Genesis 2_4-14 - How Man is Connected to the Ground
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Summary
In this episode, we continue our journey through the book of Genesis and look at Genesis 2:1-4, where we see a shift from the general to the specific description of creation, and a new name for God, Yahweh.
Transcript
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Well, amen, and it's good to continue working through this book of Genesis, which we are not
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going to get through all 50 chapters, but we're going to take some important selections, including
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chapter 2. Now, last week, we looked at Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3,
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And these verses not only concluded that portion of creation,
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but they also were the foundation for the fourth commandment,
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And the practice of taking one day of rest and six days of work
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Now, if you remember, I argued that the Sabbath had shifted from the Old Covenant's seventh day,
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which is Saturday, to the New Covenant's first day, which is Sunday.
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Now, the rationale for this shift was that the Sabbath has always been a memorial of God's redemption of his people.
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In fact, we see this even in the Old Testament,
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where Israel was commanded to keep the Sabbath in remembrance of their deliverance from Pharaoh.
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In the same way, it is the most coherent to see the Lord's Day, Sunday,
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as the new covenant memorial of our both new creation in Christ and to our redemption through Christ.
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Now, I gave lots of reasoning for that, but ultimately, Saturday pointed to the shadow.
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saturday anticipated sunday embraced the reality now some christians really struggle with
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this shift because they they note that the sabbath was a quote forever command
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in scripture how can it change it was a forever command to be on the seventh day
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um what i did not mention last week which i was frustrated after i had got down from the pulpit
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that I want to emphasize today is that Scripture uses the same forever language
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And interestingly, no Christian struggles to see why these practices have been replaced
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In other words, Christians readily understand the Passover and the circumcision as signs that were pointing forward to Christ.
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While baptism and the Lord's Supper are signs pointing back to Christ.
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So why are some willing to acknowledge the transformation of these kind of forever signs, but not the transformation of the Sabbath?
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And that was the key question that I want to leave you as we transition into other texts.
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But I really believe that is a piece that I missed last week that I wanted to deliver to you today.
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Today, we're going to move into what I would say is the micro.
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And if you will, we have kind of gone from chapter 1 in Genesis, from the micro, or from the macro to the micro.
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From the macro to the micro, from the general to the specific.
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That's what happens in Genesis chapter 1, which is the general, the macro.
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And now in chapter 2, we get the details, the specifics of that same narrative that was in chapter 1.
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These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
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in the day that the Lord made the earth and the heavens.
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Now, this verse is actually a forward-pointing statement.
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This word, these, it's a demonstrative pronoun, and it's a forward focus.
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It's almost like a heading at the top of this section in your Bible.
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If I wrote, this is the history of Kingsway, and then I listed it out,
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That's basically what we're saying or what we're seeing here in this text.
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So Moses's introduction from a shift to the broad to the specific, from the days of creation to really what happened in those days of creation.
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Now, first thing you're going to notice that you'll probably miss actually in English,
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but if you are a theologian or you have a Bible that might have used different translations of specific words,
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So in chapter one, up until this point, the name of God in Hebrew was Elohim.
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but this is speaking to the creator element of god but here in chapter two we get an introduction
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to god as yahweh and that is why you have the word lord god in your bible typically in english
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bibles when it says lord and it's all capitalized it means that in hebrew it says yahweh and so
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there's a variety of names of God that speak to a specific reality. Now, why is this important?
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Because it shifted from God, the almighty, powerful creator, Elohim, to God, the faithful,
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covenant-keeping, relational God, Yahweh. And so we're seeing a personal, relational shift
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here in chapter 2. Now in verse 5, Moses shifts to this kind of geographic description of the
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creation prior to man. So let's read it together, verse 5 and 6 actually. It says,
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When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up,
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For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground.
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And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.
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So this is a callback to the third day of creation, where there was the vegetation creation element of the earth.
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And the purpose of mentioning it here is to show the chronology of creation.
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He's highlighting that at this stage, at this stage of creation,
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In Hebrew, the word bush or shrubs is speaking to inedible plants,
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while the word plants is speaking to edible plants.
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And so Moses is essentially describing a foodless place,
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In other words, he was communicating that God was preparing the world for something.
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And that's what's trying to be communicated here.
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If you look back to chapter or verse 5, it's like when no field was yet made and the land was not ready,
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the Lord God has not caused it to rain yet, and there was no man to work the ground.
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It says, well, actually, I'm going to make one more point.
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I think that's helpful with kind of our liberal environmentalists today.
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This also clarifies that the earth was made for man and not man for the earth.
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The earth was made for man and not man for the earth.
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We have people in this world that want to elevate earth above man.
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We actually think that the earth is sometimes more valuable than man.
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In the last part of verse 5, we're also reminded that rain is God's doing.
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Anybody that's a farmer understands that rain is God's doing.
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I think of Jesus in the storm and the disciples saying,
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Who is this man that even the wind and the waters obey him?
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because I want you to see what this is saying in the Hebrew.
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the hebrew word for adam or for man is adam it's actually pronounced adam so if you look at the
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hebrew for the word man it's adam and it's where we get our english word adam now the other thing
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that's really beautiful is that the word for dust is adamah, adamah. And so a more literal
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translation would be, and there was no Adam to work the adamah. So you can start to see
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the beautiful connection. The wordplay kind of shows the meaning here. Now, why is that
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significant? Why do we need to know this as Christians? Because while Scripture teaches
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that both man and animals were both formed from the dust, and that we will return to it,
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only man is uniquely described as being bound to the ground. Adam and Adama. Adam and Adama.
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Now, one scientist said, our bodies and the earth are made of the same 13 elements.
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Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium, iron, and silicon.
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Showing that man truly is dust of the ground, end quote.
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Well, it should shape how we think about our relationship with the earth, that's for sure.
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In a world where we've kind of nearly separated ourselves from nature,
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we kind of live in this sterile, manufactured environment,
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it reminds us that we are biologically and spiritually linked to the ground to which we come.
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In fact, I would actually argue it's the justification for the health practice of grounding.
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There's a real health benefits that have been proven there.
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Oh, your body is reconnected to the thing that which is made of it.
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and it's why we should start to cultivate that desire to be connected
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now second i want to talk about the moral dimension
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If Adam is faithful in the garden, God will cause the Adamah to bear fruit.
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If Adam is unfaithful in the garden, God will curse the Adamah to bear thorns and thistles.
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Now this teaches us that faithfulness to God directly affects our relationship to the land.
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In fact, it's why drought and famine are always thought of as curses in Scripture
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and why rain and harvest are always thought as blessings.
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Again, we live in a time where we can control a lot more factors,
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but if you just go back about 100 years and you talk to a farmer,
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He would understand the relationship morally between God, their sins, and the production of food.
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It's also why we're going to return to the earth.
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quote, this is man's cradle, his home, his grave.
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You can hold up a handful of dust and go, this is, at some degree, me.
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Lastly, we see from Adam, one day will come forth another Adam.
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He will restore the relationship between man and the lamb
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In other words, as humanity is redeemed, the Adama itself will share in that redemption.
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Ezekiel 36, it anticipates this messianic age.
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And I will deliver you from all of your uncleanness.
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And he says, and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you.
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And I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the of the field abundant that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine.
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And they will say, this land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden.
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Romans 8, 19-20 also links this idea of redemption of man with the redemption of land.
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Verse 19 says, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
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For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it,
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in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption
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and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
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In other words, God does not redeem Adam without redeeming the Adama.
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And Moses moves into this detailed account of man's creation in verse 7.
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From the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
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Now the word form is actually the root word that we see for potter.
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So this is kind of a picture of God pottered together.
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Do you think he's not good at forming something?
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Anybody can look at the mountains and agree with that.
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Everything we create is just a recreation of what he created.
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we often use this phrase intelligent design to describe the absolute miracle of the body
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i remember when i had our first baby and the nurse told me she said mom's
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milk will increase with the size of the baby's stomach in tandem as the baby increases stomach
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thought, what an incredible little miracle. And there's
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about a billion of those when you look at the human body.
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life. And man became a living creature. It's a very important phrase there. He doesn't
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just say creature. He says a living creature. Now, the breath of life is not unique to man.
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Genesis 7.22 says, everything on dry land and whose nostrils was the breath of life
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So when you see an animal being glorious, doing what it ought
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So what sets man apart from the animals? That's a key question I think a lot of
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people cannot figure out today? Well, three things. One, man receives the breath directly
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from God. It's not mentioned in Scripture that the animals received it directly from
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God, but man, Adam, received it directly. Now, number two, as I said, man is called
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not a creature but a living creature now why well because man has a soul
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and the soul comes from god we know that there is physical death which is the separation of the body
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from the soul and we know there is spiritual death which is the separation of the soul
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from God. So God gave us life, spiritual life. We are not just creatures. We are living
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creatures. And third, man is made in the image of God, the image of God. Now God's breath
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God is living, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.
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I'd argue actually why the Protestants hold to Sola Scriptura.
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How are we to have any equal authority than the Word of God?
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does not come from the dust. Your soul does not come from the dust.
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And the desires of the spirit are against the flesh
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to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
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For I delight in the law of God and my inner being,
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another law waging war against the law of my mind
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You know, that's important because Jesus and Paul,
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Paul is like, why do I keep doing the things that I don't want to do?
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And the things that I do want to do, I can't keep doing.
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He understands there's a reality, a war within us.
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Peter says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
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Well, a lot of people grew up in a church that taught that God has here to not just redeem the soul right now, but to redeem your body right now.
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Some of it has been called maybe health and wellness gospels.
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I believe this distinction clarifies that while the soul is resurrected, the body is still fallen.
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The soul is resurrected, the body is still fallen.
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in fact the word for paul's thorn in his side is actually the greek word
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infirmity it's the same greek word that is used for jesus when all the sick come to him
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and they say they brought their infirmities to him we don't know what it is
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it could have been a muscular pain could have been appendicitis it could have been his blindness
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All we know is that God does say to Paul, this weakness that you keep praying of,
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says, my greatness is made perfect in your weakness.
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I don't know if anybody has struggled with their body.
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Illness, even today, I'm struggling to breathe as I'm preaching right now.
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Joni Erickson Tata, who I think at the age of around 16 years old, dove into a pond only to break her neck.
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she went on to preach the gospel to many people,
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what is the first thing you are going to do on resurrected legs?
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Too often people confuse the cure of our spiritual condition with the promises about our physical condition.
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But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
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The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.
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Now I've read, I've studied, I've even preached on Isaiah 53.
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Throughout Scripture, sin is often referred to as a sickness.
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In fact, the whole mirror image of the idea of, I'm drawing a blank, on leprosy.
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Leprosy is the metaphorical reality of how sin erodes and rots at your soul.
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A lot of people will take that verse as speaking to physical healing.
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That God has somehow redeemed our bodies already.
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But the entire context of Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2.24, which interprets this text in the New Testament,
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It does certainly speak of spiritual sickness, of sin.
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Peter says, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
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Well, I've been healed of the sickness of sin that was about to kill me.
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Now this doesn't mean that God doesn't offer, out of mercy and grace, physical healing.
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I believe that God does heal people through the prayers of His saints.
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But I do not believe God owes healing to any of us.
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i believe in fact sometimes god uses or allows certain trials and tragedies and illnesses
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to sanctify us in fact i don't know about you but the most sanctified experience of my entire life
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i think anybody can read job and see the absolute difficulty
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job wonders why why am i ill why am i sick why am i afflicted
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i often remind people that it was god who said have you considered my servant job
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And he goes on to afflict Job in only the ways that God permits to be afflicted.
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And God sits there and watches Job wonder why he is suffering.
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And Job, towards the end, maybe around chapter 37, finally speaks up.
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And God spends about two full chapters asking Job many questions.
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Where were you when I formed the foundation of the world?
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Do you know the birthing cycle of deers and goats?
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He asks all these questions that have an inevitable no, I don't know.
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so are my ways higher than your ways says the Lord
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Yes, we are to desire to take care of these bodies.
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But we are not to expect that the redemption that is to come
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We have redeemed souls, but still broken bodies.
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God causes all things to work together for good.
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even stillborns, even miscarriages, even assassinations.
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God causes all things to work together for good for those who love him
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Now, I know that felt a little bit like a sidetrack, but I had to go there.
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Lastly, I want to talk about this last section here, which is really 8 through 14.
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and Moses offers clarity on Adam's destination.
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And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up
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The tree of life was in the midst of the garden
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and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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And a river flowed out of Eden to the water, the garden
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It is the one that flowed around the land of Havilah
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It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush
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In fact, this earth that has fallen right now, we think it's beautiful.
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The place fixed upon Adam to dwell in was not a palace, but a garden.
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The better we take up the plain things of life,
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and the less we seek the things that gratify pride and luxury,
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Are you more impressed with a sanctuary than a sunset?
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The most beautiful things on earth are outside.
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It doesn't mean that we can't create wonderful things.
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The cathedrals of the medieval era are incredible architecture, beautiful and glorious.
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But you set them next to the mountain ranges and they are nothing.
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The most glorious things on earth are not man-made.
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which was distinct from kind of the general vegetation and creation of the area.
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It was also good for fruit, both pleasing to the eye and good for food.
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What an amazing thing that God cares about aesthetics.
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I don't know about you, but I find myself often walking and I look at this tiny little flower
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and I'll stop and I'll pick it up and I'm like, this is amazing.
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God doesn't just make frogs, he makes beautiful frogs.
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God doesn't just make birds, he makes beautiful birds.
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God doesn't just make hills, he makes beautiful mountains.
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In fact, it's why we care about where we worship.
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It's why we actually want to save for a beautiful church building.
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It's why we care about our logo or our brand and our website or the clothing that we wear
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to see something that externally is not aesthetically pleasing
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He would have eventually eaten of the tree of life
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He would have gone and eventually eaten of that tree
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he who has an ear to hear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches
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of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God
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the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not inherently evil
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Because it represented God's sovereign ability to determine what is good and evil,
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what is right and wrong, and what is blessing and cursing.
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God just says that it was evil for us to eat of it.
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And lastly, verses 10 through 14, you look at these rivers.
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Well, I think the geographical details tell us at least one thing.
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In fact, two of those rivers are still on maps today.
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And so it's a really wonderful thing to see the beauty of Genesis back up and authenticate reality once again.
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History matters because origins, understanding the Adam and the Adama,
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understanding the tree and the garden, understanding the reality and the process of creation,
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But more than that, when we see who we are, we see what we need and how we need Christ.
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Father, we thank you, Lord, that you have not left us in mystery.
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Lord, that you have revealed to us the origin story of humanity.
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Lord we ask that you would give us more clarity