Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.fbcpickens.org/sermons/50549/and-what-about-us/.

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] Let's turn to Genesis chapter 2, Genesis chapter 2. God created the earth in six days and he rested on the seventh.

[0:13] It took him six days because that's what he wanted, not because that's what he needed. He spoke and the stars were in place.

[0:26] He spoke and the sky separated earth from space. He spoke and vegetation came.

[0:40] He spoke and animals were created. He could have done it quicker, but he chose not to. And on the seventh day he rested not because he was tired, because he wasn't, but because he is a God of order and because he wanted to set a pattern for us to know what order is like.

[1:05] I'm not going to chew you out this morning because you're here. I don't need to tell you about Sabbath rest. You're here and worshiping and I thank God for that. Although Sabbath is a Hebrew word for seventh, the New Testament church, after the resurrection, chose Sunday instead to make it the Lord's day and to celebrate in worship.

[1:28] And we follow that pattern, acknowledging that it's a day of worship and rest. And I just want to encourage you to let him have the whole day. Don't give an hour.

[1:39] Don't give him two. Let him have the whole day. Give it to the Lord. And on the sixth day, he created a man. He got to us.

[1:51] So if you were asking the question that people so often ask about other matters, what about me? What about me? Well, what about us? Let's take a few minutes to talk about that, okay?

[2:02] It's in Genesis chapter 2. I want to begin in verse 5. And it says, 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, 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.

[2:42] 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.

[2:56] The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now let me pause there for just a moment. When it says there there was no bush or small plant of the field, I want to be clear that that is not a conflict in Scripture with the seed-bearing plants that are mentioned on day 3.

[3:22] It's different. This is referring to the garden, not the whole world. It's not referring to the jungles. It's not referring to the plains.

[3:35] It's not referring to the forest. It's not referring to the fields that were created on day 3. It's talking about plants that were to be cultivated by him in the garden.

[3:49] It speaks of the rivers that rolls through there and the location in which that garden was. We can place it because of that. Then in verse 15 it says this, The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

[4:09] 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 that you eat of it you shall surely die.

[4:25] Then the Lord God said, It is not good that a man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

[4:41] And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.

[4:52] But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

[5:06] And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

[5:19] She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

[5:31] And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. In other words, life was sweet before sin entered in.

[5:43] Now let's get to the question. What about us? He created all this world, everything around us. What about us?

[5:55] The first thing I want you to see from this passage is that he crafted us. He formed us. He made us.

[6:05] The word for man there is not speaking of making all of mankind. It's not a general word that speaks to all of humanity. There's a word for that.

[6:17] This one instead is Adam and that means a man. He formed a man from the dust and breathed into him with the breath of God. It's interesting to me that with the cosmos it speaks of God speaking and it was.

[6:31] But here it speaks of Adam being handcrafted. Now to me that speaks to our close connection with the world that we live in. That this old frame came from dust and it will return to dust.

[6:47] And then he breathed the breath of life into us. Other animals breathe like we do but they did not come into life through the breath of God. What sustains us?

[7:00] It's the very breath of God. How did he craft us? Well, quite amazingly. Let's say we wanted to get an understanding of that so I took a knife out and walked down here and grabbed David's arm and just cut out a little one by one inch chunk of his arm.

[7:26] Took that home with me. Went to my lab there at the house in my high defined microscope. Do you know that in just a one by one inch square of skin that I would find 19 million cells?

[7:46] And within each one of those 19 million cells I would find libraries of information about him. Not only that, but the average heart is the size of a fist.

[8:04] Yet that heart pumps blood hopefully all the time. That heart pumps blood and that blood is made up of 25 trillion red blood cells to keep us going and 25 billion white blood cells to fight off sickness and that it pumps through more than a hundred thousand miles of arteries and veins to keep us alive.

[8:38] I could go beyond that and talk about the marvels of the eye and how it adjusts automatically and is consistently focused to allow us to see even with the finest smartphones now.

[8:51] They're still trying to adapt a camera that can adjust as quickly as the human eye. It's amazing. And how about an ear that captures the sound waves that roll through this room and that that eardrum can vibrate 73,000 times a second.

[9:14] won't even get into the brain that central computer of our body. It's amazing what God's done.

[9:28] He crafted us. He made us. The psalmist put it this way in Psalm 139. For you formed my inward parts.

[9:40] You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

[9:57] Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them.

[10:08] How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with you.

[10:23] Folks, I want you to know He crafted us. Not only that, but He cares for us. He cared for us.

[10:34] I want you to notice in verse 7 that it says the Lord God formed the man. When simply God had been used in Genesis 1 and even in the earlier parts of Genesis 2 when you look at verse 2 and you look at verse 3 twice, three times in the first three verses it uses God.

[10:59] But here when He's dealing with us it says Lord God. Now the word for God that is used in Genesis 1 and in the first part of Genesis 2 is Elohim.

[11:14] It is a word that speaks to the power of God. It is a word that is plural that I believe hints to the Trinity of God. In addition, the word is translated when the Lord is added here in Genesis 2 when He's talking about us, the Lord God.

[11:38] When they add that you'll notice in your translation probably that that word Lord is capitalized with all caps. That word really is unpronounceable.

[11:50] It is of course written in Hebrew and it is a Hebrew word and when you transliterate those letters of the Hebrew it comes out like this.

[12:03] It's H-W-H-Y but remember Hebrew reads from the back of the book and it reads right to left.

[12:14] So if you turn those letters around you begin to see a formation of a word that you may be familiar with. There are no vowels there. It is called the tetragrammaton which means literally in Hebrew four letters.

[12:30] It was put that way because the Jews stopped pronouncing this word as a proper respect and reverence for God. Some of it came from a belief that if you call upon Him if you call His name He'll be there and that's true.

[12:46] However they knew they were unclean at times and fearful of His presence and so they did not want to provoke Him to come and see the state of their circumstances and respond to their uncleanliness and so therefore they stopped out of reverence saying His name and instead when they got to that name they would say Aldenai.

[13:07] Aldenai means Lord it means Sir it means Master and our best guess of what to do with that word if you look at a typical Hebrew constructed word and how their vowel structure is you would add an A and an E and you would say Yahweh that's the personal name for God.

[13:32] The Germans however decided to take the vowels from Aldenai the word that they would say when they saw that Tetragrammaton and put them into the word and Germans pronounce things differently so when you look at just the consonants instead of it being a Y and an H and a W and an H it's instead a J and an H and a V and an H and when you put the vowels for Aldenai into that word it comes out Jehovah so in other words Jehovah is an English German Hebrew hybrid made up word to identify the personal God we do all of that because Yahweh is the personal name of God scripture uses it often here it is

[14:41] Yahweh Elohim the Lord God crafted us that means more than just the power of Elohim it also means the love and the intensity of love of Yahweh the personal God that word Yahweh is used for God in a compound many times it's used when Abraham finds that sacrificial lamb and he proclaims the Lord will provide Yahweh is there when God promises to protect his people from the Egyptian plagues if they'll follow his instruction and put the blood upon the doorpost Yahweh is there and it means the Lord is victor when Gideon builds an altar praising God for leading them out of bondage Yahweh is there and he speaks of the Lord of peace he also is called the Lord our righteousness he's also called the Lord that heals all of them are Yahweh compounds every time

[15:45] Yahweh is used it is personal because God is caring and protecting and leading his people it's used here too in verse 7 because God cared for us he didn't just speak to create us he crafted us and then he breathed life into us we are the crown of his creation and he made us to be in relationship with him and all the creatures that he created he found none suitable as a helper for the man so he made a woman out of the man he made us to help one another carry out what God would have us to do now there's two ways to look at that that God making woman for man women may look at that and say God made man and said I can do better than that so he made woman however one of these guys down here in the front said

[16:45] God made the beast of the earth and the man and then rested then he created woman and since then beast nor man nor God has rested he did I didn't say that he did all of that because he cared for us he created us he crafted us he cared for us and he called us he gave us responsibilities to work and to keep what he had provided he gave us liberties to enjoy and he gave us regulations to abide by that in verse 15 it says that he told Adam to work the ground God did not place him in a garden of splendor to sit idle and do nothing he had responsibility verse 9 tells us the trees of the garden were pleasant to look at were good for food the land was there to enjoy and they did not mean to sit back and enjoy there's a time to rest and there's a time to work

[17:58] God does not call us to sit and do nothing there's work to do he's given us a responsibility and we're to till the ground that God gave us in life and he he will provide our needs when we do the task that he sets before us and in the midst of that God has also called them to be responsible because there are limits on what we can do in other words with all the splendor of the garden of Eden at the fingertips of them to manage and to enjoy Adam was not God over that he was to cultivate it he was to manage it he even named the animals he had a responsibility but he was not God over that with all the pleasure that came there there were still limits never forget folks however God has blessed you no matter how fruitful your life is you are not in charge he's in charge when we have entrusted our lives to him we're called to follow

[19:02] God's word and let me just warn you about something God's word does not dodge and adjust as society changes it it also does not adjust when there's hardship that comes along if the guidance of God by his word is adjustable based upon our circumstances if that be the case if we want something bad enough we'll find a way to excuse ourselves away from following what God would call us to do but he don't change the tree was a good looking tree it was appealing but it was not of God for them to partake it God called them to work God called them to keep God called them to enjoy God called them to help one another

[20:04] God called them to obey his word God crafted us he breathes his life into us God cared for us he made it personal God called us to be busy with what he has provided for us and to do it in a way that he's told us to carry it out and you know what God has not changed he still crafts us Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet that gave God gave messages and he gave the messages through real life illustrations I love Jeremiah Jeremiah saw an almond branch and the word for almond in Hebrew also means to watch and when he showed him that almond branch it's almost like

[21:16] God just highlighted it before him to get a word out he told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1 I'm like that almond branch in other words I'm watching you I know what's happening right after that it records that he saw a boiling pot that was tilted in the fire and God spoke to him as he looked at that boiling pot God told him through that boiling pot that by him looking at that living illustration God said there's going to be judgment coming the reason that pot is tilted to the north is because it's coming from the north trouble is coming he was speaking of the invasion that would lead to the exiles what he was speaking of it would come God told Jeremiah to go out and buy a linen cloth a garment a loin cloth a garment and basically ruin it gave him specific instructions to get it wet and then while it was wet to bury it allow it to mold and mild you and ruin and then come back to it at a certain point and pull it back out and God told him to do that to illustrate to him to put a fire in his bones about what he was about to say of how

[22:41] God's people had been crafted and made by God but they had ruined themselves it would be like buying a new garment and trashing it immediately wasteful God spoke of their wastefulness but it was wonderful illustrations he gives to Jeremiah but my favorite though is when he told him to go to the potter's house and to watch the potter work with the clay on the wheel Jeremiah went down there and watched that potter work and he saw him working and making something beautiful with that clay and the clay marring in the hand of the potter but you know what the potter didn't just give up on that lump of clay the potter went right back and began to continue to form it and make it into what he could make it into and while Jeremiah was watching after God had given him direction to go down there and see what was going on God spoke to him and said y'all are like that piece of pottery y'all are like that clay that mars in my hand but I haven't given up on you

[23:47] I'm still working and molding and making and forming and the word form that's in Jeremiah is the same word that's in Genesis 2-7 God formed us he made us that's how we came about that's what he continues to do and the message is that God crafted us and he's still crafting us y'all gonna be even better than you are now when God gets done with you he's still making and molding you God's still working on us and he'll do that until we see him face to face he crafts us not only that but he still cares for us too he still cares for us not only is he that Yahweh personal God that interacts for us he's also the God that sent his only son to die for us to forgive us of our wrongdoing and to straighten out our path and to give us hope he's the same

[25:01] God that sent the Holy Spirit to live within us to guide us to comfort us to give us peace unlike anything that this world can give he still cares for us I saw somebody in the hallway today they shared with me something that they're going through a difficulty they'd kept rather private in the midst of a battle I pray with that person as I prayed for that person I knew what I could do is not much I love what Jesus says John 14 he says peace I leave with you my peace I give to you not as the world gives do I give unto you let not your hearts be troubled neither let it be afraid

[26:06] I know that what I can do for somebody is limited in giving peace and in giving comfort and giving guidance and giving help but man I'm thankful today that I serve a God that cares for us so much that not only did he send his only son to die in our place to give us hope for all of eternity but he sent the Holy Spirit of God that meets us right where we are and will be a balm to our wounds will be a guide to our waywardness will be a strength to our weakness and will be a pickup to our discouragement I want you to know God still cares for us he cares for us as much as when he took that dirt and formed us and made us and breathed life into us and gave us the splendor of a perfect garden he still loves us that much he still cares for us and he still calls us

[27:29] God because I got news for you folks there's still a ground to till there's still fruit to be bore there's still a task that God has set before us Jesus made it clear that hearts and lives are people and he used the ground as an illustration for that that it is our job to scatter the seed of God's message to folks and some of them are going to receive it and some of them are going to enjoy it and some of them are going to be hard crusty rocky and difficult it's not always going to be fun living for the Lord celebrating the Lord sharing the Lord it's not always easy it's not always receive the way it ought to be some seed won't take but it's not our job to figure out the state of the ground it's not our job to figure out the dirt in a soul we got to scatter seed we got to trust the one who sows to do what he does while we live our lives for him

[29:03] God's still calling us he's still calling us to make a difference in the world that we're in so whether it's hard or whether it's fertile we just need to share the message of Christ with our lives with our mouths he still calls us so let me go back to my question that I began with what about us well what about us we know what he's done for us the question is what are we doing for him he's still crafting us he still cares for us and he's still calling us let's just answer his call just do what he's telling us to do you may be here this morning and there's never been a time in your life when you've acknowledged that you've done wrong and separated you from God that wrong it's what the

[30:15] Bible calls sin and it separates you from God not only in this life but for all of eternity maybe there's never been a time in your life when you've acknowledged that you need to ask God to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you of your sins and thank God because he did bring Christ Christ will come in and change your life he still cares for us he meets us where we are he crafts us to be what he has us to be and it all begins with a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ it all begins with surrendering your life to follow him open the door of your life let him change you maybe you've done that privately but you never told anybody you never followed that up with a public confession of faith and Jesus says if you're ashamed of me before men

[31:15] I'll be ashamed of you before my father which means it really ain't real if it's just a private thing God wants us to tell other folks and by his commission and by his example he shows us that that's done by baptism if you're here today and you know that you've given your heart and life to the Lord but you've never acknowledged that through baptism I encourage you to come I'd love to guide you in that process we'll just start a process here maybe you're here this morning and God's drawing you to be a part of this church you've worshiped with us and you feel like God's leading you we're not perfect nor are you we'll join each other along the journey and allow God to continue to craft us continue to care for us continue to call us and join each other on that journey of encouragement and strength and hopefully life change for us and all we come in contact with

[32:16] I'd love to talk to you about that or maybe you're here and none of that applies to you because I don't know what's on your heart I really don't but you need to surrender something to the Lord you've been marring in his hands too often lately and you need to lay that down before the Lord you can do that where you are you can do it at this altar I just don't want you to leave here until you've done exactly what God would tell you to do I'll never ask you to do more than that I never want you to be satisfied with doing less than that just do what God's leading you to do Heavenly Father I love you I thank you dear God that the gospel of Jesus Christ comes out even in the formation of man in the very beginning dear God thank you Lord for all you've done for us help us to respond to you in obedience God help us to do what you've called us to do help us never to be satisfied with less than that Father in Jesus precious name

[33:22]  Amen