Among the treasures of our home are two quilts. One hangs on the quilt rack in the entry hallway of our home. On one section of that quilt are many names of a particular congregation we have served.
A second quilt given to us by another congregation hangs over the back of the rocker in our living room. Now, it does not bear the names of that congregation’s members, but each square of that quilt represents something about us. For example, it contains the colors of the bridesmaid’s dresses in Susan’s bridal party. There is also one about our cat, Inky, who died last year at age 16.
Neither one of these quilts were bought at a store. They were handmade. Some of us here this morning have been involved in such projects. You know the work involved. Some of us here have been the recipients of these wonderful gifts.
There is something about handmade gifts, isn’t there? The time, the quality, the beauty of them grabs you and you treasure them like nothing else. A handmade gift is a gift from the heart.
Humankind was handmade. But, not by just any hands; humankind was made by the hands of God. In our other text for this morning, Genesis 2:4-22, we read of how humankind was, as the Psalmist put it, “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Have you ever considered what it was like to be Adam and Eve before the fall? I want to read Genesis 2:4-22 and as I do I want you to briefly think about what it would have been like to be Adam and Eve. (Read the passage)
Can you imagine being Adam or Eve in that environment? No pain, no fear, no anxiety; peace, love, a face-to-face relationship with God! We could call it heaven on earth!
I e-mailed some friends of mine and asked them that same question: What would it be like to be Adam and Eve! Here is what some of them said:
I think it would have been cool. None of today’s problems (varying from diseases to mortgage payments...and all the emotional problems). Wouldn’t it have been great to be able to worship God with hardly any distraction or temptations? After the apple...I don’t think I would want to have that many kids!!
It would be wonderful to be Adam and Eve - clean mind, clean heart, clean thoughts and direct access to a God who comes to walk with you everyday.
Pretty cool...I wouldn’t be so shocked by what people wear these days!
But, to paraphrase one of the respondents, we live “after the apple.” We live with pain, problems, disease, war, terrorism, and a whole host of things that cause us to be deeply alienated from God.
We are on a journey this fall through some opening chapters of the Bible. We began last Sunday with Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God create the heavens and the earth,” and the subject of “God’s good work.” Our Bible journey will parallel the stories that our children will hear in Sunday School and, starting tomorrow night, during our FW Friends weeknight ministry. We will also be discussing the sermon and the Genesis scripture passage during the adult Sunday School class that I lead each week and so if you would like to ask a question or make a comment, join us downstairs after morning worship.
These are stories that we have heard many times throughout the years. They are from a time and place that is distant and foreign to us. But, they are important because they lay the groundwork for God’s action in human history. If there is one thing that I hope you will understand during this series, it is that the opening chapters of the Bible tell of a God who is involved with His creation, not absent from it.
God is involved with His creation from the very start. In verse 7 of Genesis 2 we read: “And the Lord God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person.” So, as the text tells us that God personally formed humankind.
Now we also read in verse 19 “So the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird.” So both Adam, and later Eve, and all of the animals and birds are formed from the earth. However, it is critical to note two things in this passage: First, God is personally concerned with the aloneness of Adam. So, as we read in verse 18 and following, God creates animals and birds and gives Adam the authority to name them. But God observes that there was no companion suitable for Adam. And He creates Eve.
The second thing to notice is that the text makes clear that God breathed the breath of life into Adam. Now, the birds and the bees also use oxygen. But, I think that we can safely say that there was more to the breath of God than just oxygen. In the act of breathing, God gave Adam, and us, a soul.
As we read the Genesis account of creation, I think that one of the most important facts that we need to understand and accept is the value God has placed on humanity. We are God’s crowning achievement in His creation. We are created last in the order of creation. We are created personally by Him. And we are created personally by Him for a purpose.
And so the reason that the creation of humanity is so important is, that by the way God created us, by His own hands, it gives us an indication of the value that God places on us. In other words, the sanctity of human life.
As I studied this passage and prepared this message, words were hard to come by. I pondered the magnificence of how we came to be. We are not given much detail in these accounts, are we? There is tremendous mystery and majesty in this passage.
I also reflected on the birth of my own two kids and remember the awestruck and speechless response I had to their births. "These are human beings, " I remember thinking to myself. We are fearfully and wonderfully made as the Psalmist says.
As I studied this passage, I tried to place myself in the scene described in verses 7 and 18 - 22 where the creation of Adam, and then Eve, is recorded. As I did so, the image came to my mind of God getting down on His hands and knees and bringing the earth together to form a full grown human being, not just once, but twice. Each different, each unique and beautiful in its own right.
I imagined that He took His time and there was a great deal of love and care as He carefully shaped humankind into existence. I wondered if God stepped back and took a long look at what He had created. I wondered if the rest of creation paused while God worked and watched Him worked. And then I imagined God getting down and breathing into the nostrils and mouth of those two human beings, and watching them come to life.
Does that do anything for you? I believe that it should do something for us. It should make us understand that in those moments of life when everything seems to be going wrong: when relationship sour, when we are told that we are stupid or dumb or that we are made to feel that we do not matter, we do matter – to God. He gives a hoot about you and me, about this entire, tragic world. Why? He was personally involved in our creation.
Now I know that some of you are thinking, “Jim, how did God become personally involved in our creation? Our parents were personally involved in our creation! Nobody else was around!”
God was there. Who do you think made the chromosomes that determined our sex, eye color, hair color, and all sorts of other characteristics? God.
Who do you think “shaped” our DNA into our DNA to make us, us? God.
Who do you think made it possible for a human male and a human female to carry in their bodies an infinite number of possibilities for children? God.
Some of you might be saying right now, “Jim why are you telling us this? I have financial needs. I have homework. I’m hungry!”
This passage paints a very different picture of humankind than what is really believed these days. We are viewed as an evolving species that just biologically come into being. And because we are, there is an attitude that we are nothing more than biological machines, that eat, sleep, reproduce, and then cease to exist at some level.
We did not evolve from single celled creatures that came from some ooze. We have been made by hand. We are handmade by God in His image. What are the implications of that?
Well, it speaks to the issue of importance and significance. I asked some of other friends this question: What are ways that people try to find significance? Here are some responses:
Jobs, Relationships, Sports, Material possessions, Positions of power or authority, Politics, Good deeds, Education, Discovery, Thrill seeking
By educating themselves and seeking a place in which they feel comfortable and feel they are contributing to society’s quest for a better world.
- Personal power
- Prestige among my Peers
- Possessions
- Popularity in general
- Position of affluence
- Pace setter, recognized leader
- Peace maker/keeper
- Personal sense of worth
- Personal relationship with the Creator of the universe
- Perception of ourselves as co-heirs with Christ, and as a Child of the King
There is so much that we do in pursuing significance. But, in light of this passage, our significance comes as we accept who we are in God through Christ. It is only in God through Christ that we can adequately answer the question, "How do we know that we are important to God?"
We are important to God by the way we have been brought into existence. God created us by His own hand. We matter to Him.
This week we are hearing stories both repeated, and updated in print, on TV, over the radio, and on the Internet about the tragic events of a year ago. TV cameras and microphones are again going to be pointed in the faces of survivors and surviving family members who will again relive in the public eye the events of September 11, 2001 and the impact on their lives.
One such story that I hope is told is that of Al Braca. Al Braca worked on the 105th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center. He worked for a company whose tremendous loss of life was one of the first stories reported in the aftermath of September 11th. The company was Cantor Fitzgerald. Al was a corporate bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald. But Al Braca was also a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.
In the Focus on The Family magazine article where I learned about Al, it was reported that he really did not like his job. I quote, “It was a world so completely out of touch with his Christian values. But he wouldn’t quit. He was convinced that God wanted him to stay there, to be a light in the darkness." The article also indicated that his co-workers often mocked him for his beliefs. But, when there was a personal problem, those same co-workers came to Al for prayer and counsel.
Al’s body was one of the many found in the rubble of Tower One. And after that discovery, reports began to trickle in from various sources that some people on the 105th floor made "a last call or sent a final e-mail to a loved one saying that "a man" was leading people in prayer. A few referred to Al by name." The article goes on to say, "When he realized that they were all trapped in the building and would not be able to escape, Al shared the gospel with a group of 50 co-workers and led them in prayer."
Al Braca came to faith in Christ through the trying circumstances of daughter Christina’s illness - a rare blood disease. She was miraculously healed. She was 4 at the time. On September 11, 2001 Christina, age 28, waited with her family on word about her father.
Al Braca knew that he was important to God. He believed that God had a purpose for him on the 105th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center working for Cantor Fitzgerald. And he found significance and importance, not in the money he made, but in life that Christ had given him. "The last thing my dad did,” noted son Christopher, “involved the two things most important to him - God and his family.”
As I reflect on the week ahead, and as I wrote these words, the words of one of my favorite hymn kept going through my mind, " On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, His anchor holds within the vale. On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand."
Do we believe that we are important to God? We are. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Let’s live like it. Amen.
