in here and discovered from within.
[00:22:10] But Genesis 1 and 2 tell us a very different story.
[00:22:16] Take a moment and consider your particular body.
[00:22:22] And when you look at it in the mirror, you may wish that it was a little bit different.
[00:22:29] Perhaps taller or shorter or browner or whiter or slimmer or fatter or stronger or younger.
[00:22:42] But take to heart this revolutionary idea.
[00:22:46] Your particular body, its maleness or its femaleness, your temperament and wiring, all the experiences of your life that have shaped you and formed you.
[00:23:03] All of these aspects of who you are are loving gifts from your Heavenly Father.
[00:23:11] God's word to you today is are no accident.
[00:23:17] You are intended.
[00:23:19] You are loved by the Lord.
[00:23:22] He shaped you and he formed you for relationship with him to live that out in this world.
[00:23:32] So grow into the fullness of who you are by seeking your Creator and listening to his voice.
[00:23:46] The second thing we see is community.
[00:23:48] We see community in the Lord and community in humanity.
[00:23:54] Even in these chapters, we see a glimpse of the relationality of the Lord.
[00:23:59] 1:26 says, Let us make humanity in our own image.
[00:24:06] Now the rest of the Bible gradually unfolds the Lord as one God who is three persons.
[00:24:15] The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
[00:24:20] This three in oneness, this personhood of God is a mystery too great for us to understand and it should move us to worship.
[00:24:33] One sadness of the Allah of Islam is his aloneness.
[00:24:41] There is no Trinity in the Koran, there is no personhood within their God and therefore there is no awareness of love in the Allah of Islam.
[00:24:57] Yet here in the opening chapters of the Bible, we see the relationality of the Lord and we discover that humanity in some beautiful way also reflects this relationality of this triune God of love.
[00:25:15] The Lord is communal and so are we.
[00:25:19] We are made in his image as male and female.
[00:25:24] The male and female design of the human race is intentional.
[00:25:29] The two ness of humanity reflects something of the threeness of the Lord and this is why the biblical revelation of two genders is so key and so important for human life.
[00:25:46] The equality and distinctives and the synergy of the two genders is critical not only for human flourishing, but also to display and image the glory of God.
[00:26:07] Number three Creative and Productive Life these two chapters reveal the effortless creativity and life giving intentionality of the Lord.
[00:26:22] They move us to bow down in worship and be amazed at his power and wisdom and generosity.
[00:26:31] What a privilege that the Lord invites us to join with him as he does his creative work.
[00:26:40] Verse 5 no plant had yet sprung up for the Lord. God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground.
[00:26:52] This verse continues to amaze me and inspire me.
[00:26:57] Does it do the same for you?
[00:27:01] Consider this thought when you wake in the morning and you look ahead in the blank slate of the day.
[00:27:08] The Lord is preparing to love people and to do good and to bless lives through you.
[00:27:19] This honours all of our daily activities at every waking hour of the day.
[00:27:25] It honours the time and patience and investments into building marriages and growing families and discipling the next generation.
[00:27:39] It honours all types of productive work, paid and unpaid teaching, farming, health care, building, engineering, volunteering, caring, listening, praying.
[00:27:56] The Lord does His life giving work in us and through us as we partner with him and with one another.
[00:28:06] His pattern of work and rest is a model for us too.
[00:28:13] Sabbath rest needs to be learned and practiced and not just on a weekly basis.
[00:28:21] A healthy life has regular rhythms of Sabbath times when we stop and rest and delight and worship.
[00:28:33] Sabbath is a gift of space to thank and to treasure and to rejoice and to restore.
[00:28:44] Now let's bring a few things to a conclusion with a couple of final thoughts.
[00:28:50] The first one is a glimpse of the Lord Jesus and the second one is to offer a rhythm for your day.
[00:29:01] In Genesis 1 we see the Lord before and above all things, creating the universe.
[00:29:09] In Genesis 2 the Lord comes near.
[00:29:14] It's as though he enters this world to Be hands on inside his creation, up close and personal as we see the Lord at work in chapter two, what posture do you see him taking?
[00:29:32] Do you see him standing or walking or sitting?
[00:29:37] I'm not sure about you, but in verse 7 I see him kneeling, taking the dust of the ground, sculpting and forming the man, and then breathing life into him.
[00:29:54] And in verse 21 and 22 I see him kneeling again as he lays the man down to sleep, taking the rib from his side and forming the woman.
[00:30:08] This is the Lord kneeling in the posture of a servant, forming the man, forming the woman, and then raising them to life.
[00:30:22] So it's no surprise then when we read in John 13 of the Lord Jesus doing the same thing.
[00:30:32] John 13, 3, 4.
[00:30:35] Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, that he had come from God and was returning to God. So he got up, he took off his robe, he knelt and began to wash his disciples feet.
[00:30:54] The Lord Jesus knelt down, taking the dusty feet of his disciples and he began to wash them clean.
[00:31:03] This was the servant king in action.
[00:31:06] God as one of us, embodying a profound parable that for Jesus would be fulfilled the very next day when he would be led to the cross, taking on the dust and the dirt and the shame and the guilt of people like you and me in order to wash our hearts clean as he shed his blood on the cross.
[00:31:39] Now there is another glimpse of Jesus in Genesis 2.
[00:31:44] In verse 21, a wound is formed in Adam's side, and out of that wound the Lord forms a woman.
[00:31:55] Now you may see a glimpse with the crucifixion on that Good Friday, the Lord Jesus, the second Adam, has a wound formed in his side as a spear is plunged into his chest.
[00:32:14] The first Adam was given an anesthetic.
[00:32:19] The second Adam was not.
[00:32:23] Jesus felt the full impact of humanity's sin on the cross.
[00:32:30] He was not spared any of the horror and the pain.
[00:32:35] And yet by his wounds we are healed.
[00:32:40] Because of his death we receive life.
[00:32:46] And from his wounded side, from his dead body the Lord has formed the bride of Christ, the global church, the gathering of believers from every tribe and tongue who have put their faith in the Lord Jesus and been raised to life in him.
[00:33:11] What wonderful glimpses of the Lord Jesus here in Genesis 2.
[00:33:17] The first Adam, made from dust, who received the breath of life and became a living being.
[00:33:26] And then the second Adam, the Lord Jesus, dead in the tomb, who received the breath of life from the Spirit of God and was resurrected never to die again.
[00:33:41] The Death and resurrection of Jesus is a second origin story for the human race.
[00:33:50] It's the event that makes eternal life possible for all those who believe in Him.
[00:34:00] So, one final thought, a rhythm for your day.
[00:34:04] I want to finish with a very practical application, how to wake up.
[00:34:10] Well, now think back to where you were this morning just a few hours ago.
[00:34:16] Many of us, I think, were warm and cozy in our beds.
[00:34:21] And there is a moment each morning when every human being opens their eyes and slowly becomes aware of their surroundings.
[00:34:32] Lying in your beds, maybe morning breath and a bed heads, we slowly wake up to a new day.
[00:34:43] Waking up is an incredible equalizer for humanity.
[00:34:48] Donald Trump wakes up in the morning, Taylor Swift wakes up in the morning.
[00:34:56] You and I wake up in the morning.
[00:35:01] It's an incredible equalizer for all of us.
[00:35:07] After being unconscious for eight hours, we wake to a new day.
[00:35:14] This week, I want you to experiment with a simple daily rhythm.
[00:35:20] As you open your eyes and slowly become conscious, bring to mind your two origin stories, the one described in Genesis 2 and the one described in the last chapter of the Gospels.
[00:35:40] As you open your eyes, remember your dusty and bony beginnings of Genesis 2.
[00:35:48] Remember also that once you were lost, lying lifeless and dead in your sin.
[00:35:57] And then take a slow, deep, conscious breath.
[00:36:03] Fill your lungs with life giving oxygen.
[00:36:07] And as you breathe, ask the Lord to fill you with his spirit for a new day.
[00:36:14] Breathe like the first Adam who became a living being to go and live a productive life in this world.
[00:36:23] And breathe like the second Adam who inhaled resurrection life.
[00:36:31] And after this first breath in the morning, take some time to thank the Lord for the wonderful gift of another day on this earth to be lived for his glory.
[00:36:46] And then offer that new day to Him.
[00:36:50] Ask him to do his work in you and through you.
[00:36:55] He has placed you in a particular garden, he's put you alongside particular other people, and he's inviting you to join with him in bringing life to that garden, bringing life to those people, to work the garden, to care for it, to embody his life in such a way that you can image him for others to see.
[00:37:28] This is our purpose, to begin each day with the Lord like this and then join with him and see what he might do in you and through you as you seek to live for his glory.
[00:37:45] Let's pray.
[00:37:53] Father in heaven, we thank you that as we read these words, you reveal yourself and you reveal us, and you give us this wonderful good news of grace, the grace of a new day to be lived in your world, the grace of the opportunity to look to you and to trust and to obey to put aside other distractions and to have a single minded focus of tuning into your voice and wholeheartedly living your way.
[00:38:32] We thank you Lord Jesus that you have shown the way for us to live in this world.
[00:38:38] We thank you that you lived perfectly on our behalf.
[00:38:42] We thank you that you died in our place taking on the full consequences of our sin and shame and guilt and we are amazed that you were raised from the dead never to die again and you give us this beautiful promise that all those that look to you and believe will be called children of God.
[00:39:09] We thank you this morning that we've been able to hear something of you.
[00:39:14] We pray for each one of us that you would highlight particular things that are your word to us today and that you would give us all that we need to receive that word, to humbly believe, to respond with obedience and to live a life of gratitude and worship in response.
[00:39:38] Amen.
