This is a recording of my message on Genesis for our Old Testament Survey series to the ABF Junior High Group.
Below is my outline for those who would like to follow along.
INTRO:
* Beauty and importance of partnership
* Pairs figure skating
* So cool when they are in sync and they lift each other in the air but if they get out of sync things can go south fast
* Imagine if this dude let go of her
HUB:
* Divine / Human Partnership
* God created humans to share his divine life and authority with them. God is the God of grace and communion and he wants to share with humans. Genesis sets us up to see the conflict of the entire Bible: God wants to partner with humans but humans keep breaking relationship with him.
SPOKE: Survey (BibleProject)
* Watch:Book of Genesis Summary: A Complete Animated Overview (Part 2)
SPOKE: God Partners with Humanity (Genesis 1-11)
Explanation/Exhortation/Exaltation:
* Read: Genesis 1:1-5, 26-31
* God creates the whole world. Earth, Sky, Sea etc.
* He creates it full of life and potential and then sets up Adam & Eve as his deputies, like a representative.
* God makes them in his image - what does an image do? It represents something else?
* Photo of your dog is not your dog. But it represents and reflects your dog.
* That is what humans were made to do. Represent God
* Who here has played team sports? I’ve been watching this show… Ted Lasso.
* It’s about a british soccer team. And the way it works is there is an owner of the team who owns the team and hires the coaches to coach the team. The owner does not do the coaching. Completely trusts the coaches.
* Genesis 2:15-17 - God lays out the rules of the games. He is the owner and he says eat enjoy thrive just dont eat this one tree.
* And this would be like if the manager tells the coach who has never coached soccer before - you can use any part of your body to get the ball into the goal just not your hands.
* I mean that sounds pretty good to me. You have a lot to work with you can use your feet, thighs, chest, head, shoulder etc
* Genesis 3:1-7 - Humans break the partnership! 3 pages in and its over
* Back to our analogy imagine if the coach came in and said guys we’ve realized that the owner is holding us back. You know how you thought you couldn’t use your hands? Well it’s not true. You can use your hands in soccer so I want you all to practice and we will be able to win more games? (that’s partially true the goalie can but the coach is misunderstanding or misrepresenting the truth)
* What would happen?
* Representatives have a lot of power. They can represent well or poorly. Anyone who has taken a bad selfie knows that.
* God wants and requires representatives that accurately portray him.
* Genesis 1-11 shows us that humans are really bad representatives of God as they portray with hatred, muder, and oppression the God of love, life and beauty.
* Cain and Abel - murder
* Noah and the flood
* Babel - God scatters
* But Genesis 3 points us forward to someone who represent God well: Gen 3:15.
* It’s pretty cryptic but it is hopeful that someone will partner with God to defeat evil.
* We keep hoping with each generation
* QUESTIONS?
SPOKE: God Partners with Abraham (Genesis 12-50)
Explanation/Exhortation/Exaltation:
* Read: Gen 12:1-9
* After humans keep failing to represent God well for 11 chapters and many generations, God singles out one family to focus his efforts on.
* God chooses to bind himself to one family and he makes the same partnership he made with all of humanity in Eden before they broke it. He uses the language of the whole earth being blessed - which echos the filling of the earth to adam and eve. And it is by his great name - which echos the subduing command to adam and eve.
* God’s choice to focus on one family is for the sake of spreading it to the whole world.
* It’s supposed to be an explosion of God’s blessing much like an atom bomb explodes from pressure being placed on one single atom.
* For some reason the sports analogies were coming to mind this week.
* On a sports team there are a lot of players and they are at different levels and need to work on different things. So if someone has the money and time they will pursue - personalized training. The idea is not that the trainee becomes a one man team. The idea is that the trainee goes off and trains to be a better teammate and bring the whole team up with them. And that’s what God is doing with Abraham.
* Abe - you and me are gonna have some one on one lessons. And then God continues this pattern to Abe’s descendants.
* And Abraham gets a lot of things right but he is just as broken and hopeless as the people in 1-11. He doesn’t trust God, he lies and gives away his wife and more.
* God passes on the blessing to his son Isaac - who is just as broken and plays favorites with his kids
* God passes on the blessing to Jacob - who devices his brother and his blind old father and his uncle
* And so Genesis ends. We haven’t seen this serpent crusher
* Nobody is fit to partner with God everyone is broken. What are we gonna do?
* Is this guy gonna come?
* Genesis 49 the second to last chapter we get a clue that God has not forgotten
* 49:10 - there will be a future eternal ruler from the line of Judah who will bring tribute and obedience and who is that and when is he coming? You gotta keep reading to find out
* QUESTIONS?
Conclusion:
* So Genesis takes us from the beginning - an uncreated world and a good eternal God
* And he creates the universe
* And humans
* And blesses them and partners with them
* But they do not trust God and they break the partnership
* They go their own way and the world spirals into darkness and chaos
* And then God picks out one guy and partners with him
* But he is screwed up and each generation God renews the partnership
* And in the end we are waiting for a serpent crushing king to come and partner with God and bring God’s goodness even as God continues to bring his goodness and turn evil into good
* That’s Genesis
* Lets pray!
Small group Questions:
High and Low of the Week?
What stuck out from the message? (Respond to, Affirm, and Develop Observations)
What stuck out to you from the video? (Respond to, Affirm, and Develop Observations)
Have you ever been in a partnership? Was it a positive or negative experience?
How would you rate yourself as a representative of a perfect and holy God?
What do you think points to Jesus in Genesis?
Prayer Requests?
