Sermon Notes (12.5.21)
Hunger for Relationships
What is the meaning of this restlessness that is in human nature? What is the meaning of this constant search for something that we do not have and that we do not seem able to find? Upon what is it all based? There is only one adequate answer. We have an innate feeling that we were meant for something bigger and higher. There is in every one of us a recollection, a memory, of what we once were. We were all in Adam. Man was made perfect in the image of God. He was upright; he was righteous. There was a glory about his very body. And though we have lost this and though we have never known it, a memory lingers. It is in the whole of human nature. It is in all of humanity, a sense of something else. – Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Gospel in Genesis
Are you paying attention to your HUNGER?
The Design
Genesis 1:26-27 – Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image;
he created him in the image of God;
he created them male and female.
The Divine Conversation
Relational Rulers
Psalm 8:4-6
what is a human being that you remember him,
a son of man that you look after him?
You made him little less than God
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
The Deception
Genesis 3:4-5 – “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:6-7 – The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Have you bought into the wrong EMANCIPATION STORY?
Hyper-individualism leads to tribalism. People eventually rebel against the isolation and meaninglessness of hyper-individualism by joining a partisan tribe. This seems like relation but is actually its opposite. If the relationalist mentality is based on mutual affection, the tribalist mentality is based in mutual distrust. It is always us versus them, friend or enemy, destroy or be destroyed. Anger is the mode. The tribalist is seeking connection but isolates himself ever more bitterly within his own resentments and distrust. Tribalism is the dark twin of community. The tragic paradox of hyper-individualism is that what began as an ecstatic liberation ends up as a war of tribe against tribe that crushes the individuals it sought to free. – David Brooks, The Second Mountain
Butlers, Fitgeralds, & a Door
The Deliverance
Genesis 3:8-9 – Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you? ”
Genesis 3:15
I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
Romans 5:10–11 – For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
HOW WILL YOU RESPOND?
Repent.
Remember.
Resolve.
A Prayer for Salvation
“Heavenly Father, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but through your Son Jesus I can be more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you that he lived the life I should have lived and paid the debt and punishment I owed. Receive me now for his sake. I turn from my sins and receive him as Savior. Amen.”