THE STORY WEEK 1 God creates and loves

THE STORY WEEK 1

God creates and loves

<<<PowerPoint >>> Wait- I’m confused. Didn’t the Story tell us that God took a rib from Adam to make Eve? Yea, it’s right here on page 4. But I think Robyn’s Bible reads differently doesn’t it? Didn’t you say that God put Adam to sleep and took out his brain to make the woman?

Wait, wait… turnabout is fair play.

Adam is telling God how lonely he's been in the Garden of Eden. "You've made the day and the night, the land and the sea, the trees and the animals. But, what I really want with me in the Garden is a perfect companion. I want someone who will cook for me and take care of me. I want someone to talk to at night and to think about during the day. Can you make such a being for me?" "Sure I can," replied God. "But it'll cost you an arm and a leg." Adam thinks for a second and replies, "well, what can I get for a rib?

<<< Click >>> To help you keep track of where we are in the story, I created these maps to match the ones in the front of your book. See today’s map: Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. <<< Click >>> Here is Israel. <<< Click >>> The Bible places the Garden of Eden between two of the great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. <<< Click >>> If you are so inclined you can put a tree right there on your map to remind you that is where we started.

<<< Click >>> The creation story is fun isn’t it. It is just great story telling. It could have been written as dry as a blue print; it could have been very mechanical and utilitarian. Instead as I read the creation story, God is a sculptor, creating in the sky, and on the earth all that ever was, or is, or ever will be. Think about that, before God created there was nothing: no matter, no light, no darkness, nothing. Now after creation there is not one thing in the entire universe that doesn’t come from this one primordial creative spark.

That is the first thing the lower story wants to teach us <<< Click >>> “In the beginning God, and from God everything.” And it was good wasn’t it. Even in God’s divinely discriminating eye, creation was good. And people… well people were very good. Creation was God’s handiwork and people were the apple of God’s eye (so to speak). We might even say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We were after all made in the image of God. What does that mean?

It means that when the God who delights in relationship created us in his image, he made us to need and want <<< Click >>> relationship. It means that the God of love created us to love and be loved.

It means that the God who freely chose, to create, and<<< Click >>> freely chose to make people in God’s image, and freely chose to love people, gave us the ability to freely choose God or not God. Gave us the ability to choose door number one or door number two. The Tree of life… or the tree of the knowledge of evil. (I said that very intentionally because we already knew good. Remember, all that God created was good and we were very good.) The problem is that Adam and Eve chose the tree of disobedience and developed a preference for the sweet taste of evil. Even more than that, it seems that the tree was like the crack cocaine of the garden. One bite and they were addicted. Addicted to disobedience and evil.

Adam and eve gave birth, then to crack babies… sin babies: Cain and Abel are the example that is lifted up to us. How much evil, and jealousy and vengefulness, and hatred did it take for Cain to kill his own brother? The DNA evidence was in. Not that they needed it to convict Cain, but that he had proven once and for all that his parent’s addiction to sin would be passed down through generation, after generation, after generation. Even to you and me. After the incident in the garden, we would never be the same. We would never be “very good” again. We would always have a broken ugly streak running through our hearts. And in the process of living that our in our lives, we break God’s heart.

Which brings us to the upper story.

Before we can understand what is happening here, we have to ask the question, “Why did the God who was absolutely complete, in and of God self.” The God who is so perfect that there is nothing that can make him more whole or more perfect. Why did a God like that create anything? After all, he didn’t NEED it.

<<< Click >>> The answer is God WANTED it. God wants more than anything else to love and be loved. Notice the perfectly divine relationship between father, son, and Holy Spirit is here at creation. Look at the bottom of page 2. “Let US create mankind in OUR own image.” In divine perfection, there is already a perfect relationship. So, not because he needed it… not because he lacked anything… but only because he WANTED it God created Adam. And Adam was created with the same desire for relationship. That is what it means when God says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” It doesn’t mean he’ll never get where he’s going by himself because he’d never ask for directions. It means, like God, Adam desires to be in relationship.

This would be a good place to point out that there are two creation stories in the Bible. One written, telling what happened on each day, like a journal on pages 1-3. The other starting about 2/3 of the way down page 3 is written more like a love story. This second one is where God says it is not good for man to be alone. And none of the animals God creates are suitable companions for Adam, until with a little divine surgery, Eve is created as the perfect companion for Adam.

Each story emphasizes different truths about creation and we are lucky to have both of the creation stories.

Back to the upper story. God’s plan is that he will come to earth and be with Adam and Eve. You know how when we have children we dream of taking our children fishing, or shopping, or picking out their first car or walking them down the aisle. Sometimes we get those wishes and sometimes we don’t. God had a vision, a plan that in the coolness of the day he would take Adam and Eve for walks in the perfection of the garden he had created. They would walk and talk and just enjoy each other’s company.

<<< Click >>> But God didn’t get his wish for long. The paint was hardly dry on the beautiful birds before Adam and Eve messed things up and broke God’s heart. And again, and again, they hide, they lie, they blame, they worry, they feel shame. Soon the killing and raping, stealing and deceiving and evil got way out of hand. Until God says, “What was I thinking?” The Bible records that moment on page 8 of the story, “The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” Frankly, his heart was broken.

If it was us, at that point we would probably pick up our toys and go home slamming the door behind us. We would brush the dust from our feet and try to forget about the hurt and disappointment. At the very least, we would have grounded humanity from their free will for the rest of eternity.

Not God though! In his broken heartedness, God says, “Let’s try this again.” In all the divine wisdom, God believes that relationships and free will are so important that God is willing to try again … and again… and again… and again…. And again … and again. God will never give up on humanity. God will never give up on you.

And that brings us to your story and my story.

We don’t have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to temp us, but we have all kinds of other things. We have everything from anger to apathy, from bullying to belittling, from gluttony to gossip, from pollution to pornography, from wickedness to war and more and more. And more and more we each have our part in that don’t we? Each and every day we have to fight away the snakes of temptation. Sometimes good wins… sometimes we lose.

You can condemn Adam and Eve for their choice. You can marvel that they chose that tree over the other. You can think that you would have done better, but I’ve been around long enough to know that most of you wouldn’t have lasted as long as Adam and Eve, and neither would I. We would have been right in there eating our share and probably fighting over the last one on the tree.

<<< Click >>> Thank your lucky stars because any lesser being would have given up on us long ago. Only God has enough hope… only God has enough trust… only God has enough patience to keep believing that we will come back… someday.

Somehow, after Noah, and Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, slavery and complaining, after failed faith and failed kings, after exodus and exile, and after being killed on the cross… somehow God still wants more than anything to know you and have you love him in return. You need to know… more than anything that you are loved and you are called to love (God and others).

Turn to page 11 in THE STORY and notice what God said starting on the third line.

“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.

Skipping to the next paragraph

 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”[1]

<<< Click >>> Whenever you see a rainbow. Or when you see the colors of the rainbow, which I believe includes all the colors across the entire light spectrum. Whenever you see the colors of a sunrise or the sunset. Whenever you hear the giggle of a child or feel the caress of a loved one… remember that you are the pinnacle of God’s creation and you are the object of God’s love. As long as there are rainbows, God will love you and God will pursue your love.

---

[1] Zondervan (2011-04-19). The Story, NIV: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People (p. 11). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.