Making of Man: Genesis 2:4-17 (Sermon)

 

Welcome

It’s good to be here with you. Last week, I enjoyed my thirty-year high school class reunion. It was a wonderful time reminiscing. I got to see some dear friends and my youngest brother. On Sunday, I enjoyed a different type of worship as well as our Sawyer Highlands service online. My reunion brought up lots of memories.

HOOK

[PAUSE] In High School, one of my struggles was understanding God’s will. Where should I go after college? What should I study? What should I do with my life, and who will I be with? Answers came after time. Yet at my reunion, one of my classmates was stuck in that same uncertainty. They were raising teenagers by themself, and didn’t like their work. Life was difficult, and they wondered what the point of it all was. This individual was searching and struggling. I tried to say something encouraging. On the spot, I didn’t know what to say. What I love about our passage this morning is that it gives us some direction for the deeper questions. I wish that person were here.

TEXT

If you have your Bibles, open to Genesis 2:4–17. I am going to have L. T. read for us. Please stand with me in honor of God’s Word.

       These are the generations 

                  of the heavens and the earth when they were created, 

                  in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. 

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. 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. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 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 the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:4–17, ESV)

PRAYER

Thanks. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, Elohim, Yahweh, Jehovah, LORD, Creator, Maker, the one true God who made the heavens and the earth. Thank you for making us. Answer our questions and give us grace. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen. You may be seated.

CONTEXT

Genesis is the book of beginnings. It teaches us about God, the one and only Creator of the Universe. In the most recent verses, God finished his work and rested. In Chapter 2, we flash back to when God created the first human. The story slows down. Moses narrates, giving an account to the people of Israel on their journey to the Promised Land. The narrative stands in stark contrast to the surrounding neighboring nations’ understanding of God and our origins. We read that,

• There is one God, not many.

• God always existed, is all-powerful, and needs nothing.

• He isn’t dependent on us or battling competing gods.

• Time moves forward, not in a circle or meaninglessly.

• And we learn that the material world was good, very good, not evil.

STRUCTURE & MAIN IDEA

Let me give you a road map for how verses 4 through 17 could help my classmate, the Israelites, and us as we try to make sense of the world we live in. The passage has five scenes,

• SCENE 1 God the LORD (v. 4) 

• SCENE 2 Empty Eden (vs. 5–6)

• SCENE 3 God-breathed dirt (v. 7)

• SCENE 4 Eden filled (vs. 8–14)

• SCENE 5 God’s instructions (vs. 15–17)

These fourteen verses tell us about God, ourselves, and life. In one sentence, we can take away that God is the LORD, who made us physical and spiritual beings to obey for our good. That is a mouthful. This is our starting point. These sentences won’t answer all our questions, but they do point us in a direction. Let’s get back to the passage and see it for ourselves.

SECTION 1: God the LORD (v. 4)

Verse 4,

These are the generations 

of the heavens and the earth when they were created, 

in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. (Genesis 2:4, ESV) 

Genesis uses the Hebrew word “Generations” time and time again. [Pause] What comes to mind when you think of generations? If you are like me, you think of the Boomers, Gen Xers, Gen Z, or Millennials. “Generation” in Genesis relates more to a family tree than a demographic. It is a genealogy. But in verse 4 it is a genealogy of creation, not an individual. It is the ultimate starting point. It connects what we read in Chapter 1 through 2:3 to Chapter 2 verse 5 through the end of the Bible. God was before the beginning. God made everything, visible and invisible.  

LORD GOD

This verse also gives us a new name of God, the LORD. Notice how it is in caps. It is the special name of God from Exodus Chapter 3:

God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exodus 3:15, ESV)

The LORD was God’s unpronounceable name. It was blasphemy to speak it. The Hebrew people wrote it without vowel markings to protect scribes from accidentally saying it. God had no room for competitors or disrespect. The Bible teaches that there is only one holy and perfect God. As the Creator, he is the one we should go to for direction and answers. Why?

RECIPIE

He made us. He is the expert. It doesn’t make sense for me to go elsewhere. I coach soccer, and if I have questions about it, I go to the experts, not someone who has never played or doesn’t know the sport. God is the expert and deserves our allegiance. So, when we consider our questions of purpose and meaning, it should begin with God. We can share our desires and dreams with him. We can share our heartaches and hurts. He not only cares about us but is the ultimate authority, the uncaused cause, the first, and the greatest. And he has the power to do something with our circumstances. We must acknowledge God. In fact, the first rules God gave Moses to the people kept this in mind. We read,

You shall have no other gods before me….. 

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God….

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. (Exodus 20:3–7, ESV)

Those rules seem easy to follow. We aren’t worshipping images or gods. But they aren’t. How do gods function? They rule and control. They are something we worship, serve, love, and sacrifice for. We might not have a statue of Zeus we burn a candle for, but we can find functional alternatives everywhere in our lives. Perhaps our lack of enjoyment, fulfillment, and purpose in life comes from unknowingly chasing substitute gods. How? Maybe the functional idol is safety. But if I take it too far, I am stuck wearing a helmet in a padded room. Fear can paralyze us if we are not careful. What is ultimate in our lives? What gods do we replace God with? Let’s make sure that God is the King over everything in our thoughts, actions, and words. Where are we tempted to replace him? A well-ordered life recognizes who God really is. Everything began with him.

Empty Eden (vs. 5–6)

Now we come to the next scene: Empty Eden.

• God the LORD (v. 4) 

• Empty Eden (vs. 5–6)

• God-breathed dirt (v. 7)

• Eden filled (vs. 8–14)

• God’s instructions (vs. 15–17)

If you have a Bible, look at verses 5 and 6. What does it say? 

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—(Genesis 2:5–6, ESV)

This is the film negative. The land didn’t have 

Bushes, 

Small plants, 

Rain , 

Or people to garden. 

God is the set designer backstage, prepping for verses 8 through 14. The action is about to begin. Change is in the air. 

God-breathed dirt (v. 7)

• God the LORD (v. 4) 

• Empty Eden (vs. 5–6)

• God-breathed dirt (v. 7)

• Eden filled (vs. 8–14)

• God’s instructions (vs. 15–17)

We come to the scene of God-breathed dirt. Look at verse 7: 

“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” (Genesis 2:7, ESV). 

God made us. How? How did he make us? We are one part dirt and one part divine breath. We are made up of matter, and that matters. In Chapter 1, God made humans in his image. No other created being was made in God’s image. Here we are made of the ground, like other creatures, but unlike them, God breathed life into us. God’s breath of life filled our lungs and souls. God is the potter, and we are the clay. We are physical and spiritual; we are embodied souls. And when we think about the purpose and meaning of life, we must keep both in mind. Problems can stem from neglecting one or both.

APPLICATION

Perhaps our confusion about purpose in life comes from neglecting who God made us to be. The Fall we will read about in Chapter 3 has distorted our bodies and souls. We experience decay and death, and sin has killed our spirits. We long for something more. Innately, we long for a return to Eden in our souls. The writer of Ecclesiastes sees the dilemma,

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3:9–11, ESV)

Verse 7 tells us that we began as part of this good stuff called dirt. And God combined his image with the breath of life, setting us apart from all other life forms. That means we have value and worth, even with wrinkles, blemishes, acne, and arthritis.

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Our problem with life may stem from a distortion of ourselves and our origins. People can make an idol out of their bodies or demonize them. People can neglect the gift of the body and the soul.

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Knowing that our bodies are from the earth and will return to the earth can humble us and encourage us. And knowing that we have a soulish part of us from God can help us understand that we are more than chemical reactions and animal passions. God made us and took that first man and literally put him in a paradise.    

Eden filled (vs. 8–14)

In verses 8 through 14, God filled Eden with good things for our ancestors Adam and Eve to enjoy.  

• God the LORD (v. 4) 

• Empty Eden (vs. 5–6)

• God-breathed dirt (v. 7)

• Eden filled (vs. 8–14)

• God’s instructions (vs. 15–17)

Look at verses 8 through 14: 

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. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:8–14, ESV)

This is a picture of the Garden of Eden. Every tree was pleasant to look at and good to eat. Abundant water fed not only this garden but the world. There was gold, good gold, pure gold, bdellium, and onyx. Bdellium is a substance like myrrh: a perfume. Onyx is a beautiful rock. The garden of Eden was an all-inclusive tropical resort.

WILDERNESS CONTRAST

Consider the contrast of the first audience hearing this. They wandered in a wasteland, like in verses 5 and 6. They couldn’t drive to Walmart or Meijer to pick up their groceries. There were no beautiful trees, abundant food, or rivers of water. Read the fourth book of the Bible called Numbers. The Israelites complained again and again. They were ready to turn around and go back to Egypt after a few days: back to slavery. They didn’t have water, meat, or the bread they were used to. They doubted God’s provision. Chapter 2 must have sounded heavenly. Eden was a place of life, the good life, like the Promised Land was supposed to be. The passage foreshadows two trees that will be key to what went wrong in the world and what God will do to right it. The stage is set.

God’s instructions (vs. 15–17)

Now, we come to our final section—God’s instructions.

• God the LORD (v. 4) 

• Empty Eden (vs. 5–6)

• God-breathed dirt (v. 7)

• Eden filled (vs. 8–14)

• God’s instructions (vs. 15–17)

Jump to verse 15:  

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15, ESV).  

Notice when Adam got his first job? Did it come before or after God punished him for disobedience? Before. Work is not a curse. God worked; he created, separated, ordered, made, named, delegated, and that was good. And God gave us work to do before we wreck it. And like God’s image, there are still vestiges of work that are good. We can enjoy it, and that is okay.  

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• When you clean out your pantry,

• When you pull out your math book to study,

• When you get your oil changed,

• When you make a sale,

• When you finish a lesson,

You can be doing the very thing that God made you to do. You can innocently enjoy it as a gift from God. When I think of the purpose in life, part of it is to work. And as we learned last week, part of life is to rest. And like last week’s message, when it comes to some of the topics at hand, we would do well to look at what the entire Bible says. There is a way that we have work to do. The apostle Paul wrote,

“For we are his [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, ESV).

God made us for good works. You probably won’t get paid to say a kind word, write an encouraging text, or pick up trash at the park, but God made us for such things. And perhaps understanding a broader sense of purpose like work can help settle us into reality. Maybe we are pining for a greatness that is beyond our station. Perhaps we are mourning the loss of the things we once were able to accomplish. Possibly we are jealous of what others get to do for a living. Let us return to the goodness of work. Let us find peace in the vocation, the calling, that God places on our lives.

APPLICATION

• What is your work right now?

• How do you view it? Do you see it as a gift or a curse?

• Maybe God is inviting us to appreciate the work he has given us?

• If you could do anything for work, what would it be?

• How has God uniquely made you?

• Could that uniqueness be part of what your work, paid or unpaid, is about?

We were made to work. More broadly, we were made to obey.

LIFE IS ABOUT OBEDIENCE

If we keep reading in this section, we see God called Adam to work and keep, but also to enjoy and abstain. God gave Adam permission and a prohibition in verses 16 and 17. Look at verses 16 and 17:  

“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’ ” (Genesis 2:16–17, ESV).

What did Adam do? He went after that one thing he was not supposed to.

REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY

It reminds me of how kids work. You tell them, “You can play with all these toys, but don’t touch the outlet.” And what do most children do? They check out that outlet. To be honest, I can be like that. But this is Chapter 2; I am getting ahead of myself.  

WHY

Why would God say what he said in verse 16 and 17? God cared about Adam and his flourishing; that is why. Look at verse 17:

“For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17, ESV).

God gave a rule because he wanted us to live, not die. He is not being a jerk or a joy killer. He is not threatening us. His rules might not make sense or be what we want at the moment of temptation, but they are good, just like this one.

COMEDY 

I watched a five-minute comedy clip Thursday, and near the end, it made fun of the Bible. They characterized it as prohibiting everything you want to do. That is not what the Bible is about. It isn’t a list of rules that get us into heaven or help us live our best life. Although it includes rules, it promotes a good life. The Bible is about God and his desire to win our hearts back to him for his praise and our joy. Our wills and wantings are broken. We are attracted to dangerous things. And God warned Adam, our ancestor, in verse 17. And he warns us as well because he loves us—spoiler alert. Adam fails in Chapter 3. Death will come. But God will make another way for us to find life again, life in him.  

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Paul also wrote,

“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:56–57, ESV).

John 3:16 tells us, 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).

God gives us eternal life through faith in his Son. God will give us what we desperately longed for: life, abundant life, eternal life. Jesus said If we believe in him, though we die, yet shall we live. Jesus took the punishment so we would not have to. So what is our purpose and meaning in life? I wish my classmate could hear this: Life comes from God; we are made with bodies and souls, and a calling to work and obey. And in the midst of longing for purpose and meaning we can return to the basics. We can return to a good God through his one and only Son, who truly became a human to pave the way and fix what we broke.

APPLICATION

• Do you need to acknowledge the true Creator God? Where are you tempted to replace him with lesser things? Let us give him our attention, service, thanks, love, and praise.

• Do you long for Eden? Great. God made us embodied souls with a longing for eternity with him. Listen to that longing; understand your place and value in his eyes. Turn to him with your longings.

• Are you struggling with work and life like my classmate? If you are, ask God for strength and wisdom to follow him where he leads and do what he wants.

• Where do you struggle to obey God’s good instructions? He loves us to death. Let us turn to him, trust in him, and obey him for our good and his praise.

PRAYER

Let’s pray.

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