Immanuel Sermon Audio
Genesis (1:66)
Don't have a Bible grab one on the pew or pull your phone out or your iPad or whatever you like to use. Find the book of Genesis. Book of Genesis. We're going to go through on Wednesday nights and we're just going to study one book of the Bible each week. And there's some good things about doing that and there's some limitations when you do that. The limitation is obviously when you're in a book like Genesis you can't dig into every detail, controversy, story, character. You can't even come close. You just have to fly over the top. When you get to the book of Jonah, we can dig in pretty deep and talk about what's going on in Jonah. But in a lot of these books, we're just going to have to fly over the top. Two resources that I use for this study that I just thought I would mention to you if you're interested in them. I'm not lifting these studies out of these resources so it won't be a repeat for you. One is called The Message of the Old Testament and The Message of the New Testament. These are by a pastor named Mark Deaver, who's a pastor in Washington, D.C. and he preached a series of sermons. One sermon on each book of the Bible all the way through Genesis to Revelation and these are just the manuscripts of those sermons. And so just pastoral confession. When I first bought these, I thought this is great. Sermons already written for you. All you got to do is open the book, study it a little bit, and then you just show up and sound like a rock star. And when I bought them and read them, I thought they're good, but they're not me. They don't feel like me. This isn't how I would teach it. These aren't the things I would say. They sort of make sure you're headed in the right direction at times and they're very helpful, but we're not going to use them word for word on Wednesday nights. The other one, pastoral confession, I have not really used yet. Angie in the office mentioned this one to me and it's called "Through the Bible" in one year by Dr. Alan Stringfellow. And some of you are shaking your head. You've gone through this. You know this, but this is just 66 studies, one for each book of the Bible. And as we go forward, I am going to reference this and look at what he says. So there's a couple of study aids if you want to look at things on your own, but we're just going to go through and I'll try to have a handout for you. If you like that sort of thing, if not, you can make a paper airplane and throw it at Tony when he's singing. But either way, you will need a Bible of some shape, form, fashion to study and we're going to flip around looking at Scripture together. I'm going to put a picture up on the screen and see if any of you know who that is. Anybody know who that is? Who is it? It is the clown in it. How many of you have seen the movie "It"? A few of you have seen that movie. Yeah, you can raise your hand and admit that. It's okay. The pastor has seen it. It's okay. His name is Penny Wise and he is the bad guy in Stephen King's book/movie "It." And so here's a funny story about "It." In middle school, my buddies and I decided we're going to have a sleepover one night. And we talked to all the parents and we said we're going to sleep over at Derek's house. So we all went over to Derek's house and we said, "Hey, it's summertime. They're going to let us stay a plate." We ought to go rent the scariest movie we can find. And so we went and this was what we thought was the scariest movie we could find. And back then when I was in middle school, it was on VHS cassette tape when you checked it out. And it's a long movie. It's about three hours, a little bit over three hours. So there was two of them. You remember that? You go to Blockbuster and you get the double-fat case and you got two VHSs in there and so we rented it and we took it home and we popped it in and we were so excited. We're going to get scared watching this clown movie and all this stuff. And so we put it in and we start watching it and we're watching and we sit there for about 15, 20, 30 minutes and we sort of start looking at each other like, "I don't really get this. This doesn't really make, I don't know what they're talking about. I don't understand. I'm not following this. Let's just stick with it and make it through about an hour, hour and a half. We're sort of tracking and we get to this part of the movie halfway through that is just very climatic and things are happening and it's dramatic and then the tape ends. Okay, get the second tape out. Somebody goes to grab the second tape and the second tape says tape one and we watched tape two before tape one and it didn't make any sense and it wasn't scary and we tried to put tape one in and watch it and then we knew what was going to happen. There was no drama. There was no suspense. You knew exactly what was coming and it was just not a good evening. Here's a point. You're looking at tape one of 66 and if you miss tape one, none of the rest of it makes sense. If you don't understand the things that are written and talked about in the book of Genesis, nothing else in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Revelation, none of it. None of it makes a lick of sense. And so you've got to understand the book of Genesis. Literally, it means beginnings, is the book of beginnings, part one of 66. If you have your Bible, look with me at Genesis 1-1. I know that you probably know it, but we'll go ahead and look at it and read it out of God's Word together. Genesis 1-1 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Period. Flip all the way to the last verse in the book of Genesis, Genesis 50 verse 26. We start off with, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 50 verse 26 says this, "So Joseph died being 110 years old. They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." Here's what we're going to try to do tonight. We're going to try to make sense of how do you get from in the beginning God creates the heavens and the earth, too. Here's a guy named Joseph. He lived to be really old. He died and they put him in a box in Egypt. What happens in between there to make sense of that? Look with me at Genesis 1, okay? Genesis 1, and this is on the outline, "It does not begin with creation. It begins with the Creator." And there's a very subtle difference there. It does not begin with creation. It begins with the Creator, capital C with God Himself. You can read through Genesis 1. One time I did this with a 10th grade Sunday school class, had a guy come stand up at the whiteboard and I said, "I'm going to read the whole chapter. You put a tally mark on the board every time I say the name God." You can look at Genesis 1, there's 20, excuse me, 31 verses and there will be over 31 tally marks on the board when you get done. Over and over. God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God. The point of Genesis 1 is not so much how he did it or when he did it or how long it took. The point is he did it. Wasn't the gods of Egypt? It wasn't Baal. It wasn't Asherah. It wasn't any of the other deities surrounding the people of Israel. It was Yahweh, the God of Israel, who made it all in the beginning. Now just to put my cards on the table, and we definitely don't have time to get into the days of Genesis and the age of the earth and all that stuff, but I will tell you that I'm pretty traditional when it comes to the age of the earth and how long did God do it? And some people would laugh at that and say, "You're backwoods, simple, ignorant. That's okay. You can call me whatever you want to." Pretty traditional, but even I can step back and say, "That's really not the biggest idea you need to take away from Genesis 1." It's not a science book, although I think you can learn some things about how he did it and there's some clues there, but the point is that God did it. The emphasis is on God as the Creator. The pinnacle as God the Creator is speaking all these things into existence, the pinnacle of creation is what? Us, you and me, right? Human beings are the pinnacle, the highest point, the most important thing that he makes, and he makes them in his what? Image, in his image and in his likeness. The Hebrew word is Selam Elohim, the Latin phrase is a Mago day, and it means a couple of things when you're talking about the image of God. It means that you are made to connect with God and it means that you were made to exercise dominion over creation. So I've sat in Sunday school classes. I hope that you haven't sat in these kinds of Sunday school classes where the teacher throws out a question and just lets the students run wild with answers and speculation, and I've sat in the class where they said, "Well, what does it mean that we're made in God's image? Go." And people start throwing out answers like, "Well, if we're made in his image, it must mean God must look exactly like us. We must be mirror images of him. He must have two ears and a nose with two nostrils and two eyes and hands and fingers and toes." And all sorts of crazy speculation, this is what it means to be made in God's image. It doesn't mean that God looks exactly like you. It means that you were made to connect with God and you were made to have dominion over creation. In other words, Adam was made as the only thing that God made that was going to have a personal relationship with God. And the one who was to be the vice regent, the sub king, the little K king, over all of creation, Adam's job was to rule all of it. God made him. He said, "I made you in my image and my likeness and your job is to rule, to have dominion over all of this. All of it is yours and I'm giving it to you. You are responsible for everything that takes place here." So that's what it means to be creating God's image, to connect with God and to have dominion over creation. Then comes Genesis 3. We're just sort of barely trucking right now because these first chapters are important. Genesis 3, "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made." Satan comes in the form of a serpent and you know this story. If you don't know this story, you should read it tonight. But the long and the short of it is that Adam and Eve give up the unique things that God gave them as creatures created in his image. They willingly gave up the relationship that they had with God. They just turned it over and they willingly gave up the dominion that they had over creation. An animal that Adam was supposed to rule over comes and contradicts God's word and his immediate response should have been what? Kill it. Stop it out. Get rid of it. Talk to God about it. There was a couple of things he could have done that would have been okay. The worst thing he could have done was to be engaged with it, listen to it, believe it, and then eventually just say, "You know what? For that one tree out of all of the cosmos, the one tree that's off limits, I want that. And in exchange for that, I will give up my relationship with God and my dominion over creation." You read the story about Jacob and Esau. You ever read that story and thought, "What a fool to give up his blessing and the birthright and all this stuff for a pot of stew. What an idiot." What about Adam? For one piece of fruit, for one lie, he says, "I will give up everything that God gave me as a creature created in his image. I give up this relationship, I give up my dominion. It is betrayal on Adam's part. It's adultery on Adam's part. Bible talks elsewhere that God created marriage to give us a picture of what our relationship with him ought to look like and really is like. And we understand the pain of human adultery, you understand that Adam is committing spiritual adultery in the garden. It's treason, it's rebellion. And Paul explains later that through this one action comes sin and that sin spreads to all people. And we know that that sin spreads to all people because with sin comes death and everyone dies. And death is spread to all so we know that sin is spread to all, all of this because of Adam's disobedience. You can read in Genesis 3. You guys tell me what happens immediately after, and there are several things here, but what happens immediately after they disobey God? Their eyes are open and they realize we ain't got no clothes on. That's a problem. Get some leaves. So they try to cover it up. What else happens? They hide from God immediately. You see that relationship is broken. They hear Him coming. They freak out. They run and they hide. What else happens? What's that? The first marriage fight in human history doesn't take very long. God shows up. Adam, what happened? And really He's blaming God because He says the woman that you gave to me, it's all her fault. And really it's probably all your fault because you set me up. Eve, what happened? Don't look at me. Not me. Everybody's passing the buck. Everybody's trying to get out of it. And what happens? Right, right. Yeah, where are you at? I'm hiding. What else happens after Adam and Eve fight? Courses on Eve is pain and childbearing, conflict with your husband for the rest of your life, for all your offspring. Curse on Adam is, work is not going to be like it used to be. You understand Adam worked before he sinned. He was told to keep the garden to work it in a perfect, unfallen, unstained world. But now God says it's not going to be like it used to be. It's going to be a whole lot harder and you're going to sweat and it's going to be tough. And then one day you are going to die back to the dust, to the snake, to the serpent, he says what? You're going to go on your belly and someday what's going to happen? The offspring of the woman will come and you're going to strike his heel but he's going to smash your head, okay? Then what happens? God looks at him and he says, you got to go. See you later. You're leaving. Then what happens? It gets worse. There is. Creation is cursed and Paul talks about that in Romans saying today, creation groans for redemption. The physical world is yearning for the day of redemption. So they leave. Adam and Eve are out and it's not very long till there's not just fights between husbands and wives but fights between brothers, right? On and on it goes. You meet a guy who says, you know what, I'm going to marry two women and I'm going to brag about it and you meet a guy who says, you come kill me. I'm going to kill 20 of you guys and just this spiral gets going. Look at Genesis 5. Genesis 5 gives us the march of death. You can read all these funny names about all these guys who lived a long time but here's the point. Verse 5, all the days Adam lived were 930 years and he died. Verse 8, the days of Seth were 912 years and he died. Verse 11, the days of Enosch, 905 and he died. 14, Keenan, 910 and he died, 17, Mahalal, 895 and he died. One after the other, he died. He died. He had a break with Enoch who walked with God and God took him without him dying but everyone else. He died. He died. He died. He died. He died. He died. Look at Genesis 6, 5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. There's a lot of strong words in that statement. There's a lot of strong words in that statement that people like to try to water down and make it sound like it's not quite as bad as it really is. This is the result of the fall, this is on your outline and it is the impetus of the flood. The consequence of the fall and the build up to the flood. God saw that wickedness was great and every intention of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. You understand that that is a description of you and me apart from God's grace. That verse doesn't say that everyone was as bad as they possibly could be. That verse doesn't say that every person went around committing the most heinous sin you could think of every second of the day but it says apart from God's grace, this is you, all the thoughts of your heart apart from God's grace are only evil continually and the wickedness is great in the earth. Now that leads up to Genesis 6 in the flood. Put another picture up on the screen. That's how we sometimes think about the flood and have you ever thought it's strange that we decorate children's rooms with flood decor? What should we put in the church nursery? You might as well put a picture of David and Bathsheba if you're going to paint a realistic scene of the flood because it wasn't like this. It wasn't like the woodchucks are down there eating a hole and the monkeys are hanging off and the elephants are over there and Noah's what's going to happen. Everybody's giggling, it's laughing, it's a good time, ha ha ha. This is still a far cry from what it was like but this next picture gives you somewhat of a better idea of what it might have really been like. I've never seen that in a kid's nursery, two-year-old room at church, I've never seen that scene painted on the wall. How many of you guys have seen the movie Noah, new movie that came out? It's a joke. I'll just tell you, it's a joke. The first five, 10, 15 minutes, I thought, "Okay, maybe they're going to come around here. Maybe this will be okay. It is absolutely ridiculous." There was some things that were helpful to visualize and see and that was the fear of people when the flood came and the desperation of people when the flood came and the horror of what it was like for a worldwide flood to drown every man, woman, boy, child, every animal that had breath that wasn't on the ark on planet earth. It was horrific. It was terrible. Noah, by God's grace, is spared in his family and it is just Noah in his family unlike the movie and if you don't know what I'm talking about, then lucky you. So the flood comes, the flood goes, righteous Noah gets off the boat, he thanks God, he builds an altar, he worships, and then he does what? He gets sloshed like a redneck, drunk, passed out in his tent with no clothes on and you realize immediately he's no better than any of the other people. Noah's not any better than all those people who died in the flood. What was the difference between Noah and all of those people? The only difference was God's grace to Noah. Noah was not a moral person. God showed him grace and so you go from Noah, there's more rebellion. You have these people who descend from Noah in his sons. You have the Tower of Babel, more judgment. Then look at Genesis 11. Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, and you come to chapter 12 and in chapter 12 it says the Lord said to Abram and that pretty much comes out of nowhere. All these stories up to this point are dealing with human beings on a worldwide global scale and all of a sudden in Genesis 12 we laser beam down on Abraham and we start talking about his family. So God picks Abraham to make these promises too and what sort of stuff does God promise Abraham? I'm going to give you descendants and that's an interesting promise because Abraham is really old and his wife is really old and they don't have any kids but God says I'm going to give you descendants. What else does he say he's going to give them? I'm going to give you a piece of real estate just for you, for your family. I'm going to give you kids which will mean at least one kid from you, descendants, I'm going to give you land and what else? The Messiah, I'm going to send blessing through your family that will be a blessing for the whole world. I'm going to send somebody through your family who will be for all families, all the families of the world will be blessed through your family. So Abraham marries a woman named Sarah and God's made this promise that they're going to have kids and what happens? There ain't no kids. After a year, after a year, after a year, after a year, they're well into their 90s now, there's no kids and Sarah and Abraham put their heads together and they're the first ones to say, you know what? Maybe God helps those who help themselves. Maybe we need to give God a little helping hand here. Maybe we're not being creative enough and the plan is what? Let's go through Hager. Maybe that's how God wants to do it because it doesn't look like He's going to do it this way. What did God think of that plan? He's right. Not a good plan. I don't like that plan. And God just comes to Abraham and basically says, I don't like it. It's not going to be through Ishmael, it's going to be through Isaac, not Ishmael, Isaac. So Isaac is born. He grows up. There's some great stories with Abraham and Isaac. We just got to skip them. But Isaac grows up and he marries a woman named Rebecca and she gets pregnant with twins and the twins are who, Jacob and Esau. What do you know about Jacob? We always list him first, even though he was the youngest, Jacob and Esau rolls off the tongue better than Esau and Jacob. Jacob was a deceiver, a liar. What else do you know about him? He was pretty sneaky. He was a wussy mama's boy. He was. I don't want to go out there and do work. I don't want to go out there and hunt. I just want to sit here and play video games all day long. Mom, Rebecca, can you bring me some milk? He was a mama's boy. What do you know about Esau? He was a man's man, right? He would have fit in right on with duck dynasty. There he is. I don't know if he had the beard, but he had the body hair to make up for it. He covered in this red hair. He liked to hunt. He was just a tough, rough, outdoorsy kind of man's man guy. He would fit in real well in the Permian Basin. Just an oil field, rough guy, real manly guy. And you look at these two guys and you say, okay, we got a man's man and we got a sissy. Every last one of us, if we were picking sides, would have gone with the man's man. And God said, what? Not my guy. I'm going with Jacob, right? He took Jacob a long time to come around on some things and figure some things out, but eventually he comes around. Jacob marries who? Be confident. Leah and Rachel. And there's a couple other ladies thrown in the mix, right? It's just sort of a bad situation. And you look at all these stories where these people marry woman after woman after woman after woman. What doesn't the Bible say how terrible that was? Well, read about what happened in their families. It was terrible. It did not work out well for any of them. There was fighting, jealousy, bitterness, conflict, all of these things in these families. So he marries a couple of ladies and Jacob has how many sons? Twelve. And the youngest is who? Oh. Who? Who? Benjamin. I always want to say Joseph too, but it's not Joseph. The youngest is Benjamin. The next youngest is Joseph, okay? Joseph is in there. And here's the amazing thing. You talked about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. If you look at the last fourteen chapters of Genesis, they're all about Joseph. A fourth over a fourth of the book, the book of Genesis, first book of the Bible, maybe the most, one of the most central key. You can't miss it books and all of Scripture. It's all about Joseph in the last part. How many of you have heard somebody say there's nothing in the Bible negative about Joseph? I've heard people say that. There's nothing about Joseph ever said bad of him. I've heard preachers say that, Sunday school teachers say that. I don't buy it. I think you can read in Genesis 37 that Joseph was a pompous little punk. Because he had these dreams about all of his brothers bowing down to him, and what did he do? Hey, guys, guess what? I had the greatest dream last night. You and you and you and you and you were all kissing my feet. It was the greatest thing ever. And his brothers responded to that like you would expect him to respond. He'd beat him up, and they originally said we're going to leave him for dead, and then they said maybe we can make a buck off of him, let's sell him to Egypt. So he ends up in Egypt, and while he is there, he gets a great job, right? He's blessed by the Lord, it says God's with him, even in all of this turmoil. Family just turned on him, beat him up, sold him as a slave. God's still with him. He blesses him. He's in Potiphar's house. He gets this great job. And then what happens? Potiphar's wife. She says, let's get together. And Joseph says, ain't going to happen. And she grabs him by the cloak, and he runs out naked, Bible says. And now she's got some explaining to do to Potiphar, and so she says he made a move on me. He tried to take advantage of me, and Joseph gets thrown in jail, right? One of the saddest verses in the book of Genesis, it says my paraphrase. They throw him in jail two years later. He just sits there for two years, rotten in prison. Just in a dungeon, lowest of the low, but while he's in there, God is with him. And God hadn't left him, he hadn't forsaken him. And he blesses him, and he gets put in charge of the other prisoners, and there's a story with the baker, and the cup bearer, and all of this stuff. And eventually, right, we're skipping over tons of great stuff, but eventually he becomes second to Pharaoh, right? He's the prime minister of Egypt. Why is that important? That Joseph be the prime minister of Egypt? Yeah, back home, there's a famine. And not just Joseph's family, God's family, the grandkids of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are starving to death. And God has already told this family, offspring is numerous as the stars of the sky. They didn't have that yet, but God said they would have it. Land. God said you're going to have it. They didn't have it yet, but God had promised it. Blessing for the whole world. That hadn't happened yet. And now they're about to die of starvation, and Joseph is able to bring his brothers there, to bring his family there, and God's people live. Now, question, an important question. How did Joseph end up in Egypt? He was sold as a slave by his, okay, an important question. How did Joseph end up in Egypt? How did he end up there? Somebody have the guts and say it. God sent him there. The Bible does not say God allowed it to happen. The Bible says God sent him there. Were the brothers guilty? Absolutely guilty. Were they responsible for what they did? Absolutely they were. Were they puppets of God? No. Who sent him there at the end of the day? God sent him there. If you try to compromise and wiggle on either of those two things, you miss the theological tension that you've got to hold on to. If you try to say, well, the brothers, they didn't really have a say in it. God sent him there. They're not really responsible. You've gone too far this way. If you come over here and say, well, God didn't really send him there. He just allowed a bad thing to happen. You've gone too far this way. You've got to hold both of those things, and you can't let one of them out balance the other. The brothers sold him into slavery, and it was wicked, and it was evil, and they're responsible for it. God sent him there. That's true. Both of those things are true. You see that at the end of the book of Genesis. Here's how it ends. We've been talking about Joseph, Genesis 50, verse 26, Joseph died being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. When you read that verse and you think about all the ground we've covered in the book of Genesis, which we covered really, really, really fast, you go back to Adam and Eve to God saying to them, "If you cross the line, you die." You go back to Genesis 5. He lived 900 years, and he died. He lived 912 years, and he lived 869 years, and Abraham came to a good old age, and he – Isaac was really old, and then he – Jacob lived a great life, and then he – Joseph, being 110 years old, died, and he was embalmed, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Why did they not bury him in Egypt? He wanted to be buried in the land, right? On to his dying breath, Joseph says, "I still believe God's going to do what he said he's going to do." He promised our family, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. They're growing as a family, but they're not as numerous as the stars in the sky. He said, "He promised us land, and I'm telling you, I'm looking you in the eyeballs. You take me back to the land, and you bury me in that land when you go," because one of these days, God's going to come back. He's going to come back for us and bring us out to that land. And he promised a Messiah. He promised someone who would come from our family and bless the entire world into his dying breath. He believes all those promises. Now, that's the story of Genesis. Let's talk about what do we learn. What do we learn about ourselves? What do we learn about God? And we'll click through these pretty fast here. Number one, talking about us, we are sinners, and we're going to die. Adam and Eve started this train rolling. We talked about Noah, the drunk. We talked about Abraham, where Abraham, who at times in his life was a flat-out coward. You're going to read stories about he takes his wife to a foreign country and says, "I don't know if God's going to take care of us in Egypt, so why don't you pretend to not be my wife, so they don't kill me to get you." Abraham is a coward. Isaac is a horrible father. Jacob is a liar, deceiver. We've talked about him. Joseph was arrogant. Look, in all of these people, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, all of them, you see evidences of God's grace in their life, you see God's goodness to them, but you also were reminded over and over and over again, Genesis 6.5 is you and me. That's where we live. Apart from God's grace, all the thoughts of our hearts are only wicked continually, unless God does a work in our life. You see that throughout the book. If you don't get that, if you don't get the gravity of Genesis 3, if you don't get the gravity of Genesis 6.5, you're going to have all sorts of Bible questions that you can't make sense of. There are going to be all sorts of stuff in life that you don't understand. These are going to bum-fuddle you. You're not going to be able to make sense of any of it, unless you really understand the seriousness of Genesis 3 and Genesis 6.5 in this idea of sin. I think most of us, most people in church, would say, "Preacher, I know I'm not perfect. Do not put me up at the front of the perfect line. I, man, I've made some dumb decisions in my life, but there is something inside of you and something inside of me that even when we admit that, we want to come around the back side and say, "But you ought to meet my neighbor." That guy's a jerk. He's a total creep. You ought to meet my boss. You ought to meet the people I work with. They are absolute, horrible folks. You know what? They are. And so are you. And that's what Genesis is saying from Genesis 3 onward, is that we're sinners and we're going to die. Number 2, we are supposed to believe God. And I put that word in there and scratched it out for you to make a point. A lot of times, folks say, and I know this is sort of semantics and word games, but all of the times, folks, do you believe it? Oh, of course, I believe in God. I've always believed there was a God up there and I've always believed in a higher power and this, that. And I say, "Well, great. That puts you in the same class as 99% of the people on planet Earth. You're not in the 1% who are truly atheists. Congratulations. You believe in a divine being. The question is, do you believe Him in a personal way, in a relational way? Not just some idea of, "Yeah, there's a God up there and I think He made us and He probably has some rules for us, but do you really believe Him?" Take your Bible and look at Genesis 15 verse 6, 15-6. This is God's covenant with Abram. God comes and He makes the same promises, just giving them again to Abram. Genesis 15-6, it says, "And He, Abram, believed the Lord and He counted it to Him as righteousness." God said, "I'm going to do this, this, this, and this." And Abram said, "I believe, not in you that you exist, but I believe you. I believe that you will do what you say you're going to do." And the last part of that verse is really important, and God did what? He counted it to Him, He credit it to Him as righteousness. So you read in the Bible that Noah was a righteous man. What does that mean? You interpret that in light of Genesis 15-6 and you say, "That means He believed God." Was He morally superior to His neighbor who died in the flood? No, He wasn't. You read about Abram. He was a righteous man. Does that mean He was a little bit morally better than all the other idolaters who lived around Him? Because He wasn't idolater, worship statues. No, He wasn't even better than those guys. It means He believed God and God counted it to Him as righteousness. You think about you and me on this side of the cross, on this side of the Messiah. Are we any better than Noah, Abram, Jacob, the liar, Isaac, any of them? No. How can we be righteous? We believe God. We say, "God, I believe you when you say that you have sent your Son to die for me and to take my place. I believe you." The Bible says 2 Corinthians 5-21 that when you do that, an exchange takes place. You get by faith the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to you. And God says, "Now you, Chris, Leon, Bill, you are righteous because you believe me." Genesis is not about us though. So we learn about us, but mostly we learn about God. What do we learn about God in the book of Genesis? Number 1, God is sovereign. Genesis screams that from chapter 1 to chapter 50. That's sort of a churchy word. Here's a poor man's definition of sovereignty. God does whatever He wants to do whenever He wants to do it. And He doesn't ask permission. He just does it. Whatever He wants to do, whenever He wants to do it, with no committee meetings, with no request for approval, none of that, He just does it. Whatever He wants to do, whenever He wants to do it. When He decided to create, He did it. I'm going to make some stuff, and I'm just going to speak. There it is. When Adam and Eve sinned against Him, He kicked them out of the garden. They didn't have a pow wow about it. They didn't take a vote. He just said, "You're gone." You're a babble, I'm doing it. The flood, I'm doing it. Sodom and Gomorrah. He did talk to Abraham about it, but it wasn't asking for permission. He was just telling him, "Hey, this is what I'm going to do. I'm not running this by you for approval. I'm just saying, this is what's about to happen. I'm going to blow this thing up." When he picked Abraham, an old guy with an old wife, he just did it. When he said, "It's not Ishmael, it's Isaac." He just did it. When he said, "It's Jacob, not Esau." He just did it. You're not asking for approval. He's not waiting to see how it plays out. He acts. He's sovereign. He's in control. He does whatever He wants to do, whenever He wants to do it. Number two, God is holy. He's holy. We're going to talk about holiness on Sunday, so I'm not going to steal all my own thunder here, but think about some of these stories. You think about what does it mean that God is holy? Adam and Eve disobey once, and that's it. No second chance, no do-overs, no mulligans, no three strikes you're out, once, and that's it. You blew it. You think about the flood, you think God is holy, you think about the flood, you say, "All of the people who died, the only ones who were treated unfairly was who." Noah and his family, they're the only ones who got what they didn't deserve. Everyone else got what they deserve. The Bible teaches that. It's hard to wrap your arms around, but it's true, right? God is holy. Think about Sodom and Gomorrah and the things that happen there. That is a right reaction to our sin. Look, when you start thinking about those things and you start saying, "Oh, that's tough." That's the little part in you that's trying to say sin is not that big of a deal. You're blowing it out of proportion. It's not God is throwing a temper tantrum. You're making a bigger deal than it really is. Calm down a little bit, and Genesis is saying over and over and over and over again. It is a big deal, and God is holy, and it takes one Adam and Eve. The punishment for all the world and the flood. The punishment for everyone in this wicked city at Sodom and Gomorrah is a picture of what it means to affirm that God is holy. Number three, God is merciful, He's merciful. So Adam and Eve get kicked out, there's a curse, but there's also what, a promise, right? In the midst of the punishment and the judgment, God says, "But," Genesis 3.15, "I'm going to sin the offspring of the woman to crush the serpent's head." You think about Abraham, an idolater, and God just shows up in his life one day and says, "Hey, you don't know me, this is what I'm going to do for you. You have done nothing to serve me, to love me, to give me anything, but this is what I'm going to do for you, a picture of God's grace." Genesis 50, 26, we've read it a couple of times. Let's look at it one more time in the verses right before it. Another reminder of God's goodness and His grace. Back up to verse 24 this time, "Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am about to die, but God will visit you. He will bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.' Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, 'God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.' So he died, hundred ten years old day and bombed him, and they put him in a coffin in Egypt. These people are hanging on to these promises here at the end of their life. They look around, it's not a great situation. They have escaped death by the skin of their teeth. They're in a place they don't want to be, but they believe. God said that we would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. We believe Him. God promised us. He promised that we would have land. We don't have it yet, but one of these days we're going to have it. We're going to be believing. And God promised us that somebody would come, and you trace this promise of Messiah all the way back to Genesis 3.15, you say, 'God said that someone would come, and He hasn't come yet, but we believe Him.' And you leave off with sort of that cliffhanger at the end of Genesis 50, is what's going to happen? God has made all these promises to these people, and He hadn't really come through on any of them yet. He'd give them kids, numerous as the stars in the sky, hadn't done it. Promised He'd give them land, they're on a different continent. Promised that He'd send them Messiah, He'd know where to be seen. But His people still believe His promises, and they're waiting for God to act on their behalf. So ultimately you learn about God. That's Genesis, and we're going to pray about Genesis and what it teaches us about God, what it teaches us about us, and then I'm going to let you share some prayer requests. Father, we love You. We're grateful for Your Word. We believe that it's true, and we pray that You would help us to understand this book. We skipped over so much tonight in the book of beginnings that is important for us to know and understand, but there's some central truths that we take away as we read about who You are and the things that You've done in this world, Father. You're the Creator, and You're the Judge, and You're the Holy One, and You are the merciful One. Father, You are the One who makes promises to Your people and keeps those promises. And we see these folks who were sinners and screw-ups and mess-ups and rebellious people just like we are, and we see them clinging to You and to Your promises. Father, we want to do the same thing. We confess our sin to You. We don't pretend to be morally superior, morally pure. We don't pretend to be able to stand before You based on our own merits, but Father, we rest in You and Your promises, and we believe that You have kept Your promises, that You made to Adam and Eve, that You made to Noah, that You made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and the rest of them. Father, help us to cling to those promises when life is tough, when it seems like You have forgotten, when it seems like You're not going to keep Your Word, Father, we want to believe and hold on to the fact that You always keep Your promises. Father, we love You. We're grateful for the chance to worship together tonight. As we share prayer requests, we pray that it would be a time where we not only pray for each other, but we pray with each other, and we look to You for guidance and for answers and for help. We love you, and we pray in Jesus' name.