CHRISTMAS PLAN
Text: Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15-17; 3:1-7, 15
Introduction
1. Illustration: In the opening pages of his autobiography, An American Life, Ronald Reagan writes, I was raised to believe that God had a plan for everyone and that seemingly random twists of fate are all a part of His plan.
My mother - a small woman with auburn hair and a sense of optimism that ran as deep as the cosmos - told me that everything in life happened for a purpose. She said all things were part of God's plan, even the most disheartening setbacks, and in the end, everything worked out for the best. If something went wrong, she said, you didn't let it get you down: You stepped away from it, stepped over it, and moved on. Later on, she added, something good will happen and you'll find yourself thinking - "If I hadn't had that problem back then, then this better thing that did happen wouldn't have happened to me."
After I lost the job at Montgomery Ward, I left home again in search of work. Although I didn't know it then, I was beginning a journey that would take me a long way from Dixon and fulfill all my dreams and then some.
My mother, as usual, was right. It is a very comforting thought that God always has a plan. He had a plan for my life, and that plan is still unfolding. However, the greatest plan that God ever came up with happened in the Garden.
2. Adam and Eve took God's original plan for the human race and blew it up! But, thankfully, God had a plan. Let's call it the Christmas plan.
3. First, let's go all the way back to the beginning and discover why God needed a plan. He needed a plan because even though He...
A. Created Us In His Image
B. Gave Us Everything
C. It Wasn't Enough
4. Stand with me as we read Gen. 1:26-28
Proposition: Even though we messed everything up God had a plan to save us.
Transition: First, we need to understand that God...
I. Created Us In His Image (1:25-28).
A. In Our Image
1. From the very beginning humans were special, unique, and the pinnacle of God's creation.
2. We can see that in v. 26-27, "Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
A. In these verses we read about the creation of human beings. Both man and woman are God's special creation and not products of evolution.
B. He gave special attention to the creation of the human race. The command was given to Himself, when He said, "Let us make man in our image (or pattern), after our likeness."
C. Â Some scholars believe that "Let us" was simply a plural of majesty. More likely, it is the earliest reflection of the Trinity.
D. Because the world in Moses' day was not ready to understand the Trinity, and because the unity of God needed to be emphasized in contrast to the many gods of the pagans, verse 27 immediately says, "So God created man in his own image." (Horton, Genesis, (Under: "Chapter 1").
E. For this reason, they possessed a moral likeness to God as sinless and holy creations, with wise minds, loving hearts and a desire to do what was right.
F. Their personal relationship to God involved a moral obedience and a very intimate spiritual union.
G. They had a natural likeness to God. They were created as personal beings with spirit, mind, emotions, self-awareness, and power of choice.
H. Humans also reflect God's image in a physical way that is not true of animals.
I. In fact God gave them the same appearance to which He would eventually appear to them in the person of Jesus.
J. Now we need to ask ourselves why the author of Genesis singles out human beings in this part of the creation account.
K. The simple answer to that question is that we are special, in fact, so special that we are separated from the rest of God work.
L. We are God's creation, but we are a special creation and made in His very image.
3. Not only did God create humans in his image but he also blessed us. In v, 28 it says, "Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
A. The idea of God blessing human in this verse cannot be overlooked.
B. This verb primarily signifies the favorable relationship between the object and subject. The function of the verb in most of the contexts it appears in is to express the sentiment of gratitude or honor.
(Thoralf Gilbrant, ed., in Aleph-Beth, (Springfield, IL: World Library Press, Inc., 1998), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "1313").
C. So, when it says that "God blessed them," it means that God honored us because we were special to Him.
D. In fact, we were so special that he gave us ownership and authority over the rest of creation.
E. He expected us to take care of all of His creation in a way that honored Him. He placed the earth's future in our hands.
B. Crowned With Glory
1. Illustration: Crowns have always been the sign of authority and Kingship.
Charlemagne, whom historians say should deserve to be called "great" above all others, wore an octagonal crown. Each of the eight sides was a plaque of gold, and each plaque was studded with emeralds, sapphires, and pearls. The cost was the price of a king's ransom.
Richard the Lion-Hearted had a crown so heavy that two Earls had to stand, one on either side, to hold his head. The crown that Queen Elizabeth wears is worth $20 million-plus. Edward II once owned nine crowns, something of a record. God crowned us by making us in His image.
2. Human beings are the crown jewel of God's creation.
A. Psalm 8:4-5 (NLT2)
4 what are people that you should think about them, mere mortals that you should care for them?
5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.
B. We are God's special treasure.
C. We were created by Him and for Him.
D. We were created to have fellowship with God.
E. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you don't matter, or that you don't count, or that you were a mistake.
F. God created you special and you are his treasure.
G. He created you unique and God doesn't make mistakes.
Transition: But there's more to the story...
II. Gave Us Everything (2:15-17).
A. To Tend And Watch Over It
1. In addition to creating humans in his image and blessing them God gave them charge over all of his creation.
2. In v. 15 it says, "The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it."
A. Then God gave Adam a job. Adam was given work to do, such as cultivating, trimming and caring for the garden (otherwise the garden could have become a jungle).
B. This work would be healthy and also a joy, thus, God made him a responsible being sharing in part of the work of taking care of God's creation.
C. God never intended for His gifts to be neglected, misused, or wasted. He is active. People should be active, serving God where He has put them.
(Horton, Under: "Chapter 2").
D. However, the thing we must not lose sight of in this verse is in giving humans the task of tending to his creation God in essence is giving him use of it.
E. He is giving them the vegetation, and delicious fruit to eat.
F. He was giving them control over the animals on the ground, birds in the air, and fish in the waters.
G. Furthermore, God gave them riches beyond comprehension.
H. Genesis 2:10-12 (NLT2)
10 A river watered the garden and then flowed out of Eden and divided into four branches.
11 The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found.
12 The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there.
3. However, in all of this God also gave them boundries. In vv. 16-17 it says, "But the LORD God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— 17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
A. Adam was created a moral being with the power of free choice.
B. God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden giving an opportunity to choose to obey Him instead of pleasing the himself.
C. Because God is a just God and cannot look on sin as insignificant, a penalty was provided for disobedience.
D. As a moral being Adam was accountable for his actions and eating from that tree would bring death (which in the Bible has the primary meaning of separation).
E. The Hebrew uses a grammatical form called an infinite absolute here to emphasize the certainty of death, literally, "you are sure to die," means "you shall surely die."
F. In other parts of the Old Testament the same phrase is used of sudden death, but since Adam was both a spiritual and physical being, spiritual death (separation from God) would be immediate and physical death would come later (Horton, Under: "Chapter 2").
G. He gave Adam all he could ask for, except this one thing!
B. Responsibility
1. Illustration: "Life is the acceptance of responsibilities or their evasion, it is a business of meeting obligations or avoiding them. To every man the choice is continually being offered, and by the manner of his choosing you may fairly measure him."
2. With great blessing comes great responsibility!
A. Luke 12:48 (NLT2)
48 But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.
B. God blessed us by creating us in his image.
C. God blessed us by putting us in charge of everything else he had made.
D. God blessed us by giving us everything he had made for our pleasure.
E. But there was that one thing...one thing he said we couldn't have!
F. When David sinned with Bathsheba God told him "I haven given you everything you could have asked for, and if you wanted more all you had to do was ask!"
G. You see God has blessed us with everything and the only thing he asks for in return is our obedience.
Transition: But all too often it's not enough for us...
III. It Wasn't Enough (3:1-7, 15).
A. He Will Strike Your Head
1. "Ungrateful people complain about the one thing you haven't done for them instead of being thankful for the thousands of things you have done for them." And this was the problem in the Garden.
2. In Gen. 3:1 it says, "The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
A. Now the question before us is: how will the man and woman respond to the goodness and love of God who created them with wonderful capabilities and put them in such a gorgeous garden?
B. So God allowed a test. A serpent appears which is not identified here, but from its knowledge and what it says, it is obvious that it is more than an ordinary serpent.
C. It was said to be different from all other creatures by its shrewdness or cleverness.
D. Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 clearly identify it and calls it "that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan."
E. Satan is a spirit being and since only God can create, Satan cannot make a physical form by his own power. He can only take possession of a creature God has made.
F. He could not take possession of the man or the woman, because they had to choose to allow it, and they were still without sin.
G. So, he took possession of a serpent and that was all the woman saw.
H. Since all God's creation was new to her, she was not surprised when the serpent spoke.
I. The serpent's temptation began with a question. (Satan still begins that way.) His question began, "Did God really say..."
J. His question really denied the love of God and was intended to imply, "How could God keep any good thing from you if He loves you?"
K. He also wanted to draw attention away from all the good things they could have and focus attention on the one thing they could not have.
L. Satan still does this. He has not changed his basic methods, and we need to learn from this.
M.
3. Then in vv. 2-3 the woman makes the same mistake that many of us still make, she got into a conversation she couldn't win. She said, “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
A. Adam probably told Eve of the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
B. She may have heard God herself repeat the command as they communed with Him in "the cool of the day" (verse 8).
C. However, she added that they should not even touch it.
D. The addition of not touching it perhaps was also implied by what God had said.
E. God wants us to stay away from things forbidden in His Word.
4. Then the devil does what he does so well, he got her to doubt God. He said, “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
A. The serpent then followed his question by a denial, "You won't die." and added, "you'l be like God."
B. Satan denied God's word of accountability and His purpose for humankind.
C. God created them in His image. But Satan suggested God did not want them to be like Him, for He had forbidden them the one thing that God had known all along would make them like Him and enable them to live on a higher level of existence.
D. That "knowing good and evil" would make them like God was another of Satan's lies, for God knows about evil but not through personal experience.
E. By His very nature He is totally separate from all that is evil, and He hates it.
F. Actually, they were like God in His image, but Satan tempted them to want more than was healthy for them.
5. Then in vv. 6-7 we read the bad news, "The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves."
A. The serpent did not have to force the woman to take the forbidden fruit.
B. Once she gave her attention to it and spent some time thinking about it, it began to look good to her--good for food, to satisfy physical appetite.
C. This is what the New Testament calls the lust of the flesh, the cravings of sinful persons for physical benefits and pleasures out of balance.
D. Then she made a willful choice, took the fruit, ate it and gave some to her husband who was with her.
E. He apparently was observing all this and became convinced that it was good, and he too made a willful choice.
F. In fact Adam was more accountable, knowing what he was doing, while Eve was deceived (1 Tim. 2:14).
G. Their eyes were opened. That is, they now had knowledge of good and evil in their own experience instead of waiting for God's instructions.
H. But it did not make them like God at all.
I. Instead it filled them with guilt and shame--and they became painfully conscious of the fact they were naked.
J. That is, they became aware they had nothing to hide their guilt.
K. They were vulnerable to one another and to God. So they sewed (or twisted) the largest leaves available, fig leaves, to make coverings for themselves.
6. Now God had every right to be angry with them. In fact, he could have simply destroyed them for what they did. But that's not God! Instead he developed a plan on how to save them...and us. In vv. 14-15 it says, "Then the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. 15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
A. In the midst of the judgment on the serpent God gave a promise that was good news. It is sometimes called the "pre-gospel."
B. There would be a specific seed or offspring of the woman.
C. "He" would crush the head of the same old serpent (the devil, Rev. 12:9) that tempted the woman, bringing total victory.
D. But Satan would be able to bruise only His heel. Striking the heel would be only temporary.
E. The real victory would belong to the Seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.
F. This looks ahead to the Cross. There Satan did his worst to Jesus. But the cross became the means of our salvation and it, along with the resurrection of Jesus, assures us of the ultimate and final defeat of Satan.
B. Son Became Flesh And Blood
1. Illustration: Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish theologian of another century, tells the story of a prince who was running an errand for his father one day in the local village. As he did so, he passed through a very poor section of the town. Looking through the window of his carriage, he saw a beautiful young peasant girl walking along the street. He could not get her off his heart. He continued to come to the town, day after day, just to see her and to feel as though he was near her.
His heart yearned for her, but there was a problem. How could he develop a relationship with her? He could order her to marry him. It was in his power to do so. But he wanted this girl to love him from the heart, willingly. He could put on his royal garments and impress her with his regal entourage, and drive up to her front door with soldiers and a carriage drawn by six horses. But if he did this he would never be certain that the girl loved him or was simply overwhelmed with his power, position and wealth.
The prince came up with another solution. As you may have guessed, he gave up his kingly robe and symbols of power and privilege. He moved into the village dressed only as a peasant. He lived among the people, shared their interests and concerns, and talked their language. In time, the young peasant girl grew to know him, and then to love him.
This is what Jesus has done for you. The Word became flesh. The King put aside His heavenly robes and divine prerogatives. He came to us as one of us.
2. Even after what we had done God had a plan to save us from ourselves.
A. Hebrews 2:14-15 (NLT2)
14 Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.
15 Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.
B. God gave us paradise, he met all our needs, put us in control of it all, but it wasn't enough.
C. No we had to have that one thing we couldn't have, and because of it we paid the price for our sin.
D. But God had a plan, and his plan was to send his own Son to be like us so he could take our place on the cross.
E. But God had a plan, his Son, born of a woman, who come and crush Satan's head.
F. But God had a plan, his Son would redeem us from our selfishness.
G. But God had a plan, his Son would restore the relationship that we had broken.
H. But God had a plan, and that plan began on that first Christmas.
Conclusion
1. Adam and Eve took God's original plan for the human race and blew it up! But, thankfully, God had a plan. Let's call it the Christmas plan.
2. First, let's go all the way back to the beginning and discover why God needed a plan. He needed a plan because even though He...
A. Created Us In His Image
B. Gave Us Everything
C. It Wasn't Enough
3. THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER...
A. WHEN SATAN TELLS YOU THAT YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH REMIND HIM THAT YOU WERE CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, AND GOD HAS A PLAN FOR YOU.
B. WHEN SATAN TELLS YOU THAT GOD HAS ABANDONED YOU REMIND HIM THAT GOD HAS PROMISED TO MEET ALL YOUR NEEDS, AND GOD HAS A PLAN TO BLESS YOU.
C. WHEN SATAN TELLS YOU THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE REMIND HIM THAT IF GOD WANTED YOU THERE HE WOULD HAVE PUT YOU THERE, AND GOD HAS A PLAN TO PUT YOU WHERE HE NEEDS YOU.
