Hear the word of God as you find it in Genesis, the second chapter, beginning at verse four. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth and there was no man to till the ground. But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. The word of the Lord.
Let us pray together. Father, thank you for this. The portion of your word and thank you particularly for this seventh verse. And I pray that this this verse and the truth of this verse would settle into our hearts and minds and I pray that we would as a result of what we see here. Think differently about ourselves. Have our understanding of ourselves more clearly molded and shaped, more precisely molded and shaped than I pray that we would have a different view of those around us because of what we see here. Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for what you've told us about yourself and what you tell us about ourselves. We thank you in Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated.
Now, you'll remember that we're all on this track and we all find ourselves between bondage in Egypt and liberty and freedom in the Promised Land and we're making our way through this wilderness waste. And you remember the image that I encouraged you to think about last week, this image of scores and hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people who are on this pilgrimage and they're making their way and they're carrying along this box. They have this box with them. The box that doesn't appear in the Prince of Egypt and that didn't appear at least as I recall in in the Ten Commandments the Hollywood version of the Exodus and that box contains Joseph's bones and those bones that box that coffin is being born along by these folks as they make their way home. They make their way home and these folks are asking questions, who are we, where have we come from? Where are we going? And Genesis describes this this movement from the glory of Eden, the harmony and the beauty and the wonder of Eden to the tragedy of bondage in Egypt and even the grave of Joseph. But you see there's a word of hope because those graves will be opened up and those bones will be lifted out and exhumed and they will be taken to the Promised Land. That's the hope of Israel. That's your hope. That's your hope. And so Genesis answers lots of questions and it answers questions not only for the Israelites but it answers questions for us today. Who are we? And what makes us different? What makes us different? Not as the people of God so much? Do I have that in view today? But what makes us different as human beings? What makes us different as human beings? What makes you different? Not from other people but from every other thing? My dog Maggie, for example, I mentioned my dog Maggie. What makes me different from Maggie? I love Maggie. I love my dog. But I also love my wife and my daughters and my love for my dog is different from my love for my wife and my daughters. There's a difference, isn't there? And I think that Maggie loves me. I don't know for sure but she sure seems to be particularly affectionate five o'clock in the evening when I come home and come in the laundry room and fill her bowl with purine a dog chow. I mean, but her love, whatever it is, is clearly different, isn't it? It's different from my love. My love for my dog is not of the same kind as my love for Barb and Katie and Leslie and Annie. There is a difference. There is a difference. I don't know if you like Woody Allen films, but Woody Allen wrestles with these questions in his films. The difference that there is among things in the film, crimes and misdemeanors. If you've seen the film, crimes and misdemeanors, it involves someone who commits a murder, kills someone. And this person who has killed this other person attempts to silence his conscience by trying to persuade his conscience that life is nothing more than the survival of the fittest. The strong survive and the weak do not. It tries to persuade himself, soften his conscience, silence his conscience, that he, the strong one, has survived, and the weak one has not. But it doesn't work. Why? Because there's something different about human beings. Now, this is a point that might be self-evident to you. It may seem that for us, as Christian folk, this is a point that maybe doesn't need to be made, but what you need to remember, what you need to remember is that when you go out into the workplace, when you go out into your neighborhood, when you rub shoulders in the buildings where you do your business, where you make associations, you are rubbing shoulders with people who for decades have been told that all that exists is what you see. The only thing that really exists is matter. They've been hearing this for decades, and they have a materialistic developmental and evolutionary view of human beings.
What they believe, even though they don't express it, even though they don't articulate it, is that we are sophisticated, neurochemical, biological machines. That's what people have been hearing for decades. And while they may have some beliefs about God, they may be living somewhere on the periphery of their worldviews. Things like personality and the soul and love and hate, all of these things in the end are functions of material and physical processes, or can be explained solely in terms of environment, where you grew up, what you were exposed to, what your group believed. That's what people believe in this culture. That's what folks have been told for decades. And over the years, it is crept into the fabric of their thinking. But in their heart of hearts, they know it doesn't work. In their heart of hearts, they know that there is something different about them. And that's where you, as a Christian person, have the opportunity to speak into this culture, and to offer to the people you rub shoulders with what we could call the gospel as it's found in Genesis 2.7. There is a reason why they feel what they feel about their own existence and everybody else's existence. There is a difference. And you have the tremendous opportunity of showing people what that difference is. Genesis 2.7 tells us why we are different. It tells us why we are different. And I really want to press this home to us, that as you go out into the marketplace, you take a word of hope. And that word of hope can be communicated in lunchtime conversations, and in conversations around the coffee pot, and in interactions with the person who fixes your car on Thursday afternoon. There are at least three things that Genesis 2.7 tells us. And these things explain why it is that we are different. The first is this your creation, as a particular individual, is personal. It's personal. Genesis 2.7, and the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the earth. There is a significant change that occurs when you get to Genesis 2.4. Genesis 2.3 represents the end of the first section of this book. And in Genesis 1.1 through Genesis 2.3, God is always referred to simply as God. And that word translated God, we've talked about before. It's the word Elohim. It is a plural form of the generic word for God. And what that word Elohim describes is God in all of his majestic greatness and glory and power. That describes God as the source of everything that exists. It establishes him in the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, this language that I repeat for you periodically. It establishes the notion that God is the infinite eternal and unchanging God, infinite eternal and unchanging in his being, wisdom, the power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Now that's not all there in Genesis 1. But as you read through the rest of the Bible, you come to understand that that is who God is and that is what that term basically refers to. God in his majestic greatness and glory and power as the source of all things and the ruler, governor, and sovereign, providential caretaker of everything that exists. That's what you find in Genesis 1.1 and following. But when you come to Genesis 2.4 and following, you see there's a shift in how God is identified. How is he identified? It is no longer just God but now he is identified as the Lord God. And if you look in your text, if you look in your copies of the scriptures, you will see that at that point, Lord is spelled capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. And whenever you find that, that is a reference to the term the name Yahweh, which is God's personal name. That is the name that God used when he revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush. And the context of that is this unspeakable, unimaginable, love and kindness and compassion which God has upon Israel in the midst of her bondage and it is that love and mercy and compassion which constrain and move this God of great glory to be faithful to promises that he had made centuries before. God says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am the God of those promises. I have heard the cries of my people and I am coming down and I am going to care for them. I'm going to deliver them. Do you know what name Jen Spillman needs to hear? Yahweh, the God of mercy, the God who comes down who is not distant and removed from his people. The Lord God formed the man of the dust of the earth. Whenever you hear that word, it is a word, it is a term. Whenever you sell it, see it spelled, capital L, capital L, capital R, capital B, it is God speaking personally to people. It is God revealing His name to people. It is God not remaining hidden and obscure but it is God disclosing Himself. When you meet someone who is elevated, someone of importance, like the president of the United States, you address him Mr. President, you meet Michael Jordan, you address him Mr. Jordan but when that elevated person takes you into his confidence, when that elevated person desires to know you and desires for you to know him, he will say to you, call him like, call me Bill, he reveals his name and that is what God does. That is the name that you find in Genesis 2. And what does that suggest? It suggests intimacy and familiarity and proximity and interest and concern and the other thing that you see in this text is the particular word formed. It is a different word from Genesis 1, that word in Genesis 1, 1 in the beginning, God created the heavens in the earth. That is a word that is used always only exclusively in association with God, God as the source and sustainer of everything that exists. This particular word is used to describe what potters do. It is used to describe what potters do when potters conceive in their minds to fashion and form a thing of beauty. And then when potters take their hands and with the skills that have been the gifts that have been given them and the skills that have been cultivated and nurtured they very carefully take the clay on the potters wheel as the wheel spins and they mold and they shape and they give expression in material things to what is in their minds. It is a tender and careful work which the potter does. Genesis 1, 1 God speaks everything into existence but you see in Genesis 2 this is going beyond simply speaking things into existence in a detached in personal fashion. This is the personal God being engaged in a personal creative work. And understand that in the rest of the scriptures the creation of each individual person is in view. It is not just that God is actively and intimately involved in the creation of Adam, the forming and shaping of Adam. It is not that he just gets the biological process started, the biological sequence underway. Do you know Psalm 139? You know what David says as he reflects upon the greatness of God who knows everything, who knows every word that is on David's lips before those words are spoken, who is every place David could imagine going that unspeakably great God is engaged in David's formation. Verse 13, you formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works and my soul knows that well. God is actively involved, engaged somehow in the mystery of his providence, in the formation of each individual human being. It is not just the product of the genes of the parents, the father and the mother and the gene pool. It's not a function of dominance and recessive genes. That's the biological explanation but the hand of God is in the mix and the hand of God is shaping and molding the process so that God produces what God wants. Every single one of you is an art form, a unique distinctive expression of the handiwork of a personal God.
So how do you think about folks you work with? How do you think about those around you? How do you think about members of your family, your husband, your wife, your sons, your daughters? How do you think about your neighbors? How do you view the people you come in contact with? Those for whom you work, those who are your subordinates, those who are older, those who are younger, how do you think about people? Are they widgets? Are they puns on a board to be moved around? Are human beings formed and fashioned with a delicate, wonderful and intentional creative purpose? So the creation of every human being is intensely personal by a personal God. The other thing, the second thing that you see here is that your creation is a material thing. It is personal and it is material. God formed the man out of the dust of the earth. Dust is not the happiest of translations. The word doesn't really mean dust, but the word describes the basic materials. The basic materials out of which something is made or to which something may be reduced. The basic stuff of the material world. God took this basic stuff of the material world and formed and fashioned the man. People are material. Human beings are material. This is important, think about this. They don't simply have bodies. They are bodies. There's a difference. The former of you thinks of the body simply as a house in which the soul or the spirit is deposited. Something that could be shed like a chrysalis and a caterpillar spins its chrysalis of cocoon. You know, it's a butterfly for one and a moth for the other and I can never keep them straight. But they spin this thing and then of course they shed this thing and then they become free. It's a wrong view of our materiality to think that we have bodies. We don't have bodies. We are bodies and you see this worked out. You see that reality expressed in the rest of scripture. You'll remember going backwards in thinking about this. That God declares at the end of the creation. God declares that everything is very good. Everything is very good. That is comprehensive. That refers not simply to your spiritual life, but it refers to your material life. We have to understand that these two things are so interconnected that they can't really be separated and something horribly tragic happens when they are. God declared the material order to be good. What that means is this. It means a number of things, but it means this. It means at least this. The pleasures which you enjoy and know in your body as a human being are the gifts of God. We had dinner this last Friday night with some folks from our church. It was pleasurable to take the smells, the laughter, the expressions on people's faces, and a couple of times as we were talking about particularly point point things, the misting in the eyes. Those things are all a part of our material existence. Those pleasures, those sensual experiences, those are gifts of God. Don't you love the flavor in foods? Don't you see a difference between your enjoyment of a meal and your animals, your pets, enjoyment of a meal? It's different. My dog can eat and be perfectly content in the laundry room by herself. Eating that cardboard-like stuff that comes in a big green and yellow and black bag, 40 pounds at a pop. When I was in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, I got snowed in. You remember I had dinner on Friday night, but I didn't have dinner with someone else. I was alone. You know, the meal was nice. I had I had trout. I was in North Carolina. When in Rome, you do as the Romans, you know? So I was in North Carolina. I had North Carolina trout. Tasted wonderful, but you know what? It was not nearly so pleasurable as the dinner I had Friday night with my wife and a couple of other people. The tastes were good, but there's something even more than just taste and smells. There is involvement with other people around a table as you enjoy a feast that God has set before you, and that is all a gift of God. God has created us material beings, and he has declared it all to be good. I said just a minute ago that something tragic happens when in us the spiritual, the soulish and the material are rent apart, torn apart. See, salvation will not be fully achieved, salvation will not be fully known until there is the restoration of a physical body and a spiritual soul. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, then at that time, at what time? The time when the perishable is raised, imperishable, the mortal is raised immortal. When that time comes, when the body and the soul are restored, then we'll be fulfilled that which is written. Oh, death, where is your sting? For death will be swallowed up in victory. The outcome of our salvation is the restoration of our bodies and our souls. We were created as material beings. We were created personally, we were created materially. We are created spiritually. The Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. You are not a machine. You are not simply a neurochemical, biological, very sophisticated organism, but you have had the breath of God breathed into you. And when the breath of God was breathed into Adam, he became a soulish being. That's how you should literally translate that. He became a soulish being, a living being, a living soul, a soulish being. We're more than machines, we're computer, computers. We are commuters, but we're not computers. There is the material dimension, but there is the spiritual dimension too. And that is why you find the soul is crying out as David does in Psalm 27. It's a very familiar passage, but wonderful. Listen to what he says. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid. And then verse four, one thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple, where does he want to be? He wants to be in the place where God is. Why does he want to be there? Because he has a soul. And just as he depends upon what God has given him in the material order, so he depends upon what God has given him in the soulish order. He must have life. He must have feeding for his soul. And he must have that feeding the only place where it can be found in the presence of God. He must have God because he's a soul because he is a spiritual man. Psalm 83, 84. How lovely is your tabernacle or Lord of hosts? My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. He must have God. How do you think about your lives? How do you think about your lives? How do you think about your lives in connection with this soul that God has given you? At a conversation yesterday with Josh Eevee, some of you know Josh, Josh played football, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA, Bruin. And we were talking about spiritual things yesterday at the YMCA, trying to keep our bodies fit. We were talking about spiritual things. And he said, you know, one time I calculated the number of hours that were committed each week to football. He said, I calculated and I did this on several occasions that the number of hours was between 50 and 55. 50 and 55 hours a week committed to football. And three to four of them were committed to the game. Over 50 hours committed to the preparation necessary to play a football game. How many hours? I don't say this. Please understand, I don't say this to berate you. I don't say this to beat you up. I don't say this to you because I want you to earn points, score points with God. It's not about scoring points. It's about understanding who you are. It's about understanding how God has made you and he has made you a soulish being. And do we understand that we must give time to the nurture, to the cultivation of the soulish? What do we do on Saturday evenings? The night before we gather on an occasion like this to be in God's presence and to meet with him at his table. How late were you up last night? Do we prepare for these things which are feast for our souls? We are soulish creatures. It's Augustine said, you know this great line, you have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. We will not know, we cannot know satisfaction. If we do not pay heed to our soulishness, so our creation is personal, we're formed and shaped by a personal God who is really there. We are created material beings and we are created spiritual beings. This is who we are. Do we know who we are? And do we understand that in the midst of this there is extraordinary dignity which human beings have. There's a fourth thing that you don't find in this passage, but you find it in Genesis 2 and the 7th verse. And we'll talk about this more in the weeks to come, but that is simply this. The fourth thing for us to understand about our creation is that creation is regulated. Verse 16 and 17 of Genesis 2, the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good would evil. You shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it. You shall surely die. Please understand that God is not restricting us from pleasure. He is not restricting us from enjoyment. He is protecting us from death. When God commands what He commands, please young people hear this. Please, those of you who are distracted and drawn away by many things as we all are, please understand that when God gives us His law, He does not give it to restrict us from pleasure or enjoyment or life. He gives us His law to protect us from death. He gives us His law to protect us from death. God has created you personally. He has made you material beings. He has made you spiritual beings and he seeks to regulate your life for good. Is that not a word of hope for our culture? Please, plead these things with your friends, with your work associates, with your neighbors. This is the gospel for them. Let us pray together. Father, thank you for this. Thank you for how you have made us. Thank you for what you have made us. And please help us, O Lord, by your spirit, to absorb these things, to take these things into our souls. That pray that these things would affect how we live, how we live with our spouses, how we live with our children, how we live with our fellow employees, how we live with our neighbors. And we see our neighbors as those formed in fashion by you. May we see them as those who have this capacity for knowing you. May we see them as those who need to be protected from death and brought to life and give us grace and boldness to speak these things. We ask in Jesus' name.