Transcription downloaded from https://yetanothersermon.host/_/shoreline/sermons/91593/genesis-seeing-god-and-man-in-creation_s-details/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Good morning, church.

[0:22] Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 2, verses 4-17, our sermon text for today.! If you need a Bible, you're welcome to take one off the back table, and if you don't own a Bible, you're welcome to keep that as our gift to you.

[0:42] These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.

[1:04] Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature.

[1:17] And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

[1:31] The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.

[1:43] The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Habila, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Delium and onyx stone are there.

[1:54] The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

[2:07] The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

[2:26] For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thank you, Tyler, for that reading of God's word.

[2:42] Good morning, everybody. I'm Matt. And it's a pure joy to be up here to bring God's word this morning. And it's a great privilege to do this.

[2:57] Well, here we are in Genesis. Today's sermon is titled, Seeing God and Man in Creation's Details. In 1889, Vincent van Gogh painted this photo.

[3:16] Now, if you're age 10 and under, can anyone name what this painting is? Behind Lennox, this young gentleman. Go ahead. Starry Night.

[3:28] Nice job. 10 points. All right. Starry Night. Van Gogh painted this during a period of intense emotional struggle. The painting isn't just a night sky.

[3:41] It's a window into his inner world. Here's what the artwork reveals about Van Gogh. Emotional intensity. The swirling sky feels restless and turbulent, mirroring his mental state.

[3:55] Isolation. The quiet village below contrasts with the explosive sky above, suggesting distance between himself and society. Hope and longing.

[4:08] Despite the chaos, the stars and moon glow brightly, hinting at wonder and hope. Deep, significant things can, about who Van Gogh was at the time of this painting, can be seen in this artwork.

[4:23] His emotions, his struggles, way of seeing the world, are integrated into every brushstroke. So we've spent the last three weeks looking at the incredible story of how our God, our glorious God, the masterful creator of all things, brought the universe into existence.

[4:41] Genesis chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 3, gives us the panoramic view of all that was created. Now starting in chapter 2, verse 4, we're zoomed in close as Scripture's divine author gives us a glimpse of his creation's details.

[4:59] And in doing so, allows for us to see more about who he is through the specifics of his creating Adam and Eve and his garden paradise in Eden.

[5:11] Just like an analysis of the starry night gives us insights about its artists, albeit disheartening ones, so also looking closely at specifics about God's masterpiece of creation shows us something about what God is like.

[5:29] Today, we'll see his affection, kindness, and grace. Unlike Van Gogh, the things we can gather from looking at God's creation are simply wonderful.

[5:41] Because these insights about God point to his love for us. We'll explore today how we ought to respond to God, to what he has called those made in his image to be and do in relation to how he reveals himself through creation's details.

[6:00] And by the end of chapter 2, which ends with the creation of Adam, I'm sorry, of Eve and institution of marriage, which we'll go through next week, the stage will have been set at the end of chapter 2 for thriving life in God's created world with his plan, purpose, and glory being of highest importance in the universe.

[6:23] Let's pray. Lord, would looking at your word and the truths about who you are and who we are lead to our worshiping you with more fervor through our understanding in our minds and greater admiration in our hearts.

[6:40] Would this be for your glory and for our good. Amen. Our passage today begins in verse 4, which reads, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

[7:00] These are the generations is a Hebrew phrase that is used 11 times throughout Genesis. It could be phrased, this is the story of, or this is an account of the heavens and the earth.

[7:12] And what we see, the next verses that we're going to look at today go on to identify Adam, a metaphorical offspring of the earth, and the Garden of Eden as part of the main castes of earth's early days.

[7:27] But the remaining 10 instances of this phrase in Genesis are very different than the first. In all other instances, the family patriarch is named first, and then the offspring is listed in order.

[7:40] Example, Genesis 10.1, These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In our passage, though, we see Adam's name, but no human patriarch who marks the start of the family line.

[7:56] And we are reminded again that unlike every other human being after him, Adam did not come from another human. Not in the same way.

[8:07] So naturally, there's no family line to trace throughout human history. He had no earthly parents, but was made by the eternal heavenly Father, the glorious Lord, as the second half of verse four says.

[8:23] Here's the first of three insights about God that point to his love for us as seen in Genesis chapter two. First, God's affection in creation.

[8:35] Verses four through seven. Who created Adam? Jehovah Elohim is the name, the Lord God in Hebrew. This phrase is here for the first time introduced in the Bible.

[8:48] Elohim is the generic term denoting God as the everlasting, almighty, sole object of supreme reverence to all intelligent creatures whom he has created.

[9:00] Jehovah or Yahweh, typically denoted in our Bibles with L-O-R-D and small capital letters, is the proper name of God to man, the author of existence, who manifests his existence to those whom he has made capable of such knowledge.

[9:20] That's us. Yahweh signifies the personal, relational nature of God to man. The term Lord God shows us that the everlasting, almighty God is also the personal creator God who longs to manifest himself to mankind.

[9:41] How glorious. That Elohim, capable of creating galaxies, both known and unknown to us, would condescend in care as Jehovah, desirous of relating personally, of concerning himself with the likes of you and I.

[10:01] In his condescension, we see our God's affectionate, relational characteristics. Let's move on and read verses five through seven.

[10:11] When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.

[10:28] These verses both serve as chronological clues to where we have zoomed into in chapter two from the panoramic view of chapter one, as well as they provide a testament to God's power over creation.

[10:44] First, the chronological clue. Chronological means timeline for those who aren't familiar with the word. Although it may appear to be contradicting day three of creation when God made vegetations, plants, and trees, upon closer examination, it's actually in harmony with this day.

[11:05] As these two Hebrew terms we see in verse five are distinct from the ones used on day three of creation. I'd be happy to talk to anyone about that after this service as well.

[11:16] But there's more to note here than just a chronological timestamp, I think, and Hebrew words. God has not only created all things, but he has also had the knowledge and timing and dynamics of what is needed for his creation to thrive.

[11:35] In this case, rain and mankind to cultivate crops. God created order from nothing. We can't forget this. God created that order to fulfill his creation plans.

[11:50] And the peak moment in his creation plans is the creation of mankind. The only living creature created as Imago Dei, the image bearer of the creator.

[12:04] Let's look at verse seven. Then the Lord formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature.

[12:18] God formed man in a different way than the other living creatures. He spoke the animals into existence and saw that it was good. With Adam, we see a more personal touch though.

[12:32] God formed Adam, Hebrew Adam, A-D-A-M, from the dust of the ground, Hebrew Adamah, A-D-A-M-A-H. You can see Adam and ground are closely related.

[12:45] The word formed infers the imagery of a potter who moves carefully, who requires careful skill, forethought and attentionality and molding clay into the desired form.

[12:58] Any people who do pottery here? Yeah, we got one potter. Unlike a finished piece of pottery, which is placed on a shelf but remains lifeless, God then breathed life into Adam, into this creation and formed this newly formed body of dust into a formed soul, from God's soul, through the breath of his lungs.

[13:31] And his life brought Adam to life. How amazing that our God literally brought from the dust of the earth to life, a fully functioning human being, yeah?

[13:42] And church, we too, who have received Christ as our Savior, also have been given a new soul through God's life-giving breath when he indwells us with the presence of his spirit.

[14:03] God's life has been spiritually infused into your body, transforming you and me from lifeless to full of abundant life, only by his powerful Holy Spirit.

[14:18] This is good news, amen? This is good news. God's glory and affection are on brilliant display in his creation of Adam and our spiritual recreation.

[14:32] None can compare with the Lord God. So how can we apply this? There it is.

[14:44] We learn about God's affection for us through looking at creation. How do we respond? We respond with returned affection. I think I have the wrong slide, but that's okay.

[15:02] Oh, no, it's right. All right, thanks. Humans have been, so first way, humans have been created to serve God. We are from dust and our life is from his breath, made in his image as participants in whose story?

[15:19] Whose story? God's story, right? It's God's story. We are indebted to service to him for his purposes, a good honor and privilege. But I'm afraid that we are quick to make the story of the Bible and the story of our lives a story about us, right?

[15:39] However, have we forgotten the tender affection of the potter with which God has created us? From dust with his life-giving breath?

[15:52] Without him, we are brittle and easily breakable. Our response to God's display of affection and creating us ought to be humble service and not disregarding or placing his priorities for us on the back burner in lieu of what we see as most important.

[16:16] Look for ways to serve God, especially through serving his church, who are the folks who regularly sit in this very room.

[16:27] I wonder if the extent to which I am serving those around me is an indicator of the level of affection I'm returning to God.

[16:38] You can't love God and not love his church. Repeat after me. I can't love God and not love his church.

[16:50] Jesus said in Matthew 22 that the first and second greatest commandments when challenged by the religious leaders are simply put, love God and love others.

[17:05] We are created to serve God. Number two, we're also created to know and treasure God. Our creator is also the covenant-making relationship God of the Old and New Testaments.

[17:19] The one who longs to be our God and we his people. Exodus 6-7. He has crafted us with, remember the image of the potter. He has crafted us with affection in his image through his powerful life-giving breath.

[17:38] Psalm 139.14 says, I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. It's hard to get down on yourself when you think about that, isn't it?

[17:52] God says, no! I've crafted you just how I want you to be. Don't call yourself that. Don't think that you're this. What do I call you?

[18:05] God says to us. What do I call you? Our response ought to be a praise response. A praise response.

[18:16] Active praise through a returned desire to know him. We have the greatest treasure in the Lord God. But why are we so slow to act like it?

[18:31] Why are our actions so quick to pursue lesser treasures? Mine are many times. I don't know about you. Look at what things dominate your excitement, time, energy.

[18:47] That is your treasure. The things that you push other things aside for, that is your treasure. Now is the...

[19:00] Sorry. Who or what is it in your life? A brother asked me recently, what three things are most important to you?

[19:14] I think that's a great way to find out who or what your treasure is. What three things are most important to you? Now is the time, church, to return affection to your creator.

[19:25] Let's encourage each other in this process too. We're not going at this alone. This is a hard thing to break down those walls that keep our treasure safe.

[19:42] So let's encourage each other and see what God can do when we treasure Christ the most together. All right, let's turn now to the second of three insights that point to God's love for us as seen in Genesis chapter two.

[19:56] Next we'll see God's kindness in his provision. Read with me in verse eight. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

[20:11] And out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that's pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

[20:24] After God created Adam in his kindness, he planted a garden akin to a orchard of fruit trees. And there he placed his image bearer.

[20:35] Eden's splendor rightly fits its name too. Matthew Henry has this to say. Eden means delight and pleasure. Wherever it was, it had all desirable conveniences without any inconvenience, though no other house or garden on earth was ever so.

[20:53] It was adorned with every tree pleasant to the sight and enriched with every tree that yielded fruit, grateful to the taste and good for food.

[21:06] God, as a tender father, desired not only Adam's profit, but his pleasure. Eden was a cleansing breath of joy and comfort. It was a home and a haven.

[21:19] It not only met practical needs such as nourishment, shade and shelter, but it also met other needs too. I thought this was really interesting. Verse nine says, out of the ground, the Lord made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight.

[21:35] See, Adam didn't need beautiful trees or food that tastes good as they didn't meet his basic needs, but they did bring an excitement and a joy to life that blesses the soul.

[21:55] Church, God knows our needs. He also knows our wants. He knows that the sweetness of an apple and the beauty of a blossoming tree can tend to the soul in a very special way.

[22:12] How kind of our God that he has provided for us practical and delicious things for our sustenance and beautiful things for our enjoyment.

[22:22] But the greatest part of this garden paradise, the reason that it was the greatest of earthly places was because on the seventh day, as Mike shared with us last week, God's rest meant making the earth, including the garden, his divine sanctuary, a temple of his blessed and holy presence for the sake of mankind.

[22:51] God himself communed with Adam and Eve there, as we're told in Genesis 3, verse 8. The Lord God placed Adam in the garden and then he himself chose to be with Adam there so that they could ever worship him and enjoy his presence.

[23:13] How incredible. The creator dwelling with his creation in perfect relationship. And we might think about Eden and say, wow, that's really far off, right?

[23:28] Wow, that was, we're really lucky to have had that, you know? But church, we right now are not far from the fellowship of the garden paradise.

[23:41] Having gained access to the fellowship and holy presence of God because of his spirit within us right here and now, we too can walk with God in personal, relational way.

[23:56] Today. In this moment. But how? Because even though Eden's garden gates were physically shut, he has made a way for us to access him once again through the saving work of his son, Jesus Christ, our savior and our mediator.

[24:19] We have access, fellowship to God. Two specific trees in the garden were identified in verse nine.

[24:30] The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The former will be a topic of discussion in chapter three after Adam and Eve's sin, so we'll limit discussion about it now, but in essence, that is a tree that was good to eat, the tree of life.

[24:49] And when eaten, provided life. It's a key part of God's kind garden provisions. More to come on that. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil will also become predominant in chapter three, but we'll touch on it in our third point today as well.

[25:07] Let's move on to verse 10 through 14 where we learn more about God's garden provisions. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.

[25:19] The name of the first, the Fishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havalah, where there is gold. The land of the, where there, and the land of the, sorry, verse 12.

[25:30] And the gold of the land is good. The delium and onyx stones are there. And the name of the second river is Eom, is the one that flowed around the land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria.

[25:42] And the fourth is the Euphrates. The exact location of the garden is uncertain. Mention of Tigris and Euphrates gives us kind of a general idea, but there are no archaeological findings to give us clues.

[25:56] And scholars have come up with this map as a possible location for God's garden in Eden. So you see here these two circles representing potential locations.

[26:14] And whereas it would be really nice to know exactly where God's garden and the land of Eden were, it must be understood that if God wished for us to know its location, he would have made it clear in his word.

[26:30] But all is not lost. As Warren Wiersbe says, fortunately, it isn't necessary to master ancient geography in order to understand the spiritual lessons of those early chapters in Genesis.

[26:46] Something we can take from verses 10 to 14 in the realm of spiritual lessons comes from the fact that the garden of Eden's rivers served as a life source to land areas and its paths.

[26:59] Out of God's garden, paradise, flowed bountiful, divinely given resources and riches. The precious stones and gems found in the surrounding areas remind us that the garden was just the beginning.

[27:17] Remember? God's plan as seen in Genesis 1.28 in his creation mandate is that Adam and Eve would fill the entire earth with his glory.

[27:30] And look, these natural resources are available right outside the garden walls in the neighboring lands. And these resources were carried by life-giving waters from God's paradise.

[27:48] the motif of life-giving waters is a significant theme in scripture. Maybe you're familiar with Revelation 22.1 which says, then he showed me a river of the water of life clear as crystal coming from the throne of God and from the Lamb.

[28:06] There flowed a life-giving stream. And any and all who might come to have access to the life-giving water pictured in the garden and in Revelation, any and all might come.

[28:23] Jesus says in John 4, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

[28:40] Drinking this water means trusting by faith in Jesus' finished work on the cross, in his dying in your place, in his resurrection, defeating death with life, thus securing for you eternal life, living where a life-giving stream comes from the throne of God and from the Lamb.

[29:10] In God's renewed garden, paradise in heaven forever. Amen? We have access to this stream.

[29:24] Here's our last verse of this second point we're working through. Verse 15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. after God formed Adam, he placed him in the garden paradise.

[29:39] The Hebrew word translated as placed him literally means caused to rest. Caused to rest in the garden paradise. But this rest isn't a physical sit-on-the-couch rest because in the garden he was to work.

[29:57] Verb we're all familiar with. A verb meaning to till or cultivate and to keep he was called to. A verb meaning to protect, watch over, and guard.

[30:09] God's design for mankind was their God-honoring, God-serving work to create order and fill the earth. That all the earth might become this paradise, this place of deep, spiritually satisfying Sabbath rests expanded throughout all the earth as was God's intent.

[30:33] These verses, sorry, this verse echoes the words of Genesis 1-28. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

[30:51] But this expansion would come primarily through mankind's work. Eden was not what we think of as a paradise vacation.

[31:04] Very different. Where you lay on the beach and don't have any duties. God did not intend for Adam to enjoy pleasures apart from work.

[31:19] I'm going to say that again. Somebody like that. God, you know what, young people, listen up to this too and everyone else, but especially young people.

[31:31] I speak this to myself too. God did not intend for Adam to enjoy pleasures apart from work. To be lazy and only relax. Now that's real paradise, right?

[31:42] We might think. But actually the opposite is true because Adam would enjoy God's garden provisions through maintaining the garden. We've seen a garden become overgrown.

[31:54] There's nothing restful or pleasant about that. He needed to keep the garden in its proper state, its functioning state, subduing and having dominion over it.

[32:07] It might bring, that might bring the greatest pleasure in its nourishment, beauty, and creature comforts. So next time you look at a garden that's overgrown, think about that.

[32:21] But most importantly, Adam's work would bring rest in that it was an obedient response to God's command to work and keep the garden. Thus the fellowship Adam would have with God would remain.

[32:37] The Sabbath rest would continue. We must not view the good life and work as being equal opposites, but being complementary by God's design.

[32:48] I have a feeling that I might need to be reminded of that this week, so if someone could send me a text, maybe you do too.

[33:05] We learn about God's kindness through looking at his provisions in creation. How do we respond to this? I think in three ways. First, we choose thankfulness for the nourishment, shelter, and physical provisions God has given you.

[33:23] Then observe the senses, taste, smell, sight that God has kindly given for your enjoyment. We aren't owed these things by God, are we?

[33:34] No, he has kindly granted us these things as part of his giving us life. Do you see God as withholding good things from you, or do you believe that he has provided for you what you need?

[33:49] In our house, we say, God sometimes gives us what we want, but always gives us what we need. If you don't have it, you don't need it.

[34:03] Something I tell myself often. Would your life look different if you verbally and prayerfully expressed your needs to God for your provisions? I'm sorry, expressed your thanks to God for your provisions.

[34:18] Fathers, let's lead by example in thanking God for our blessings during family prayer. Workers, that's all of us, convey a thankful heart's attitude around the non-believers you know where you work and see the effect that it has.

[34:43] love. Number two, we can choose righteousness. Do not take the kindness of the Lord's provisions and resort to sin. We can be quick to turn what God meant for good into an avenue for self.

[35:02] No delights can be satisfying to the soul, but those which God himself has provided and appointed for it. one resource said, only what God has provided for our delight should we delight in.

[35:19] Do you take God's kind provisions and use them for evil? This could be in your parenting, by being overbearing and exacerbating your children to anger.

[35:33] In marriage, through subtle selfishness or demeaning comments. in work life, through justifiable slander and gossip.

[35:46] Through media and entertainment, in over consumption or addictive behaviors, or numerous other ways. Assess your life, friend, in this area and then repent.

[36:00] Romans 2, 4 says, or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. Friend, turn from this sin and choose to walk in righteousness and then communion with God, thus reaping the endless joys of his Sabbath, spiritual rest which he longs for you to experience.

[36:27] And then third, choose joyful work with your current occupation. kids, young people, this is for you too.

[36:38] Listen up. Are you faithfully and obediently stewarding, which is a Bible term that means completing, the specific work that God or mom or dad has given to you, bringing order and good from the work that you've been placed in?

[37:00] Colossians 3, 23 and 24 says, whatever you do, work at it, heartily as working for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you'll receive the inheritance as your reward.

[37:11] You are serving the Lord Christ. But what keeps us from joyful work? Well, if only my boss would, if only my hours or my pay, my commute, the meaning of my work, if my kids would just listen, then being a mom would be much more enjoyable.

[37:38] It's okay to say amen. Being a dad, too. Chances are everyone in this room has made a statement similar to these.

[37:50] Kids, how about, well, if my brother or sister didn't mess up my toys, or my craft, or if my chores were a little bit easier, or it didn't involve scrubbing a toilet, then I could have a better attitude.

[38:14] Then I could have a better attitude and be a joyful worker with a joyful heart. If God just gave me different work, different circumstances, I'd be able to do it joyfully, obvious.

[38:33] Yet even Adam and Eve, who worked in a physical paradise, doubted God's goodness and provision for them, believing the serpent's lie.

[38:46] Why are we any different? joy isn't simply something that you randomly stumble upon. It was crazy. I was at work at my desk and just hating my job, and all of a sudden, this brick of joy just came and hit me on the head, and then all of a sudden, I was like, wow, I love this!

[39:07] Ever since, it's been great. Joy is a God-given fruit of the Spirit. That God grants to those who choose to walk with him in righteousness.

[39:24] So choose joy. My last question on this is, do you believe that you can work joyfully? All right, let's look at the third and final of our three insights.

[39:40] I'll try to speed up here. That point to God's love for us as seen in Genesis 2, 16 and 17. God's grace in his command. Verse 16, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day you eat it you shall surely die.

[40:01] Thus far in chapter 2, we've seen God create Adam, place him in the garden and give him a job to work and keep it. Next, God sets guidelines on garden life, first in the form of a privilege and then in the form of a prohibition.

[40:15] The privilege is in verse 16, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. This is what we call free will. Adam had the ability to tend the garden, keep the animals, et cetera, as he pleased.

[40:29] I believe we can also expect that Adam was able to do other enjoyable things, like the things that we might do, walk, swim, run, hike, in the garden, in God's paradise.

[40:42] One way that a parent can show love to a child is by allowing them to enjoy the things in life that he finds enjoyable, be it crafts, make-believe, playing music, sports, games, so on.

[40:56] It's pleasing to a parent to watch a child use their free will to be passionate and interested in good things in life. One of the most loving things God has done is that he has allowed us to have free will and enjoy life as we see fit, as long as it is within his good standards.

[41:16] And standards come with limits and boundaries. So God set boundaries in the garden life. Free will cannot be limitless because then it can become dangerous.

[41:29] You're happy to let your child ride her bike in the road when you're there with her, but when you're not, you prohibit it. You forbid them because it's dangerous.

[41:40] Free will and obedience to commands go hand in hand. It is unloving not to set limits on free will. So to Adam, God says, I love you.

[41:51] I look what I've given you. And you're free to eat, but not from this one tree. So here's God's prohibition. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat it you shall surely die.

[42:06] What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? It is a source of wisdom which when eaten from would allow one to know by experiential knowledge what God knows in his infinite knowledge regarding the realities of an ability to decipher between good and evil.

[42:28] But why did God plant the tree in the first place? All right? The tree was a test of the couple's intention to obey God.

[42:39] That men and women can attain the knowledge of good and evil is not in itself either undesirable nor blameworthy. Knowledge per se was not what was being forbidden here, one resource says.

[42:51] The tree only represents the possibility that creatures made in God's image could refuse to obey him. Warren Wiersbe says, why did God have to test Adam and Eve?

[43:02] There may be many answers to that question but one thing is sure, God wanted humans to love and obey him freely and willingly and not because they were programmed like robots that had to obey.

[43:14] In one sense, God took a risk when he made Adam and Eve in his own image and gave them the privilege of choice. But this is the way he ordained for them to learn about freedom and obedience.

[43:26] It's one of the basic truths of life that obedience brings blessing and disobedience brings judgment. And this is a theme we see throughout our scriptures. The judgment of this rebellion would be death.

[43:41] The literal rendering of this phrase is dying you shall die, meaning death would be certain. But what type of death are we talking about?

[43:52] So physical death but not immediate because Adam lived to be over 900 years old but their being barred from the garden of the tree of life whose continual eating would have allowed them to remain alive forever, put into motion the long and slow process of physical decay and breakdown of their bodies, with physical death now being an unavoidable byproduct of their sin, one which we experience.

[44:21] So physical death, but more importantly, this judgment includes spiritual and relational death. They became dead in their trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2, 1.

[44:32] Thus separated and isolated from God, kicked out of the garden paradise. The state of the spiritual rest that God made for them to enjoy for their good and for his glory.

[44:44] God's creation mandate would be on pause. His relationship with mankind severed. Judgment and death would justly prevail. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

[45:16] By grace you have been saved and has raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Jesus Christ.

[45:35] Rejoice, because judgment and death have not prevailed. Because Christ has taken the entirety of God's judgment and death's penalty upon himself.

[45:47] Adam and Eve's sinful consequence, our consequence, Christ bore as he hung on the cross. This is God's grace in its sweetest display.

[46:02] That God foreknew that Adam and Eve would choose to eat of the tree and would surely die. Even before he placed them in the garden, he knew this. He knew in his perfect sovereign understanding that the grace he gave in setting the boundary in his command to not eat would be followed up by more grace through sending his son to repair the relationship that was severed in the garden.

[46:30] Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured, there where the blood of the lamb was spilt.

[46:43] Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.

[46:55] Goes the old hymn. Bear with me here as we set our final application in closing. We learned about God's grace through looking at his command.

[47:10] How do we respond? I think we respond with trusting obedience. Church, see God's good grace in the form of privileges and prohibitions in your life or things you can do and can't do and respond in trusting obedience.

[47:31] Do you trust that the boundaries or guidelines he has set in your life are part of his good plan for you? Kids, do you trust that the guidelines that your parents or parent sets in your life from God to them through his word are good for you?

[47:52] Do you trust that they're best? Even from the beginning of human history, God has graciously led us longing for our good.

[48:07] Do you see it that way? We will always have an interest and curiosity in things we know are against God's design for us. Throughout our whole lives, we'll have this interest and desire.

[48:23] What do you do about that? Respond in trusting obedience. And we have ample reasons, so many reasons to do so, but first and foremost, God's trustworthiness is seen in perfect form through his sending Jesus.

[48:40] To redeem the relationship that was severed in the garden and that each of us is guilty of when we choose what God has prohibited over what he has given us as good. According to his gracious commands as seen in his word, the Bible.

[48:57] And I plead with you, if you have never done so, would you respond in trust and obedience today and come to Christ for your salvation?

[49:09] I would love to talk with you after the service about that. So in closing today, looking at creation's details in Genesis chapter 2, we have seen what God is like as he relates to us.

[49:24] Who he has created us to be and what he has created us to do. Would his affection, provisions, and grace in our lives cause us to respond fully devoted and submitted to him, entering spiritual rest as we live in God's creation with his plan, purpose, and glory being of highest importance in our hearts.

[49:49] Let's pray. Lord, our God, would you come now and allow us to reap the rich benefits of looking at your word.

[50:07] Would you help us to respond to your affection and provision and grace in our lives with your praise? Would this be an active response of praise?

[50:22] Lord, would this be for our good, which you have longed for us from the formation of the earth? And would this be for your glory, which you have created us to do from the foundation of the earth?

[50:38] Amen. Amen. Thank you.