The Story Of God: Regeneration

THE STORY OF GOD: CREATION-RECREATION

THEME: GOD CREATED BY MAN AND CONTINUES TO RECREATE MAN.

TEXT: TITUS 3:3-7

It always seemed like hours in that chair. In a small kitchen in an old farm house, the chair was always located on the right side of the table. Grandmother always sat on the left side. This chair is still there day. The chair never moved because the stories never changed. They were told over and over again. The same stories of how her husband died and her son David had to look after the family farm at thirteen. The stories of the men working in the fields and grandmother cooking breakfast, lunch, and supper for over ten men each day was told often. The disgust of my grandmother over Donald her oldest son having to do dishes because his wife did not feel like it was recalled periodically after the cooking story was told. In that chair I heard about my mother having her leg ran over with the tractor, in that chair I heard about the values of hard work, and the honor in saving money for a rainy day. In that chair I heard the stories of my life. Though as a teenager these stories seemed pointless. So often I read the paper as grandmother would go on with these often told accounts from the past. Oh how today I would love to sit in that chair in that old farm house and hear those stories again.

All of us need to sit in this chair again. Not the chair at grandmother’s house, but the chair with God. We all need to sit down with the Lord again and listen to the story he wants to tell us. The Bible was never to be read in bits and pieces. The Bible is the story of God for every generation. It is the past with a look into the future. Much of the Bible is told through typologies. There is the Old Testament that is interpreted through New Testament eyes. One of these typologies or sometime we say foreshadowing is the creation-recreation story. And this is the story we want to focus on this morning. We will tell the Gospel story of God through three typologies. In this series, we will look at the creation/recreation account, then the first Adam/ second Adam stories, and finish with the exodus/Christ event in the Bible. We need to sit down in the chair next to God and allow Him to tell us His story again.

The story begins on a positive, glorious note. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). God desired to create a world for humanity. God being naturally relational because of the permanent existence of the trinity, God desire to create a world suitable for his prize creation—man. God was pleased with his handy world as he pronounced “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). God continued his creative work in making humanity. “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die." Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:15-18). In God’s prized creation, he made it that man would not be forced to love Him. God allowed man to have freewill. The only limit of man’s choices was to reframe from eating of the tree of good and evil. God created a perfect world, for his perfect creation man. But man was not satisfied with his one limitation and through the tempting of the serpent; Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree and fall from God’s favor. With this one decision, sin entered the world for all time. God perfect and good creation was destroyed by man’s disobedience. Genesis 3:6 records “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” God was heartbroken over man’s choice to reject his will. Ever since this day, humanity has been corrupted. Man is full of sin and rebellion. The Bible is full of statements concerning man’s sinful condition. Man’s heart is now evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). The beautiful world that God created for man was rejected. Man was sent from the garden of eve into the harsh world of weeds and warfare. Everything that God intended for man was lost in this sin. The world that God intended was no more.