It Matters ... It Really Matters

Last week, we looked at the word "work" and how our theology of work comes from Genesis 1 (Creation) rather than Genesis 3 (the Fall and subsequent sentence of our labor made difficult and painful). This is crucial! If we don't get this, we'll look at work as a curse instead of what it was destined to be: co-laboring with God in His Creation. That's a huge difference!

Many people feel unsatisfied in their work because they don't see how it matters in the big scheme. It doesn't help that some of us have been taught that the only work that really matters is that which directly relates to the functions of a local church or a mission agency. Not only does that idea deny God's charge to Adam's race in Genesis 1, it also leaves 99% of believers with the deflating message that what they do most of their waking hours doesn't really matter.

I could go on, but the following video from Rightnow.org does a better job than I could. It is just a few minutes long.

https://youtu.be/m06DYIAeCtU

Your work matters to God, and not just when you can intersect it with the particular work of a church organization. Remember, Christ followers are the church, and so however we co-labor with God is "church work," for both the temporal and the eternal.

Gen 3.1-19

Psg: Gen 3.1-19
Date: 4/24/12

Read

Now the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard; but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.” So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”
The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all the wild beasts
and all the living creatures of the field!
On your belly you will crawl
and dust you will eat all the days of your life.
And I will put hostility between you and the woman
and between your offspring and her offspring;
her offspring will attack your head,
and you will attack her offspring’s heel.”
To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase your labor pains;
with pain you will give birth to children.
You will want to control your husband,
but he will dominate you.”
But to Adam he said,
“Because you obeyed your wife
and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,
‘You must not eat from it,’
cursed is the ground thanks to you;
in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
but you will eat the grain of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat food
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

Record

Because you have... I will...  -> pain.

Reflect

• Pain is it only a consequence of the Fall, but it is what God put on Satan and on us. He chose to give us pain. It was better for us to have pain after the sin than to not have pain.
• This affects how I see pain in my own life. It is better in a fallen world for me to experience pain than not to.
• Should this affect how I see the suffering of others, including the world's impoverished and trafficked?
• This is not to say that all pain is direct punishment for sin, but that a fallen world with pain is better than a fallen world without pain.

Respond

• Thank you that you did not leave us in a fallen world without pain.
• Help me to see pain rightly, and to help others to also.

Gen 1.26-31

Psg: Gen 1.26-31 (http://biblia.com/bible/gs-netbible/Ge1.26)
Date: 4/3/12

Read

1:26 Then God said, “Let us make* humankind*in our image, after our likeness,* so they may rule*over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth,* and over all the creatures that move* on the earth.”

1:27 God created humankind* in his own image,

in the image of God he created them,*

male and female he created them.*

1:28 God blessed* them and said* to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it!*Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”* 1:29Then God said, “I now* give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.* 1:30 And to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give* every green plant for food.” It was so.

1:31 God saw all that he had made – and it was very good!* There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.

Record

“so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth” (26)

“... fill the earth and subdue it. rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.” (28)

“I know give you every... and to all the animals … birds … creatures ...” (29)

Reflect

• The Genesis account just recorded the creation of these various categories, noting their separateness (and similarities). Now, the same categories are repeated 3 times. This kind of list is used elsewhere in the OT, but there’s also a sense that we went to all the trouble to describe the creation of all these things, and now they are specifically listed 3 times in this command to man to rule over them and that food has been given to all of them. Not quite sure what to make of this.
• The command to rule over all of the creatures is emphasized. Naming the animals in Gen 2 is part of this ruling over. Then comes along the serpent:
• 3:1 Now* the serpent* was more shrewd* than any of the wild animals* that the Lord God had made.
• “wild animals” = “animals of the field.” See also 2.19.
• The serpent, though Satan, is described primarily in terms of its creaturely nature. This (it seems) is one of the creatures man was told to rule over. He didn’t, and look what happened.
• Because God is our Creator, when he tells us to do something, we may not get why it’s important to do completely, but he does. His role as Creator puts purpose into every command. Rather than just decide which commands are more important and which ones I’ll do rather than others, my Creator has created me and then commanded me. He’s not just the rule-giver who I owe something to because he created me, but he’s the purposeful one who commands me because he created me for a purpose. His command should be enough for me to obey, without requiring an explanation, a revealed purpose, a justification.
• Many focus on man’s stewardship responsibility in this passage, or his superiority. Both are true. But there’s also a direct tie here with the command and then subsequent failure to follow the command. When they ate, they not only violated covenant head responsibilities and the command to not eat of that tree (which is emphasized in the account), but also that the positive command to rule over the creatures was also violated.
• God seems to anticipate the test that would come, and that it would come in the form of one of the creatures. His command to them is not only their “task” but a specific countermeasure to the test that would come. God fully equipped them to be protected from the enemy, if they would just simply choose to follow it out.

Respond

• Forgive me for demanding something more than your mere command before I choose to obey.
• Forgive me for partial obedience to the commands from you, the one who created me.
• Help me to have a clear, simple, complete obedience to your word.