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119: Creation
58 Plays9 days ago
Today marks our first episode of our new series based on "The Story", which will take us through our history from beginning to end. We'll get going with the creation account in Genesis. You've probably heard it before. God creates the heavens and the earth and everything in it. That's what He did, but what about the why behind it? The answer there puts humans front and center of the narrative and makes this awesomely grand and sweeping story one that is extremely personal.
Join Pastor Chuck Schlie as he talks about the why.
If you’d like to dig deeper, check out these discussion questions. You can complete them on your own, with your Community Group, or with family and friends.
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:00
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The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production.
00:00:20
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to normal goes a long way. I'm your host Jill Devine, and we are about to begin covering each chapter of the story by Randy Frazee. Every Sunday, one of our pastors will take a chapter and they will teach on it, and then I will present it to you here in podcast form.
Creation Narrative
00:00:39
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So this week we start off with chapter one, creation. Hey, i'm in the beginning,
00:00:47
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God created the heavens and the earth. That's how the story begins. In the beginning is a good place to start, and I'm glad you're here, and I look forward to taking this long walk with you as we explore the greatest story that's ever been told. Our journey is going to take us about 31 weeks with some timeouts along the way. but ah This is a great opportunity for us to take it all in from beginning to end, and we're going to do it together. I'm excited, and here is why. Because if we stick with it, ah we are going to see some amazing things along the way, and we are going to understand how all of these Bible stories connect together. And furthermore, we'll see where our stories fit in too.
00:01:38
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ah You see, the story that we're going to be walking through is more than just some ancient book about what God did in the lives of people back in Bible days.
God's Relationship with Humanity
00:01:48
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My prayer is that not only will you better but know and understand God's story, but you'll also see yourself in it and see how it applies in 2025 and be overwhelmed by God's great love for you in the here and now.
00:02:06
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So let's begin with a big question. Here it is. What's the point? That's always a good question. What's the point? The real point of Genesis is so amazing that it's almost unbelievable. And here it is, that God wants to be with us. That's it.
00:02:28
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In the beginning, God created out of his desire for relationship. And so God, that's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, got to work.
00:02:41
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um in six days, and I read it to be six literal 24-hour days God created. In the first five of those days, God made light and water and sun, moon and stars and earth and vegetation, fish and birds and animals, and it was good, it was good, it was good, ah but it wasn't good enough. Then on day six, God grabbed some dirt.
00:03:09
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God got his hands dirty, and it won't be the last time. And from that dirt, he formed a man, and he breathed into that dirt, and there was life.
Significance of the Seventh Day
00:03:22
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Out of the dust came Adam. And then from Adam, God made Eve, and it was very good.
00:03:32
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But we're going to come back to these two in just a bit. For on the seventh day, God rested. He called the seventh day holy. The first thing in all creation to be called holy is time.
00:03:49
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God rested on the seventh day. And he rested not because he was tired. No, I want you to think about the word rest as the word joy. He joyed himself in what he had done. He celebrated all that he had made. He delighted himself. He joyed himself in it. And we're supposed to do that too.
00:04:13
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We are to rest, to delight in what God has done and applaud Him for it. In other words, to do that intentionally to set aside a holy day, one day off per week in order to do so. Now, speaking of the week, get this, you know that the week points to God Have you ever thought about the oddity of the seven-day week? It makes no sense, unless there is a God who designed it this way.
00:04:49
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Joel Beerman writes, days, months, years, all correspond readily to observable astronomical phenomena. So measuring time by sun and by moon makes obvious sense, right? Right. The standards are set by an astronomical reality. But the week is not so neatly derived. Why seven days?
Concept of Age in Creation
00:05:18
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Why not 10?
00:05:20
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or six, which divides nicely into 30, or five, but which divides neatly into 365. The only reason we follow a seven-day rhythm is because that's how God designed it to be. but Okay, let's go back to the beginning. God creates, well, just about everything, and it's good. Then God creates man and woman, and it's very good. He created them, male and female, and he placed them in the garden. Okay, question for you. In your mind, and your mind how old are Adam and Eve?
00:06:04
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Like when God made them that day, what age do you picture them to be? The Bible doesn't say. um But, you know, I'll say, I picture them to be about 30. I just do, I don't know why. but Maybe that's what the picture is, you know, when you grow up, you look at the picture, they look about 30, you know? But for the sake of example, let's say they're 30, or rather appear to be 30 years old.
00:06:32
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because in fact, they're really just one day old, right? What I'm saying is God in His awesome ability is able to create things with age built into them.
Human Uniqueness and Dependence on God
00:06:47
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Another example, third day of creation, God makes a tree. Now, if that tree were to would be you know cut down on that very same day, my hunch is that you look at the stump and there would be rings there, like 200 of them, let's say. So you'd be looking at a 200-year-old, but technically one-day-old tree. Are you tracking with me?
00:07:13
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See, that's why I hold to a young earth ah creation point of view, which means thousands, not millions of years ago, God created the earth in six earthbound days. But he was able to make things with age built into it. His one-day-old mountain could actually look like a 100,000-year-old mountain. And that's all well and good, and I suppose even debatable.
00:07:41
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but the bigger deal that I want to stress is that God made it. And He made you too. You're so great of God to have made you. So good of God.
00:07:56
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that you exist. You are a creature. You are created. You are a creature. And it is very good to be a creature of God and not some machine. We are creatures who think and who can feel and imagine and laugh and move about in sleep. A sleep is fascinating.
00:08:25
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Even sleep points us to God, because we have to sleep. Our bodies and our brains need sleep, and there's nothing we could do about it.
Purpose of Creation and Divine Mystery
00:08:37
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You know why we have to sleep? Because from the beginning, sleep was part of the plan. It was God's design that you and I sleep away a third of our lives. Sleep says something.
00:08:54
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It tells us that we're not in charge, that we're not in control, and that we're not God. God doesn't sleep. He doesn't need to. But every creature on earth has to sleep. You think about that. Even sleep tells us that we are dependent upon God, and it's good.
00:09:21
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See, the universe and all that is in it didn't come about by some random chance. No, God created it on purpose, for a purpose. God spoke it into existence with his powerful word. And I don't know how he did it. We don't know much about how God does things.
00:09:47
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I suppose if we could comprehend the infinite mind of God and how He does what He does, then He really wouldn't be all that divine now, would He? The Bible doesn't tell us much about how God does anything. That's not the purpose of the story. His thoughts and ways are beyond our thoughts and ways, beyond our understanding.
00:10:14
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Oh, but he does tell us over and over and over again about his heart. The point of Genesis and the rest of the story is about relationship.
Science and Divine Existence
00:10:27
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So although we know very little about his mind, God does reveal all of his heart.
00:10:36
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Well, back to the beginning. God spoke and there was. And I and i know i know some people have a hard time believing that. Much has been argued about the Big Bang and natural selection and evolution. ah But those arguments explain, or at least try to explain, how the mechanism of change might have taken place.
00:10:59
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But they do not and cannot explain how existence comes about from nothing.
00:11:10
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See, the real trick isn't about changing one thing into another thing. The real trick is to create something out of nothing. John Ortberg tells this story.
00:11:22
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a group of scientists ah decided that human beings had come a long way and no longer needed God. And so they picked one scientist to go and tell God that we didn't need him anymore. And so the scientists went to God and said, hey, we can make it on our own. We know how life started. We know the secret. We know how to clone it. We can duplicate it. We can do it without you.
00:11:50
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And God listened patiently to all that, and He said, all right, what do you say we have a man-making contest? And the scientist said, okay, great, we'll do it. And God said, now, we're going to do it the way I did it back in the old days, you know, we had them just like that. And the scientist said, sure, no problem. And so the scientist reached down and he grabbed a handful of dirt. And God said, no, no, no, no, you've got to get your own dirt.
00:12:23
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See, that's the trick. The trick is how do you make something out of literally nothing? Now, I don't mean to poke fun at science. I love science. I was a science teacher for a number of years. I think science is cool. ah Furthermore, I think the more you know about science, the more you come to realize that it's gotta come from God. Just reason with me, okay? ah Think of any man-made thing.
00:12:52
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a house, a phone, a prom dress, a painting, a sandwich. What you know that those things just don't pop out of thin air. Behind those things there stands an architect, a builder, a designer, an artist, a sandwich maker. Now, let's consider natural things.
Intricacy of Creation
00:13:20
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See, nature is far more complex. If you're looking at any newborn baby, they'll tell you that. Well, there are countless examples. The precise tilt of the earth at 23.5 degrees, any more or less, and we would drown. The exact distance from the earth to the sun, any more or less, we would either burn or freeze to death. Consider the fact that plants and trees make oxygen so that we can breathe. Hey, that's pretty convenient, don't you think? It's not a happy accident.
00:13:54
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That's on purpose. The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. How marvelous the handiwork of God. You think of it. God could have created the word the world flat and gray, and we would not have known the difference at all. But He didn't.
00:14:26
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Every single snowflake is unique. Every leaf is different, one from the other, every fingerprint is amazing. Such diversity is absolutely astounding. And he made all these different colors and different tastes and smells and landscapes and textures and sounds and as impressive as all that is,
00:14:55
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It's not the point of the story. Mount Everest, the Grand Canyon, the Sahara Desert, the Serengeti, the Amazon Rainforest, St. Charles, Missouri, as magnificent as all these places are, it's not even close to the core passion of God.
00:15:19
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These places are just the display cases to highlight his real work of art. The pride and joy of God's candy work, the point of it all, is revealed in the very first chapter of the story. Then God said,
00:15:40
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Let us make man in our image. Please notice the plurals us and our. That's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, one God. Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and all over all the creatures that move along the ground.
00:16:10
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And so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.
00:16:22
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people his crowning achievement. He made
Free Will and Image of God
00:16:28
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Adam and Eve, and he placed them in a garden paradise. And everything was literally perfect. They were Perfect. And they were nudists. That's right. No cover-ups needed because they felt no shame. But please get this. but God did not make Adam and Eve so he could just sit back and watch them like a TV show or a fish tank or something like that. so He made them so that he could be with them.
00:17:13
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It was, and it still is today, about relationship. That's what he's after. It is about love, and God is love. It is about love. All good things are about love. If you don't have love, well, think about it. Why get married?
00:17:43
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Without love, it just doesn't make any sense. Why have children? Without love, kids are a big waste of time and money. Why have a dog? I have no idea. Still trying to figure that one out. It is about love. It's about love. And God makes people because of love. And He made them like nothing else He had ever made.
00:18:14
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God created Adam and Eve, not only with the ability to love back, but He also gave them, and you and I, the ability and the freedom to choose. Free will. God did not make machines, robots, but humans with free will.
00:18:44
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God gave them the freedom to choose whether they wanted to be with Him or go it alone. Now, they're in the middle of the garden.
Fall and Consequences of Sin
00:18:55
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or two trees. One tree was called the tree of life, which bore fruit that when eaten, it would sustain life forever. And the other tree was of the knowledge of good and evil. Even before God created Eve, he tells Adam, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.
00:19:23
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Now, we're not told how much time had passed between that conversation with Adam um and Adam and Eve's eventual choice, but we do know that they chose.
00:19:34
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to disobey God and his specific command. According to scripture, a serpent, a creature, we later learn represented Satan, came to Eve and told her ah that if she and Adam were to eat from the forbidden tree, they would be like God. Now that is a very tempting offer. And we're still doing that, by the way, all the time.
00:20:02
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trying to be like God, tempting offer. And they took the bait. They ignored God and his word. They held it so loosely that the devil's plucking away, no problem. And they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that tree lived up to its name. Okay. So many questions here. Oh.
00:20:29
Speaker
I'll give you my apologies up front, we don't have the time to get into the details. Question, where did Satan come from? Short answer, he is a former angel who wanted God's throne for himself and so Satan was booted out of heaven. If you have your pen, write down Revelation chapter 12, Ezekiel chapter 28, Isaiah chapter 14, you can read all about it.
00:20:54
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Question, why does God let Satan walk around in the garden? Short answer, I don't know.
00:21:03
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Question, why doesn't God give Adam the heads up about the serpent? Again, I don't know. Maybe he did, but it's not recorded in the Bible.
00:21:15
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But maybe he didn't. I don't know. The first three chapters of Genesis produce a lot of questions that God just does not give us the answer to. He just doesn't. We don't know much about the mind of God, but we do know his heart. We know his heart. And we know the results of the first couple's disobedience. The world is messed up.
00:21:46
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Sin, decay, death have entered the story. You will surely die. From dust you shall return. You look at Genesis. You look out at the world. You look inside.
00:22:09
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And you can see that it's wrong. It's all gone wrong. We live in a world of anger, hatred, violence, murder. You just turn the page, Genesis chapter four. This is the result of life apart from God. The offspring of Adam and Eve, they have two boys, Cain and Abel. Long story short, out of jealous envy, Cain kills Abel.
Noah and Persistence of Sin
00:22:38
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The world has gone God opposite.
00:22:42
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Hey, here's an idea. What if we take all the really bad people and just get rid of them? Just eliminate, you know, all the evil people in the world and start all over. Wipe the slate clean. Sound like a plan? Don't waste your time. It's already been tried. Fast forward about 1600 years to Genesis chapter 6.
00:23:07
Speaker
The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he made man on earth and his, what? His heart was filled with hey God's creation, his perfect, beautiful creation, and become so corrupted, just this place where anything and everything goes. So God would start all over with the best guy the human race has to offer. His name, Noah. It is one of the very few times in the Bible that the most likely candidate is chosen. It usually doesn't work like that. We'll see.
00:24:05
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But you know the story. Noah, his family, an ark, two of every kind of animal, a tsunami from above and below. Boy, I wish I could get into this with you. From below,
00:24:19
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oh floods the earth for 40 days and nights, and after a year and 10 days, the water recedes enough for Noah, his wife, his three sons, their wives, to leave the ark. And long story short, it doesn't work.
00:24:35
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because sin was still right there with him.
Redemption and Jesus as New Adam
00:24:42
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It's hard to get rid of the old Adam. We can't get rid of it. It's a part of who we are. Have you ever tried to not sin? How long do you think it could go? Give it a try. Even if you could perfectly, you know, stay away from the wrong things and do only the right things still, you would be a sinner.
00:25:06
Speaker
because sin has been transferred into every human heart since the fall of Adam and Eve. We have inherited their sin. The term goes by the name original sin, and we got it. And I'll tell you, it's a difficult biblical principle to wrap your head around, but just like how your dad may have passed on to you his bad cholesterol, he gave you something much worse. He gave you his sinful nature.
00:25:35
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And he got it from his parents who got it from their folks and on and on and on all the way back to Eden. Surely we live up to the name mankind. Literally that's translated. We are Adam kind. That's what that means. We're Adam kind. Surely we are sinful at birth.
00:25:59
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Even before that, sinful from the time we are conceived, and get this, sin comes with a terrible cost, for the wages of sin is death. Now that is messed up, and you are messed up, and this world is broken, and we're all heading for eternal death. The end.
00:26:28
Speaker
That's not the end of the story. How could that be the end? The story is far from over. Here's the amazing thing. ah God still wants us. We find our hope today in Genesis chapter 3. You recall that before Adam and Eve sinned, they ran around on the buff, and it wasn't a problem at all. But but after the fall, they could not get dressed fast enough.
00:26:55
Speaker
Their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked. And so they sewed fig leaves together for clothes and they hid themselves because they knew that they had disobeyed God. And so God goes looking for them. I love this line. Most of all, God walking three miles an hour in the cool of the day in the garden. And he calls out, even though he knows where they are, he calls out just like you would to your children. Where are you?
00:27:25
Speaker
Where are you? He's not raving. He's not storming. He's not stopping. He's walking. In the cool of the day, it's amazing. And Adam says, I was afraid because I was naked. And so I hid. And God responds, who told you that? Did you eat from the tree I commanded you not to eat from? And then Adam, oh Adam, he answers God, how so? By blaming him for making Eve.
00:27:53
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whoa You don't think God's merciful right there should tell you man. He blames God for making Eve and then Eve blames the serpent for tempting her and now there's going to be punishment for Satan and for all of humanity and there's going to be punishment for God.
00:28:14
Speaker
two because God so loved the world. He will send his son to save the world. Jesus will come as the new Adam. That is who he is. He is the new Adam. And he is going to perfectly obey all of God's commands. And he's also going to pay the price for all who cannot.
00:28:39
Speaker
Jesus will get his hands dirty. He will hold the sin of the whole world upon himself because of love. And God tells Satan, he said, my son will crush your head and you will strike his heel. That promise right there, Genesis 3.15, that's the cross.
00:29:10
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The heel will be struck good Friday, okay? jesus Satan's head will be crushed Easter morning. That's what that is. But this will not be an easy fix. It will take nothing less than the death of the Son of God.
00:29:33
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to redeem the world. God will take the punishment. And by all accounts, Adam and Eve deserve to die right there on the spot. God's law had been broken. His perfect creation is now ruined. But God is love. However, there is a consequence for Adam and Eve. They are removed from the garden so they don't eat from the tree of life and remain sinners forever. That's why. But then comes this beautiful description The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and he dressed them. Author Max Licator who has a great eye for detail points out three scenes to take a look at God making clothes from animal skins and clothing Adam and Eve. Scene one, God slays an animal. Think about that. For the first time in history, the ground is stained with blood and it's innocent blood.
00:30:31
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For the animal did not commit any crime. This
God's Love and Righteousness
00:30:35
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lesser creature does not deserve to die. Adam and Eve deserve to die. They deserve to die, but they live.
00:30:45
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The animal deserves to live, but dies. Innocent blood is shed. Scene two, clothing is made. The shaper of the stars and the sun and the planets, the mountains, the oceans. The almighty creator now humbles himself to become a tailor. Scene three, God dresses them. The Lord clothed them.
00:31:11
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Those fig leaves will not do. And so God produces some clothing, garments of love. But He doesn't you know throw them at their feet and tell them to get dressed. No, He dresses them Himself.
00:31:28
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As a mother would dress her toddler. As a father would zip up the jacket of his preschooler. He clothed them. And He has done the same for us.
00:31:42
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God has clothed us. But we eat our share of forbidden fruit. We have picked the bushels of it. And our excuses are just as flimsy as clothes made from fig leaves. Our good deeds cannot cover our nakedness. We cannot clothe ourselves. So what does God do? He does exactly for us what he did for our parents in the garden.
00:32:11
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He sheds innocent blood. He offers the life of his son. Not the skin of an animal, but the robe but of Jesus' righteousness is what he dresses us in. He clothes us in Christ. How so? Baptism. We witnessed Everett getting clothed today.
00:32:40
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Galatians 3, 27, all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. He removes our sin and covers us with his gracious love.
Engagement and Future Episodes
00:32:55
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Why? Get this, why would he do that? Ha ha, this answer we know full well.
00:33:09
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because we know his heart. It is because God is love. You see the story is a love story and it is to be continued.
00:33:26
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If you feel like you're ready to go a little bit deeper, we have some questions for you to think through at normalgoesalongway.com. You can do these by yourself or you can do them with others. And if you're not ready yet, it's okay. I encourage you to come back in a few weeks after you've spent some more time in the story and check out the questions then. Don't forget to tune in into our kids' version this Thursday with Miss Hannah and Miss April. Thanks for listening.