Genesis in a Nutshell

If you have a Bible, go and turn it to Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. We don't know where Genesis is in your Bible, but it's in the very beginning, after all the table of contents and random introduction stuff, which is not God's word, by the way. That's just stuff to help guide you throughout the book. I'm going to be looking at Genesis 1:1. If you don't have a Bible, use the pew Bible in front of you. If you don't own a Bible, we would love for you to just keep that Bible, take it home with you. We would love for you to have a copy of God's word.

We're going to be looking at the whole book of Genesis in one sermon this morning, which means we are not going to read the whole book. Instead, I'm going to try to do a little bit of a flyover as we just kind of dip in at different parts throughout the book. So we're going to start with Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. — Genesis 1:1 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, as we look towards your everlasting word and think about the very beginning of creation, we ask, Lord, that you would help us to see your glory and the hope in you forevermore. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Where Are You From?

Where are you from? How do you answer that question? It depends on the context, doesn't it? If I'm talking to someone in Kentucky, like I did in seminary, they're usually trying to figure out what kind of Asian I am. If you're talking to someone in D.C. when I was training at a church, they were also trying to figure out what kind of Asian I am. But in Southern California, it could mean a ton of different things. It can mean where I grew up in the area, that I came from out of state, or what kind of Asian I am.

But regardless of the context, this question, "Where are you from?" is meant to be informative. When you learn where someone's from, you learn more about who the person is. The lore of our past informs our present and then also affects our future. You can learn a lot about a person as you learn about their past, where they came from. My dad loves tea and he loves bowling, and I do too. My parents come from a humble economic background, so remembering what it was like when I was a kid, I care about my personal finances. See, when you learn where someone's from, you learn more about what makes them tick, why you are the way that you are.

So where are you from? Moses is writing down the history of the Israelites so that they can know exactly where they're from. See, this book, Genesis, is the first book in your Bible, and it's the first in the series of five books that Moses wrote at the very beginning of your Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And Moses is doing more in these five books than just kind of recounting historical data. He is writing down these books to remind them of the history that's been passed down to them from generation to generation, informing them about where they're from.

And every era of their history, from the very beginning of creation to where they likely were in the wilderness before entering into the Promised Land, every epoch or major section of their past rhymes. Moses is a master storyteller. He is deliberately shaping these stories, this history, to follow the same pattern. In fact, all of these major characters go through the same cycle over and over and over again, whether it's Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph and Judah, they all follow one cycle, kind of this repeating pattern.

And Moses isn't embellishing their history or trying to exaggerate details or develop some kind of mythology, some kind of fake past about where they're coming from. He is writing down actual history that has been meticulously passed down through the centuries. He is writing so that they can know historical fact where they came from. But he is writing also with an editorial purpose. These aren't just Sunday school stories about cool things that God did in the past. He wants the Israelites to notice the cycle, the pattern, the rhythm of where they're from and use it to understand where they are.

And you and I do this all the time. You can probably remember the various lectures and tangents that your parents gave you when you were a kid. And often they would reference times, "When I was younger, I did this, it was a terrible mistake." They are recounting actual history, but they're not just telling you a story because it'd be good for you to know. They want you to understand something. They want you to understand truth and be able to apply it to your own life, so you don't make the same mistakes that they did, or so you can understand more about where you're from.

This book is broken up into three major sections, following each major figurehead. You have Adam in Genesis 1 through 11, and creation at large. You have Abraham and his kids Isaac and Jacob in Genesis 12 through 36. And then you have the story of Joseph in Genesis 37 through 50. There are other significant characters that are kind of under each umbrella, but those are the big sections of the book, these kind of three sections: Genesis 1 through 11, 12 through 36, Genesis 37 through 50. And that's exactly how we're going to divide up this sermon series of Genesis. There are going to be three sermon series that I'm planning right now through the book of Genesis. We're going to take it bit by bit. We're going to go 1 through 11, then we'll go 12 through 36, and then we'll go 37 through 50.

But whether it's a major figurehead like Abraham or a minor figurehead like Noah, they all follow the same cycle. And these repeated patterns ripple out into the history of the whole world. And these ripples don't just apply to the people of Israel as they're wandering the wilderness, but to all of us who will consider ourselves to be part of the people of God. So what I want us to do this morning is to recognize this pattern by answering one question: Where are you from? Moses answers with three parts. First, you are from God. Second, you are from sin. And third, you are from hope. As we recognize these three steps woven into the fabric of creation itself, we'll understand more of where we came from, who we are as a people of God, and what we have to look forward to.

You Are From God

So let's start with point number one: from God. In Genesis 1, you see the beginning of the book and of all of creation. It's important that we start a book about the beginning of the world, that we start in the beginning of the beginning of the book. I don't know if that sentence made sense. Okay, chapter 1, verse 1:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. — Genesis 1:1 (CSB)

The story of where we come from doesn't begin with any of us, any more than your beginning starts with you. Every beginning comes from another beginning. Your beginning came from your parents. Their beginning came from their parents, and so on and so forth. Every car began in a factory, which came from a construction company, which came from a mining company, and so on and so on and so on. Every beginning comes from another beginning. There is a cascading waterfall of beginnings, a row of dominoes that lead up to where you are today, except for *the* beginning. The beginning begins with God, and God is unlike anything else that exists, because God has no beginning. God is uncreated. He always has been and always will be, as Moses himself writes in Psalm 90:

Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity, you are God. — Psalm 90:2 (CSB)

God doesn't begin. He is, and he's the only being who ever is. He's the only self-sufficient, eternal being. That's why Genesis 1 begins not with God being created but God creating. The beginning begins when the eternal being begins to create. You know, even atheists believe in a definitive beginning. If you believe in the Big Bang, you believe in an unexplainable, definitive, first beginning. And if you believe in beginnings, you have to believe in something that is able to cause that beginning. All beginnings have a source, and the beginning has *the* source. We'll talk more about this next week. We believe that God is the source of all creation. He speaks, and it's made.

In fact, throughout every single cycle, throughout this book, every single one of these stories begins with God's initiative. God is the one who speaks in Genesis 1, and the world is made. God resolves to flood the earth and calls Noah in Genesis 6 to make an ark. God is the one who calls Abram to leave his homeland in Genesis 12 to a new land and be made a new nation, and repeats this promise to Isaac in Genesis 26 and to Jacob in Genesis 35. And God is the one who orchestrates all of Joseph's life, from dreams to slavery to prominence in Egypt, to bring about his good purposes of bringing about the survival of many people in Genesis 50, verse 20. None of these stories would start unless God deliberately initiates his plan. You and I would not exist if God did not first act. He is the source of everything.

And if God is the source of our existence, then that means that he is also the source of our purpose. See, where you're made from tells you about what you're made for. In Genesis 1:26-28, we see the source and purpose of man. You can see that in verse 26. Read with me, chapter 1, verse 26:

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. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” — Genesis 1:26-28 (CSB)

God creates you and I in the image of God. The image of God, that means that we reflect the likeness of God in ways that the rest of creation does not. You are like God. We reflect these attributes of consciousness, wisdom, love, goodness, power in ways that the rest of creation doesn't. And don't get lost in a list of stuff that I just listed as though that defines the image of God. The idea of image is better understood kind of like a comparison. If I look at you and then I ask you to show me pictures of your parents and I look, and I say that you look like your parents, you know what that means, right? That you're not identical to your parents, you're not equal to your parents, but you image them. Their attributes are in you. And in the same way, the likeness of God is in us. We represent him. We image God.

And we don't just image him in who we are, but in what we do. And you can see that in the purpose and the commands that God gives. We reflect the glory of God in the world as we subdue the earth, as we work the ground and bring order into chaos, as we're able to fend off this heat wave with AC. Amazing! Praise the Lord! We are ordering the chaotic earth to reflect God's order. And as we multiply, we fill the earth with God's glory. See, that's two things that have been common in all of humanity: we develop technology and develop order on the earth, and we multiply and we increase as image-bearers as part of who we are.

But both of these things are in service to a deeper purpose: expanding the glory of God through the whole earth. As you and I image God and create more image-bearers and create order in the universe, what we're doing is we are expanding his glory, right? If you think about the Garden of Eden, it wasn't the whole earth. The Garden of Eden was a definite place. As Adam and Eve have kids, as they work the ground, the idea is that the Garden would spread, right? And that the presence of God would spread throughout the whole earth and expand his glory. Do you live your life in light of your King? Is your life oriented around the provider and ruler of life? God as the Almighty ruler of the universe commands you and I to obey him, to follow his commands, to live according to the purpose for which you were designed. As you and I both know, we often fail.

You Are From Sin

Because while we primarily first come from God, we also come from sin. You see that in point number two: from sin. In Genesis 2:16-17, God gives a command to Adam. You can see that in chapter 2, verse 16:

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” — Genesis 2:16-17 (CSB)

Eat this fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, you will certainly die, and they certainly did. In Genesis 3, you see Eve tempted to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and Satan tempts her in chapter 3, verse 4. You see what the serpent says:

“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.” 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. — Genesis 3:4-7 (CSB)

Adam and Eve, the very first humans, sin and fall short of the glory of God. Satan tempts Eve and deceives her with the promise of being able to achieve this kind of God-like status. And Adam and Eve, as a result, are cursed by sin, cursed by death. And this curse applies in two ways. First, their purpose ends up cursed. You can see that in chapter 3, verse 16:

He said to the woman:I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you. And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.” — Genesis 3:16-19 (CSB)

We look at these curses that are given to both the woman and the man. They mirror their purpose. They were supposed to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And that's exactly what gets cursed at the fall. The woman will have labor pains. For the man, he will have to eat from the ground by means of painful labor. Their work, their labor, what they do with their lives becomes cursed. Not only that, look at the way that their work is tied to their purpose. They are supposed to be fruitful and multiply, but now Eve will experience labor pains. They're supposed to fill the earth and subdue it, but now the ground is cursed, and Adam must use painful labor. Their work gets scarred because their image is scarred. See, God is holy and righteous. He's perfectly pure and good. And sin, disobedience to God's command, is the polar opposite of that. And so the image of God, the likeness of God, is still there. Eve is still able to give birth. Adam still works the ground. But the likeness gets marred. It gets distorted. It's not the same.

And not just the work that they do, their eternity ends up scarred as well, which is the second thing. The drumbeat of damnation that rhymes over and over and over again begins. And it's called death. Verse 22 of chapter 3:

The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life. — Genesis 3:22-24 (CSB)

You see what's going on here? It's not just that Adam and Eve are getting kicked out of the Garden. It's that they're losing access to this tree of life, to eternal life. In the Bible, division and death are intertwined. They're put together. If you are cast out of the Garden of Eden, you are cursed to die. That's why when Cain is cursed by God for killing his brother, he says in chapter 4, verse 14:

Since you are banishing me today from the face of the earth, and I must hide from your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me.” — Genesis 4:14 (CSB)

See what Cain is saying? If you banish me, if you kick me out, I'm going to die. Division and death. What happens when Noah builds his ark? Those who are inside the ark are safe, but those who are divided outside are the ones who die. Abraham and his land are safe. Sodom and Gomorrah dies. Division and death are intertwined. This is part of the reason why you and I need to take sin seriously in this church. We believe that a church is a hospital. If you're not a sinner, this place is not for you. We are here for sick sinners who are in need of grace, but we are not a trap house.

Sometimes the medicine that we need to administer is a stern reality that sin will kill you. That's why we take care to make sure that those who are inside the membership of the church are those who are turning from their sin and trusting in Christ alone for their salvation. If any of us, even myself, find ourselves in unrepentant sin, my prayer is that we as a church would love each other enough to address that sin, even if it means removing that person from our membership. To show them that if they continue in unrepentant sin, they are outside, and that with that sin comes a danger, the real danger of eternal death. But there really is only one safe space, one real safe space in all of the book of Genesis, and that was the Garden of Eden. And Adam and Eve are cursed and kicked out. They certainly die. In fact, every single human being, except for one person, which I'll talk about when I get there in Genesis 4, dies.

Look at Genesis 5. Look at that chapter. Just scan over it. I'm not going to read it for us, but you see what repeats itself every single time when one life ends, "then he died." "Then he died." "Then he died." Over and over and over again. Death is inevitable. At the same time, you see humanity fulfilling the creation mandate and being fruitful and multiplying. They have kids, they spread, but even as they spread, even as they increase their population, even as they grow in subduing the earth, they are also spreading sin. The first older brother in history, Cain, kills his younger brother, Abel, just six chapters into Genesis. The sin of the world is so bad that God looks down from the heavens and decides that he is going to destroy the entire earth. You see that in chapter 6, verses 5 through 7. This is what God says:

When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” — Genesis 6:5-7 (CSB)

God floods the whole earth. Now in Genesis chapter 1, verse 2, before God created anything, it says that the earth was formless and empty. The darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and that the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. You see what God is saying in Genesis 6:5-7? He's saying that the sin of the earth is so bad that he is willing to hit the undo button on all of creation. He's bringing it back to the way it was before he started creating. He is going to wipe out the entire earth by turning it back into just water.

Humanity attempts to gather its own might and power to revolt against God's command to fill the earth and subdue it by building a tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11. Sodom and Gomorrah are a wicked city willing to commit gross sexual immorality against strangers. There's more and, quite frankly, there's some really grotesque stuff even in this book, even in the very beginning of humanity. But there's more. It's not just that humanity, where those people were really bad. It's also the quote-unquote heroes of every single cycle. Adam ate the apple. Noah gets drunk immediately after receiving the promise. Abraham sleeps with his slave. Isaac lies to Abimelech, who by the way, his dad also lied to. Jacob deceives his uncle. Judah neglects his daughter-in-law and commits sexual immorality. And all of them die.

The book about the beginning of life ends with Joseph in a foreign land, embalmed, and in a coffin. That's the very last verse of Genesis. Genesis 1:1, God creates the heavens and the earth. Genesis 50, Joseph ends up a sack of bones in a box. If you're human, that's your destiny too: death. All of us know what it's like to know the right thing to do and choose not to do it. Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What are you going to do about your sin? What are you going to do about your coming death? Can you stand before an almighty, holy, just God?

Genesis doesn't hesitate to reveal humanity for what it is: dark and destitute. It also doesn't wince to tell you exactly what will happen. If you continue in your sin, you will certainly die.

You Are From Hope

But it doesn't leave us there. Because weaved into the fabric of the beginning isn't just God, isn't just our sin, but hope, which brings us to the last point. Where are we from? We are from hope. When humanity is plunged into sin, God doesn't just curse Adam and Eve. He curses the serpent, Satan. You can see that in chapter 3, verse 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. — Genesis 3:15 (CSB)

God promises that there will be hostility between the woman and the snake, that even though Eve may have been deceived by the serpent, Eve has not switched sides in a permanent way. They will remain opposed to each other, that Eve, despite her sin, despite her labor pains, will still ultimately be on the side of the Lord. And more than that, he provides an ultimatum on this conflict. Evil will be defeated. There will be offspring. The word is that there will be seed. And the seed of the serpent will strike the heel of the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the seed of the serpent. That from the woman will come an offspring that will put an end to evil and an end to sin once and for all. And this promise underscores all cycles throughout this entire book.

Let me just show you one in Genesis 12. Go to Genesis 12. This is the calling of Abraham. This is what God tells Abram in verse 1:

The Lord said to Abram:Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. — Genesis 12:1-3 (CSB)

Abraham is promised a land, a people, and a blessing. And if you read Genesis 1 through 11 and you get to Genesis 12, that rhymes with something that you read before. It sounds Edenic, it sounds like the Garden, and shows God's continued intention through the family of Abraham. In fact, this idea of the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman underscores all the drama of all the cycles. Because when Cain kills Abel, that's not just a story about why you should be nicer to your siblings. That is showing the drama between the line of the serpent trying to kill the seed of the woman, to cut off the line, to shut off God's promise. In the midst of tragedy, the promise continues on with Seth. It continues on with Noah. The world gets wiped out, but Noah continues on. Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau. All of these divisions detailing the separation and war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Every single time it seems like sin is tripping God's plans, we see that the seed of the woman results in the next story. And the next story, and the next story, over and over and over again, awaiting the final arrival of the final seed, the true seed of the woman.

And the book doesn't end with the seed. I love the story that Brooks Buser gave. He was a missionary who went to an Indigenous tribe in Papua New Guinea and translated the Bible into their language. No one had ever spoken their language and was able to provide religious resources for them. And when he begins to teach the Bible and goes from Genesis all the way to the New Testament, whenever a new character came up, whether it was Noah or Jacob or any of these folks that you see in Genesis, the people would be asking, "Is this the seed?" And Brooks would explain, "No, they're not the seed. We're looking ahead. We're looking forward."

And that's exactly how Genesis 50 ends: looking forward. Look at verse 24 of chapter 50. Chapter 50, verses 24 through 26:

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will certainly come to your aid and bring you up from this land to the land he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” So Joseph made the sons of Israel take an oath: “When God comes to your aid, you are to carry my bones up from here.” Joseph died at the age of 110. They embalmed him and placed him in a coffin in Egypt. — Genesis 50:24-26 (CSB)

Joseph makes Israel make an oath just like Jacob did. "When God helps you here in Egypt, carry my bones from here to the promised land." What is this about? Is this Joseph just having pride in his country? Is this someone just asking you to spread their ashes at the seashore? I don't think so. I think Joseph has a better understanding of the gospel than we may initially think. Look at what he says in verse 24: "I am about to die." What does that make you think of? "I am going to die." God says in Genesis 2, "You will certainly die." In Genesis 5, what's also ringing in the back of your head? "Then he died." But in Genesis 50, Joseph doesn't say "he will certainly die." He says, "I am going to die, but God will certainly help."

He flips the understanding of what God is going to do, that Joseph doesn't want his bones in Egypt because his hope goes beyond the exile lands of Egypt, beyond the exile of death itself. But for the day that God would fulfill His promise, when the seed of the woman crushes the seed of the serpent once and for all, every single one of these patriarchs didn't get to see that day. But they hoped in it. They believed in it, even into death itself. Life, death, and hope, life, death, and hope, over and over and over again, day after day after day. Until that day finally came and the seed arrived. His name is Jesus.

You can go to Matthew 1:1. This is how Matthew chooses to open his gospel. Matthew 1, verse 1:

An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham: — Matthew 1:1 (CSB)

This isn't a boring introduction of a book that you're supposed to skip. If you read the book of Genesis, if you're familiar with the rhythm, if you've read the Old Testament, Matthew 1:1 would bring you to tears. Jesus has come to fulfill this promise. It was given to Abraham, that he would bless all nations with his work. But more than that, the root word of genealogy should look familiar to you. The first four letters, G-E-N-E. It's not just like an English trick that matches up with the Greek too. It should remind you of Genesis. It's the beginning.

This is no accident. Matthew is saying that the promise that God made in the very beginning of humanity with Eve as he curses the serpent would be fulfilled through the work of Jesus Christ. His perfect life, his perfect work, his death on the cross, born of a virgin, hung on a tree. God takes the wrath that you and I deserved and poured out that punishment on him. And Jesus died. But rather than staying dead, three days later, he rose from the dead, putting the definitive death blow on the serpent and sin forever. This is hope actualized. This is hope that actually takes fruition. This seed blossoming into the fruit that was promised.

Have you placed your faith in this seed? Have you placed your hope in this Savior? We don't just come from God. We don't just come from sin. You and I, we come from hope. We believe that this perpetual cycle of life, death, and hope will come to a permanent end. It will stop forever because Jesus rose from the dead and his heart is still beating. Church, we are a people of hope. We don't hope in this life. We don't hope in world peace in a cursed world. Don't settle for the cursed soil of this broken earth. We're headed for something better.

Don't settle for peace when you're still in a foreign land under an earthly pharaoh. You and I have a better future than a comfortable life right now. You and I have a better future than just a peaceful death surrounded by your loved ones. And if you remember where you're from, you're going to trust in Jesus and you're going to long for heaven, just like Joseph did. You're going to look past this Egyptian earth towards the promised land. Remember where you're from. Look forward to what's ahead. See Christ on his heavenly throne. Look forward to the new heavens and the new earth. And you tell your God and your Savior, "Take my bones there."

Let's pray. We pray that you would help us to remember that we are from you, that we are marred by our sin, and that we have a hope that is greater than the strongest forces of this earth. We pray that you would help us to be able to trust and celebrate that good news in Jesus' name. Amen. This master plan is a wondrous mystery revealed.