God Is a God of Life
Notes
Transcript
The Breath Of Life - (2:4-7)
The Breath Of Life - (2:4-7)
God Is The Author of Life - (vs 4-5)
Elohim - Creator, King, Judge, Lord, and Savior
He’s the one who started it all. He’s the one who reigns over it all.
God Is The Instrument of Life - (vs. 6-7) (life comes through)
Mist rose to water the whole earth. Creation
We can’t live without Him breathing life into us.
“breath” - neshamah - parallel to ruah - breath, wind, spirit.
“living” - chayah - living vs. non-living.
“being” - nephesh - thoughts and emotions - seems to imply the immaterial aspect of man.
Have you given your allegiance to the one who gave you the breath of life?
The Object of Life - (2:7-9, 15-24)
The Object of Life - (2:7-9, 15-24)
God Is The Object of life.
Genesis 1: Spoke and it happened. above and removed. Elohim. He saw it and called it good.
Genesis 2: YHWH combined with Elohim - shows God more intimately involved
YHWH - I am who I am. Personal name of God connected to how He interacts in relation to His people.
I am dynamically present in your midst
Hesed - Steadfast lovingkindness and faithfulness.
God desires a personal relationship with His people.
We see God “getting his hands dirty”. Interacting with His creation.
formed man from the dust.
breathing life into his nostrils.
planting a Garden and placing man in it.
out of the ground causes every tree to grow.
Including the tree of life.
God is providing eternal life.
Genesis 3:22 (NASB95)
Then the Lord God said, “...and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”.
God desires a working relationship with His people.
God is providing meaning/purpose to life.
Food, Work, and Service for worship (cultivate) - no connotation of toilsome labor, but rather a joyful experience of liberation.
Bringing animals to Adam and seeing what he would name them.
God desires our relationship with the opposite sex to reflect His relationship to us.
God fashioned woman from the piece of flesh.
brought her to the man.
deep sleep - idiom for death…pierced his side…woke him up…brought him his bride.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
This is why the issue of marriage is an important one for the church.
The Blessing of Life (1:1-31; 2:1-4, 18-22)
The Blessing of Life (1:1-31; 2:1-4, 18-22)
God Blesses Life. He wants a personal relationship with us.
Life is good. Very Good. tob - pleasing
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
All of creation is about God being concerned about the good of His people.
He is creating a place for them to live.
Why was it good? This will fulfill my purpose for my people.
Twice God blesses His creation. After Day 4 and after Day 6.
Once God blesses a day. The 7th day.
Not only did He bless it, he sanctified it.
This day, this day is a special day. It’s the day that I rested from my creative work.
Also note that it does not say on the 7th day that there was evening and there was morning a 7th day.
Enjoying His finished work was never to end. The endless 7th day.
The purpose of Sabbath - to enjoy my presence with you.
I have finished fulfilling my purpose for my people and now I want you to to enjoy my finished work, forever.
Food, work, and service for worship.
God Blesses Adam with a Helper suitable for him.
One thing in all of creation is not good.
Adam was alone.
Everything God does is for the good of His people, and when it is not good, He turns it into good.
Eve
The Protection of Life (2:8-9, 15-22)
The Protection of Life (2:8-9, 15-22)
The Garden Of Eden - God provides a safe place for life to begin. He desires a working relationship with us.
Cultivate Life
Works of service for worship.
All of life is to be done in worship of God.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
when we view all of life as worship, our lifestyle takes on a greater priority of attention.
when we view all of life as worship, we want to do those things that God would do, because that brings Him glory and pleasure.
What is it God would do?
God is a protector of life. Widow, poor, orphan, alien, downcast, brokenhearted, oppressed, imprisoned.
He wants to protect and provide. He wants to release and set free. He wants to bless and show goodness to.
Keep Life
Keep - to watch carefully over, preserve, guard, protect. To maintain and observe for a purpose.
By extension - stewardship of all of God’s creation.
Genesis 3 - Adam and Eve did not do a good job at protecting what God had entrusted to them.
Adam - did not stand up as head
Eve was deceived
Consequence (3:16)
4 Battles result
battle between the seed of Satan and the seed of the woman.
spiritual - Satan injures Jesus, Jesus crushes Satan
worldviews
battle in conception, pregnancy, labor, and delivery.
There is a battle over the womb.
infertility, miscarriage, still birth and abortion issues.
The Unborn
innocent, dependent, defenseless, they need protecting.
providing a safe place for life to begin. The womb should be a safe place for life to begin.
The womb should be a Garden of Eden. A place where life is protected.
Crafted the woman - same term, applied to crafting a baby in the womb.
And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, And My God is My strength),
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Life begins in the womb at conception.
If we don’t start at the beginning and include all of gestation, then we have a slippery slope of, “What arbitrary stage of life then does life begin? Who gets to decide that? Can you prove life does NOT begin prior to that arbitrary choice?”
With this line of thinking, you may feel free to carry out lethal measures against pre-born individuals against whom we have passed this judgment.
If you are incorrect in your assertion, and life begins sooner than you think, then you have no remedy for human life who has now sustained a wrongful death.
It is morally responsible to act in favor of life where the existence of life is uncertain. IE. searching for people in a collapsed coal mine, when you are certain oxygen has been depleted.
What about the rights of the woman. My body, my choice...
You give up your rights to your body once you decide to have sex.
You gave your body to a man, and now you might give your body to a baby.
You have now made the choice for the opportunity for another human being to invade your body.
Compassion, not Condemnation
Adoption, not abortion.
The battle for protecting the unborn did not stop at the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The battle has just begun.
We are so concerned about the life of the unborn, what about the life of those that are born?
What are you willing to do to support unwed, pregnant mothers?
battle between husband and wife.
battle between Adam and the ground.
Negative effects are greatly multiplied.
What was good and blessed, now became cursed and a struggle.
These things would never have been an issue if Adam and Eve had just done what God had asked them to do and cultivate and keep what He had given them.
We have a responsibility to cultivate and keep our Gardens.
The Multiplier of Life (2:18-24)
The Multiplier of Life (2:18-24)
God Is A Multiplier Of Life. God desires our relationship with the opposite sex to reflect His relationship to us.
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God could have just kept creating people out of the dust of the earth and breathing life into them, but God wants to use us. He wants to work with us.
Helper
Helper - same word used of God as helper throughout OT.
God is our helper…He created all of this to help us.
Adam was God’s helper
And now God was going to give Adam a helper.
We cannot multiply alone.
When God created, the full Trinity was involved. He created in community.
Someone to help manage creation. Managing in community.
Can mean alongside him. Taken from side… partner, confidant, in this together, interdependence
When we create other humans (babies) we can’t do it alone.
And the community created from this reflects God in community. Father/Son/Holy Spirit. Father, Mother, Child.
Man and Woman (vs. 23)
Male and Female - Hebrew words that refer particularly to physical sex. Imago Dei - equality
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Man and Woman. Gender confusion?
A person’s gender may include specific social roles, norms, and expectations that differentiate men and women.
These characteristics are subjective, and they differ among societies, social classes, and cultures. The gender by which a person identifies depends on the individual.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/can-men-become-pregnant#is-it-possible
Woman translated as one who bears children
Marriage
Remember, our relationship with the opposite sex is to reflect our relationship to Jesus.
Man and Woman can be translated as husband and wife and are connected with the previous terms of Male and Female. This does not allow room for homosexual relationships.
Proper order.
leave father and mother - cords of allegiance and dependency
be joined to his wife - cling, cleave - commitment, emotional
Then become one flesh. - intimate, physical union. Oneness. 1+1 = 1
Family - community
Families are the building blocks of society.
Be fruitful and multiply...
Fill the earth. You are my image bearers. Take my image all over my creation, manage this good and blessed creation, and enjoy what I have made for you.
Choose Life (2:9, 15-17)
Choose Life (2:9, 15-17)
God Is The Commander of Life: He determines how the game is to be played out.
He gives us choices. Here’s the game plan, will you follow it?
Tree of Life or Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil
Both were pleasing to the eye and good for food (vs.9)
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
Given one caveat. One do not...
And the consequence was the opposite of life: death. “I will have to take the breath of life back from you.”
God gave the breath of life and he can take it away. 2 terms parallel - wind, spirit, breath, but also some distinction.
neshamah - seems more closely connected to the physical life
ruah - to the spiritual.
“If He should determine to do so, If He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath,
Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it,
What choices lead to life? What choices lead to death?
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
When we allow our flesh to control our decisions then we end up choosing death.
When we allow the Holy Spirit to control our decisions, then we end up pursuing life.
God gave that command to the man!!!!
Pursue God because God is a God of Life.
He breathed life into us.
He is the object of life.
He blesses life.
He multiplies life.
He protects life.
Choose Life.
Choose Life.
If you haven’t done so, choose life today!
Maybe we need God to breathe on us again.
Breathe on us Breath of God.