Creation, Fall, Flood Series

Sermon Date 01-12-2014 The Story: Part 2 Genesis Ch. 1-9 (Chuck Gohn)

We are beginning our 31-week series simply called The Story. This will take us well into the fall with a little bit of break for the summer. If you were here last week, when I mentioned that when we are talking about the story, we are talking about the story of the Bible. Specifically the story that has Christ at the very center; a Christ-centered story. Because we only have 31 weeks and we have a lot of books to cover, I am going to each week to a high flyover of the Bible, while occasionally zooming in on some key people, places, and events just so we can begin to connect the dots together. As I mentioned last week, what I would like to do is periodically have people come up here and give a little bit of testimony about their own personal story so that you begin to see how individual stories are connected to God’s story. That is what I am hoping to do in the next few weeks. Today, I do have to jump right in to the book of Genesis. We are going to cover very quickly nine chapters of Genesis. It is really not that overwhelming. I would say in the first nine chapters there are really three key events. There is the creation, the fall, and the flood. Creation, fall, flood. I decided today I would tell it like a story like it was originally intended to be told just as a story. Like any good stories, all stories begin in the beginning.

As Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” That is how that story begins. Right in that very first line we get some very critical information. We know when this creation started; it started in the beginning. We learn who the creator is: God. We learn what he created: the heavens and the earth, pretty much everything. As it unfolds, we begin to see that the creation started with four words where God spoke and said “Let there be light.” Over the next five or six days, you begin to see creation unfold in a very beautiful way. The second day you begin to see how God began to separate the atmosphere from the waters that were below on the earth. Then you begin to see on the third day what happened is God began to bring some of those waters together and create the seas. Then he would place the land in between the seas. Then we get onto the fourth day and we begin to see how he put seed-producing plants on the earth. As you go on, you begin to see how he created the galaxies and the heavens. Placing the stars and the moon so we might be able to separate life by seasons. Then we see how he began to create the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. By day six he was creating all sorts of animals that walked the earth. He would stand back after each day and he would say “It is good.” As good as it was it was missing something. He was missing the crown of creation. He was missing people. He was missing man and woman. It goes on to say “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Right here it is important to stop and say you can tell by this passage that when God created man and woman, they were created a little different than the rest of the animals. The animals are said to be created according to their kind. Man and woman are said to be created according to the very image of God, which basically means that God has his divine imprint on every single human being, which means there is worth and there is dignity to every human life. That is pretty much the steps of creation. On the seventh day we know that he stood back and he didn’t just say that it was good. He said “It is very good.” So what happened is he creates man and woman and places them in this beautiful garden known as Eden. He pretty much gives them access and dominion over everything. The plants, the animals, everything. Really he created it for one central purpose; so that he might be able to commune and be with his people. That is what it was. It was a pretty good situation there. It was a pretty good gig for Adam and Eve.

We know that at some point things went terribly wrong. Not only did God give Adam and Eve everything in the physical world, he also gave them something that he thought they might need; he gave them the freedom to choose. God didn’t create robots. He wanted everybody to have the option to obey or disobey. If you have the freedom to choose that means you have to have choices. God set out to give them a choice. The choice was this. He was going to plant a tree in the middle of the garden, a tree that he referred to as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then he put restrictions on the tree. He said you can eat from any tree in the garden except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Don’t look at it. Don’t smell it. Don’t touch it and especially don’t eat from the fruit of that tree because you will die. Some of us who have kids know that when we tell our kids not to do something, they end up wanting to do it. That is what kind of the way it happened with Eve. She is walking around the garden one day and there is something about the tree that really attracts her to it. She is looking at the fruit and all of a sudden a serpent shows up. I don’t know about you, but I suspect if Debbie was in the garden working away and a little snake shows up, she might get frightened and run. Actually, if I was working in the garden and snake showed up, I would definitely run because I don’t like snakes. You have to keep in mind that at this point in time, there was no need to be afraid of the animals. This particular snake was any typical snake. This was a snake that could talk. A talking snake. Not only could he talk, he was smart. It said that he was a crafty snake, a very devious snake. He ended up approaching Eve and says did God really say that you are not supposed to eat from any tree in the garden? What he was doing was planting the seed of doubt right in the middle of Eve’s head. So Eve gets into this conversation with him. Before she knows it, she is getting very confused. This snake has Eve convinced that God is trying to keep her from the tree because if she eats from it she will be just like God. He says “For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” That is a little bit too much temptation for Eve. She begins looking at the tree saying that food looks good to eat. It has an appeal to it. It is pleasing to the eye. It is also good for wisdom. Before she knew it, she took an apple off the tree and very defiantly just took a bite out of that apple or whatever it was. Here comes Adam walking along and she sticks out the apple and says eat this. Like most men, it is like okay cool, an apple. I will eat it.