The Beginning of the Kingdom

Good morning. Today we are continuing the series that we began last week, How It Started.

This is a series on the first book of the Bible, Genesis.

Last week we covered the first page of the Bible, the first 27 verses,

where God makes the world.

Today we're going to move on to the second page of the Bible.

As far as going back to last week, just to remind you, or if you weren't here

to let you know, in the first 25 verses of the Bible, God makes sky and light

and plants and fish and bird and land animals and sun and moon and stars.

And then when you get to verse 26, that is the beginning where God creates humanity.

He creates all the other stuff and then God makes humanity in verse 26.

And so last week we told, like we read the first page of the Bible and we talked

about God creating all this stuff and we ended with the creation of humanity. That's how far we got.

God created them, male and female, he created them. That's where we end.

So today we're going to begin with the creation of humanity and pick up where we left off last week.

In other words, the last two verses of last week's text are going to be the

first two verses of this week's text, just a little bit of overlap, and then we move on.

So our text today is Genesis 1, 26, going all the way to Genesis 2, 25.

I'm going to read it and I'm going to stop as we go along and just explain things as we go along.

So here we go. Genesis 1, starting in verse 26. If you have your Bible,

you can go turn there and read along.

It says, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock,

all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God.

He created them male and female so I want you to notice here God creates humanity.

In his image, unlike all of the creations that had come before humanity.

You see, there's a difference that the Bible talks about God made this,

God made this, God made this, and then something special happens when he gets to mankind.

The Bible does not say that God made the moon in his image or the oceans in

his image or anything like that. Humanity is treated differently.

We are more like God than the plants are, or than the fish are, than the birds are.

And I think that this idea that we are created in the image of God,

like we see the outcome of this idea, like even to this day,

like we live in a world where the penalty for killing a human is much more severe

than the penalty for killing a plant or for killing an animal, right?

I think that's, I think one of the reasons for that is humanity recognizes its

specialness in the created order. And that I think goes all the way back to

the image of God that we were made in the image of God.

Okay. So verse 28, the next verse, God blessed them.

Who's them? That would be the male and female that he just created,

right? He created humanity, male and female.

He created them. And then the next verse says, God blessed them.

And God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Okay.

He tells them, the them was the male and the female. And he tells them to do

something that only males and females can do together, right?

They are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Males cannot do that

on their own. Females cannot do that on their own. But together, they can.

God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. And then I want you

to notice the next two verses after the multiplication verses.

It says, and to subdue it.

What does it mean to subdue the

earth? To subdue something is to like to capture it and to take it over.

And then the next verb is rule the fish of the sea.

So he creates humanity and he tells them to be fruitful, and multiply and fill

the earth. And then he says, take control of it.

Take it over and rule over. The word rule is something that,

you know, like that's what kings and queens do.

And so I just want you to notice, this is gonna be really important later in the sermon.

When God creates humanity, he does not simply make them and go,

okay, now I put you on my earth.

Go live. He doesn't just say go live.

He says, take it over and govern it. And that's going to matter later.

All right, let's keep going. Verse 29.

God also said, look, I have given you every seed bearing plant on the surface

of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed,

this food will be for you.

For all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky and for every creature

that crawls on the earth, everything having the breath of life in it,

I have given every green plant for food. And it was so.

I think it's very interesting that vegetarianism was God's original plan.

Did you know that? That was the original idea.

Vegetarianism. The plants are for food. You might go, does that mean we're not allowed to eat meat?

God does approve of meat eating later on in Genesis chapter nine, verse three.

It specifically says that God says you may eat from the animals.

And so it is fine for us to eat meat now, but the original plan was vegetarianism.

And honestly, I think it's not just the original plan. I suspect that it might

even be part of the eternal plan, that one day when we live in eternity forever,

we will be vegetarians because there will be no death.

I didn't, I didn't expect someone to go, oh, well, I have thoughts on that,

but sometimes it's not good for me to go off script.

So talk to me about that afterwards. I don't think it's going to be as bad as you think it is.

Okay. Verse 31, God saw all that he had made and it was very good.

Evening came and then morning, the sixth day, you know what? I am going to say it.

Human beings are coming up with meat substitutes, right? And they're not perfect,

but like sometimes it's like pretty decent. Can you imagine what God could do?

I'm sure he could blow away whatever the people that made the Wonder Burger

or whatever they are, or whatever it's called, what is impossible,

blah, blah, blah, whatever. Anyway, just trust God. It's going to be fine forever.

Okay. Verse 31. God saw all that he had made and it was very good.

Evening came and then morning, the sixth day.

So last week we saw that God created the world in days, right?

It was day one, day two, day three, day four, day five.

And we got about five and a half days into creation. We got into the sixth day

with God creating the animals and God creating humanity. And we stopped there.

So we just finished up now day six.

And so we see evening and morning came the sixth day. And that's the end of the creation days.

God creates everything in six days. And then the seventh day happens in the

next verse. So Genesis two, verse one.

So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed.

By the seventh day, God completed his work that he had done and he rested on

the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy for on it he rested from his work of creation.

So on the seventh day, God rests.

Why does he do that? It's not because he's tired, right?

The Bible makes it really clear. He has all power. He doesn't get weary. So why does he rest?

He was communicating something to us, right? He was saying something in what

he was doing. He was modeling something for us.

And in doing so, he sets aside a special day.

Next verse, chapter two, verse four. These are the records of the heavens and

the earth concerning their creation at that time that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

No shrub of the field had yet grown on the land and no plant of the field had

yet sprouted for the Lord God had not made it rain on the land and there was

no man to work the ground, but water would come out of the ground and water

the entire surface of the land.

And then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed

the breath of life into his nostrils and the man became a living being.

This is an interesting section, I think, because it looks like as the story

is going along and then it's sort of just starts all over again. Isn't that weird?

You have the day one, day two, day three, day four, day five,

day six, day seven. And then suddenly these are the records of the heavens as

if the story is starting over again.

And then you have something that seems to be not in chronological order.

Have you noticed that? This does not seem to be in strict chronological order. Why do you say that?

Well, I'm saying that because back in Genesis 1, verse 27, God created man.

Genesis 1:27

And then in chapter 2, verse 5, which is after chapter 1, verse 27, there is no man.

Where is it? Yeah, and there was no man to work the ground. What do you mean

there was no man to work the ground?

He was just created a few verses before this, and now he's not there.

And then you keep reading, and it says what?

God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of

life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

So God creates humanity. God creates man in Genesis chapter one, verse 27.

And then a few verses later, he's not around anymore. And then God makes Adam again in verse seven.

What's going on here? And back in chapter one, male and female were both created all in one verse.

Do you remember that? Male and female, he created them. Then you get to here, no female, just a male.

And she's not around yet. There's just one male that God creates.

And female comes 15 verses later. You'll see, she's made out of a rib.

She comes later. But right now, we just got a male. So it's just,

it's interesting because as you read the passage, he makes male and female.

And then you get to the second chapter and there's no man. And then suddenly

there is a man with no oh, female, what is going on here?

I mean, obviously the story is not being told in strict chronological order.

There are some people that say that this is a separate creation account from chapter one.

They will say that, I guess the Hebrew people had two different creation accounts.

And so they were both put at the beginning of the Bible, the first one,

and then this one, the second one.

I don't think that's the best way to see it. First of all, this account,

I mean, I guess that's fine to believe there's two creation accounts if you're

not saying it for the purpose of saying they contradict one another.

We do have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four different accounts of the life of Christ.

So you can talk about something from more than one point of view,

and that's fine. But I don't think that's the best way to see this.

First of all, by the time we get to this, whatever, this account of creation

that's in Genesis chapter two, it seems as though it takes for granted a lot

of what was in chapter one.

Like it's not a separate creation account because this creation account,

if you call it that, doesn't talk about where the land came from and where the

light came from and where the sun came from or anything.

There's just a lot of almost everything that was made in the first chapter is

just sort of assumed to exist when you get here.

But you don't have the man made yet.

And so what I think is happening here is, I think a better way to view it is

Genesis chapter two, starting in verse four, is sort of a zooming in to day

six of the previous account in chapter one.

Genesis chapter one says, this is what happened. Day one, day two,

day three, day four, day five, day six, day seven. And then you get to Genesis

chapter two and the writer goes, oh, wait a minute.

I want to go back and tell you a little more details about what happened back on day six.

The reason that I think that is because the writer of Genesis does that elsewhere.

Like, That's part of his style. If you keep reading, you'll notice it.

Genesis 4 and 5 are told out of chronological order.

Genesis 10 and 11 are turned out of chronological order. That one's a really good one, in fact.

In Genesis chapter 10, you have a description of multiple different nations

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

that are spread out on the earth with different languages.

Then in chapter 11, which in case you're not following, chapter 11 comes after 10, okay?

So 10, you've got people spread out on the earth with different languages.

And then in chapter 11, at the beginning of the chapter, all of the people are

altogether not spread out on the earth and they all have just one language that they all share.

And then in chapter 11, the narrator tells the story of how all of these people

who are all together speaking one language get separated and start speaking

all these different languages in all these different people groups.

It seems pretty obvious when you just read it through that the writer of Genesis

said, well, this is what happened with all these people in all these languages.

And he's telling the story and then he goes, oh, wait a minute.

Let me go back and tell you how that happened.

And then he explains that, right? So that's something you just throughout the

book of Genesis. And if you think that's weird, I guess I'll just remind you, you do this too.

When people ask you to tell a story, there's a lot of, hey, how was everything on vacation?

You go, oh, vacation was great. It was on Monday, we flew out,

and then, oh, we were so tired. We didn't do anything on Tuesday,

but then it was on Wednesday.

We went there, you know, and then Thursday, Friday was fine.

Then on Saturday, we flew back. Oh, on Thursday, we went to this museum.

Have you done that before? Yeah, that's just, that's a very normal way of speaking.

All right, so now we have Genesis starting in verse eight, God creates the Garden

of Eden, okay? So we have a description of the Garden of Eden.

Genesis two, starting in verse eight says, the Lord God planted a garden in

Eden in the East and there he placed the man he had formed.

The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground, every tree pleasing and appearance

and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden,

as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The river went out from Eden to water the garden. From there it divided and

became the source of four rivers.

The first, the name of the first is Pishon, which flows through the entire land

of Havilah, where there is gold.

Gold from that land is pure. Delium and Onyx are also there.

The name of the second river is Gion, which flows through the entire land of Cush.

The name of the third river is the Tigris, which runs east of Assyria.

And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Here we have some geography explaining where Eden was, describing four different

rivers, two of which are still around nowadays, two of which are not.

Verse 15, the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to

work it and watch over it.

So I want you to notice this. God creates a garden.

He puts the man in it. And then he says to the man, I want you to continue what I have started, right?

I started this garden. I want you to keep tending what I got going.

I just want you to note that because that's going to matter later.

Verse 16, and the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree

of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

For on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.

God gives humanity a command to obey, right? Do this, don't do this.

Verse 18, then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper as his compliment.

I guess I need to explain the word compliment because the way it's used here

is not the way it is used very often.

This is actually, this is not the word compliment, like with an I in the middle,

like, oh, I really like your dress.

This is the word compliment with an E. And it's a word that means,

I'm sure, I don't know if I've very often heard it used in a noun form like

this. Usually I hear it as an adjective, complimentary.

Okay. That something is complimentary. it is something that is,

usually it's something that means like the opposite of, but suitable for.

Like in art class, complimentary colors are colors that are on the opposite

side of the color wheel and they match, they go with the other color.

So this is a word, the Hebrew word that's translated here is a word that means

the opposite of, but it sounds like it means the opposite of sort of in a way

that like is suitable for.

Sometimes it's translated that way, is suitable for.

So it's a lot like the word counterpart, okay? It is not good for the man to

be alone. I will make a helper as his counterpart, different from him, but completing him.

Verse 19, so the Lord God formed out of the ground, every wild animal and every

bird of the sky and brought each to the man to see what he would call it.

And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky and to every wild animal.

But for the man, no helper was found as his compliment, which has always been

just so weird to me that there would even be a section of the Bible where it's

like Adam looked over all the animals to see, is there any one of these that will be my counterpart?

Nope, right? I mean, they all have their own counterparts, right?

And none of them are his counterpart.

But what's interesting is God has Adam name all the animals.

Why is that in there? Like as a kid, I don't think that was ever taught to me.

I was always taught like, and Adam named all the animals.

And I always imagined, you know, the giraffe went by and he named a giraffe,

which I don't think he spoke English. So I'm sure he named it some other thing.

But why does he name the animals? Like, what is the significance of that?

There's a lot of stuff in these accounts that are left out that God doesn't explain.

And there's a lot of stuff that's in. And just how did that make it in?

What is the significance of Adam naming all the animals really early on in the story?

And I think, I think the significance of the man calling each creature and whatever

he called it, that's what his name.

I think the significance of it is it shows Adam's dominion over the animal world.

His rulership, like humanity's rulership over the world.

Because you remember earlier in Genesis, it said that they were supposed to

rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, remember that?

And so I think back then to name all the animals was a way of saying like,

I'm in charge of all of you.

I'm giving you, like you name that which you rule.

I don't know if you, that might not be something that's obvious to you.

I think it was probably more obvious to people that were back in Bible times,

like during the time period of the Bible, I think it was very common for someone

to rule over something and therefore they say, well, then these are the names

that we're going to give it. I'll give you an example of this.

Earlier this year, before we did the How to Handle Relational Drama series,

we did a series called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Anybody remember that? At the very beginning of the year, it was the first two Sundays of January.

And what we learned in that series was there were these three guys whose names

actually weren't Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego originally.

Remember that? Their names are Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael.

And they're in Jerusalem and the Babylonians come.

Do you remember this story? The Babylonians come and subdue them, right?

The Babylonians came and they conquered the Israelites and then they kidnapped

them essentially, brought them to Babylon and they ruled over them in Babylon, right?

And they incorporated them and assimilated them into their Babylonian kingdom.

And what's one of the first things the Babylonians did?

They named them Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Why? I think it was their way

of saying like, you're ours now.

So Adam names the animals, has not found a counterpart yet. Verse 21.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man and he slept.

God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place.

And then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.

And the man said, this one at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

This one will be called woman for she was taken from man.

This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife,

and they become one flesh.

Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

And that's where the chapter ends. So that's where we're going to end our reading today.

These last few verses I want you to notice is obviously God creating,

well, he creates the marriage of Adam and Eve, right? That's what happens in this section.

But he does more than just that, doesn't he? He actually creates the institution of marriage.

He creates Eve for Adam. And so you can see he put this relationship together

also, but God doesn't just make Adam and Eve's marriage because look at verse 24.

It says, this is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife.

That's not talking about Adam, is it?

Adam didn't leave his father and mother. This is talking about every guy that

comes after the time period of Adam.

And so God not only creates Adam and Eve and their marriage,

but he creates the institution of marriage.

Okay, so that's the second page of the Bible. What is the point?

What is the point of our text this morning?

I believe that there are multiple lessons that are found in this passage.

It was a lot of verses, and I think there are a lot of different teachings that you could find here.

If a pastor wanted to go really slowly through this, I think you could probably

do two or three or even four sermons going through this page of the Bible,

talking about different lessons.

For today, I'm gonna try to just cover it in one sermon. And so I'm gonna point out four things, okay?

I'm gonna try to boil down the teachings in this passage to four teachings.

Of the four teachings, three of them, I think, will be somewhat familiar to

you in the sense that like three of them are going to be topics that you are

familiar with and you know about, but they will probably seem unrelated.

Like why is all this in the same chapter?

And then the fourth teaching is going to be one that probably you're less familiar with.

Okay. For some of you, it's going to be like, whoa, it's going to blow your

mind because you never heard it before.

And that one I think is really the big one that the whole chapter is about.

And that's the one that's actually going to bring all the other ones together. Okay. Are you ready?

All right, here we go. So number one, first teaching or first point that I want

to make is this passage is the beginning of work and rest.

Okay. One of the things we see in Genesis chapter two is the beginning of work

and rest. When I say work, I'm referring to chapter two, verse 15.

It says the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden.

Can you put the verse up for me? Chapter two, verse 15. The Lord God took the

man and placed him in the garden of to what? To work it.

God put Adam in the garden to work it and to watch over it. So I really want you to notice this.

I want you to notice that work predates sin.

Do you realize how significant that is? Like in God's original paradise,

there was work, which means work is not a punishment.

Nobody had sinned yet, right? Work is not a punishment that God has given to

humanity. Work is not something that we're supposed to live our whole lives

trying to figure out how to get out of it.

It's a gift that God has given to humanity. It was there before sin was there.

Work is a part of God's good world, okay? We also see the beginning of rest in these verses.

Chapter two, verse two is a great example.

By the seventh day, God completed his work that he had done and he rested on

the seventh day from all the work that he had done.

The rhythm of work and rest we see right here.

Oh, you work and then you rest. For God, it was six on and one off,

right? Work, work, work, work, work, work, rest.

So work is obviously good because God made it as part of his original creation,

but rest is also good. How do you know rest is good?

Because God did it, right? Rest is not a sin. Not all rest is laziness.

How do we know that? Because God did it.

All right. So that's the first teaching. Work and rest begin here.

Second one is this is the beginning of marriage and multiplication.

Okay. Second page of the Bible, beginning of marriage and multiplication.

We'll start with chapter one, verse 28.

It says, God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful,

multiply and fill the earth. That's the male and the female that are brought

together. That's what they are supposed to do, multiply.

Chapter two, verse 18, it says, the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.

Actually, most of the first two pages of the Bible, God says,

it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good. This is the first time where he

says it's actually not good.

It's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his compliment.

And then chapter two, verse 24, this is why a man leaves his father and mother

and bonds with his wife and they become one flesh.

So what we see here is God created males and females for each other, right?

He created males and females to literally combine, right?

And that combining produces more humans. And that's important for the world

to be the way God wants it to be.

All right, point number three. This is the beginning of morality and obedience.

So when we see here in the second page of the Bible, beginning of work and rest,

beginning of marriage and multiplication, the beginning of morality and obedience.

Look at verse 16 of chapter two. And the Lord God commanded the man,

you are free to eat from any tree of the garden. And then verse 17,

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

For on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.

The Lord God commands the man and he doesn't just say, do whatever you want.

He says, you are free to eat from any tree. This is what is moral.

You may do this, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and

evil. This is what is immoral. Do not do this.

For on the day you eat of it, you will certainly die. This is the punishment.

If you disobey me, the beginning of morality and obedience and our loyalty to

God and how we should obey him and do what he says is right and wrong begins right here.

All right. Now the fourth one, this is the big one.

So you go, okay, so we got morality and we got marriage and we got work,

but what does all this have to do with each other?

And here's the thing, this, the thing I'm about to say, I think is like the

big point of Genesis chapter two.

Okay. Especially Genesis chapter one, verse 26, going to Genesis chapter two, verse 25.

This is the beginning of the kingdom of God on earth.

That's what's happening here you go what did I just read I think what you read

is you read about the beginning of the kingdom of God on earth and you make

it goes wait I don't remember the word kingdom even being in there let's look

look at chapter 1 verse 28,

God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful multiply fill the earth and subdue it,

rule the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and every creature that crawls

on the earth Adam and Eve were given the job of like kings and queens they were told to rule,

So I wanna read to you a couple of paragraphs from a book that was given to

me, I think it was like maybe 13 years ago, 14 years ago, right when we were

first starting the church, someone handed me this book and I read it.

It's by a guy named Miles Monroe. He's a pastor, well, he was,

he passed away, I think in 2014, but he was a pastor in the Bahamas, an influential pastor.

We used to have a children's director at this church named Latara Arthur.

Some of you may remember Latara.

Latara was from the Bahamas and I think this guy was her pastor for a little

while. She went to this church.

Anyway, unrelated to her, someone gave me this book by Miles Monroe.

The title of the book is Kingdom Principles.

And I just wanna read to you two paragraphs that at the time that I read them,

and even now when I read them, I look at them and I go, wow,

most of this stuff is just, it's like so obviously true.

And yet it was like kind of mind blowing the first time I heard it because I

wasn't taught this growing up.

So this is what he says. Miles Monroe says, the concept of kingdom was not invented by mankind.

But was the first form of government introduced by the creator.

This concept appears first in the book of Genesis at the creation of man.

Man's original assignment from God was a kingdom assignment.

Let them have dominion over the earth.

God's plan for man was to extend his heavenly kingdom government to the earth

through the principle of colonization.

Man's assignment was to establish

the influence and culture of heaven on earth

by representing the nature values and morality of God in the earth in this way

God's heavenly rule would manifest itself on earth through his extended image

in mankind this was the first kingdom Yahweh, the king,

extending his heavenly kingdom to earth through his offspring, man.

This is the wonderful story and message of the Bible. Not a religion, but a royal family.

That would be a good name for a camp.

He goes on. He says.

This is why religious governments always fail, whether Christian,

Muslim, Hindu, or any other form.

It is for this reason that God himself had to come to earth to bring the heavenly

kingdom back to this planet.

The earth cannot give rise to the kingdom of heaven independently.

The kingdom of heaven must issue forth from heaven.

Man lost a kingdom and a kingdom is what he's looking for.

Jesus came to bring the kingdom of heaven back to the earth,

not to establish a religion.

And mankind seeks not a religion, but the kingdom that we lost so long ago.

This is why religion cannot satisfy or fulfill man's spirit.

The kingdom of heaven has top priority by virtue of its role in the original

purpose of man's creation.

As such, the kingdom was the first form of government on the earth.

Isn't that fascinating? And so if you didn't catch all that,

because I realized that's a lot all at once, especially if you've never heard

these things before, let me

go ahead and try to explain it in my own words as best as I understand it.

God is a king, okay? God is the king.

And God is rules from heaven, the Bible says, right?

And then in Genesis chapter one, God creates a new piece of land, earth.

And God looks at the new piece of land. And what's interesting is God does something

that's similar to something that probably people in the Bible would have been familiar with.

People during Bible times understood that there were emperors that were over

empires, or there were kings that were over like certain territories or kingdoms. This is the land.

And then sometimes those kings would acquire a new piece of land, right?

They would extend the borders of the kingdom. They would extend the territory

of the kingdom. So now there's this new land that wasn't part of the kingdom.

And they would send, especially if it's far away, like out on the outskirts

of the kingdom, they're there in the capital city.

And they would send vice regents to the land in order to colonize it,

in order to settle it, in order to turn it into the rest of the kingdom.

Like our laws and our values and all of our stuff is to be brought to bear there in the new land.

Vice-regent is a word that means, well, the word regent means ruler and the word vice means deputy.

So the vice-regent is a deputy ruler. It's like the king is saying,

I'm the supreme ruler and then I'm taking some of my authority and I'm delegating it to you.

I want you as like a governor underneath my authority to go on my behalf to

the new land and make it part of the kingdom.

Make it reflect the rest of the land.

And so in chapter one of the Bible, God creates a new piece of land and he makes it habitable.

And then he creates vice regents who are like him in his image.

And they are to settle and govern the new colony for him.

They are to obey God, right? He tells them, do this, don't do this.

And they are to bring the values of the homeland, heaven, into the culture of the new land.

And it seems to me, God begins some of the settling for Adam.

Like he starts it and then says, okay, I got this started, now you go.

Did you see that in the text?

I mean, that's what the Garden of Eden is. It seems to me, I assume that the

Garden of Eden was different than the other land around it.

It would have to be for it to be called the Garden of Eden. Otherwise,

you know, like it's obvious that God did not just drop Adam off in the middle of the jungle, right?

He dropped him off in a chunk of territory or piece of land that was different than the other land.

It's the Garden of Eden. So I'm guessing it is more cultivated than the rest of the land, right?

He didn't throw him out into the middle of the jungle or in the middle of the rainforest.

The Garden of Eden, I don't know what it looked like, but probably had trees

in rows, probably was organized.

This is where we have this kind of thing. And this is where we have this kind

of thing. And this is where we peel the fruit. And this is where we sleep.

And this is like, this is the thing we got going. And God organizes this,

not the whole world, but one little piece of it. and then puts the man in it

and says, okay, keep this going.

Tend this garden that I started. And it seems to be also implied because of

the other words in the chapter that Adam is supposed to expand the garden, right?

Because he's supposed to subdue the earth.

He's supposed to rule over all the other creatures. He's supposed to cultivate the whole world.

He's supposed to make all of the land more civilized like the garden is.

And he's supposed to do it on behalf of God, on behalf of the king.

The way God would want it to be done.

And it seems like God is saying to Adam something like, hey,

and you will not be able to do this alone, right? This is a big job,

subdue the earth and rule over it.

It's gonna take hundreds of years to do that. It's gonna take thousands of years to pull that off.

It's gonna take hundreds of people to pull that off. No, thousands of people.

No, millions of people in order to pull that off.

But it's as if God said, but don't worry, Adam, I made a counterpart for you.

And you and her together are gonna have special powers, okay?

When you combine, you're gonna be able to create more people and you'll need

those people to carry on the work of expanding my kingdom over the whole land.

Humanity was to take God's heavenly kingdom values as his image bearers and

establish them on the king's new land, earth.

That's what I believe Genesis 127 through 225 is about. Isn't that incredible?

And I think that Miles Monroe is correct that we screwed up the kingdom.

We rebelled against the king and messed up his colony.

And so the king had to show up in person to clean up the mess.

That's the New Testament.

Jesus is the heavenly king who came here to inaugurate the heavenly kingdom

that we ruined on behalf of humanity, on behalf of God.

And I think that's why when Jesus showed up, he spoke not just about sin and

forgiveness, but he spoke about kingdom.

Ever noticed that? That when Jesus presented the gospel sometimes,

it wasn't just you believe this and you can have your sins forgiven.

It was kingdom. Look at Mark chapter one.

Mark chapter one. Now this verse I'm about to read to you, this is the first

time that Jesus speaks in the book of Mark.

So consider Mark is writing a biography of Jesus.

And at some point Mark gets to decide what's the first thing he's going to record

Jesus saying? This is the first thing Jesus says in the book of Mark.

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the good news of God.

Now what's the good news? Look what it is.

Jesus said, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

He didn't just show up and go, I got your tickets to heaven.

He didn't just show up and say, okay, pray this prayer, right?

He showed up and said, the kingdom of God has come near.

The king has arrived and he's beginning the kingdom of how things ought to be around here.

And so Jesus died on the cross to take care of the problem of sin,

which is what's ruining the colony.

And one day he's going to return and there's going to be a new heaven and a

new earth where there will be no more sin.

And the kingdom will be just as the king wants it to be.

And our job is to repent of our disobedience and accept his forgiveness from

his death on the cross, and then join the king in his work in this world, in his world.

Isn't that great to know? Our job isn't simply to survive as long as we can until we die.

It is to cooperate with the job that God has for us while we wait for his kingdom to be finalized.

Let's pray.

Lord, I pray for some of us, if this was a kind of a mind-blowing,

category-changing thing, that it would be good for us, that our mind would be blown in a good way.

And that we would start seeing everything we do in this world as a part of us

cooperating with or not your kingdom.

I pray for those of us who know this, that this would have been a good reminder.

And as I've often said before, I pray that anything that is merely of me would

be quickly forgotten, but that which is of you, Lord, I pray that it would be

remembered for a long time and it would go into us so that we would act and

we would feel and we would believe in the way that we should.

Jesus, thank you for coming and redeeming the mess that we made.

We love you and we look forward to your eternal kingdom and we thank you for

that it will exist at all and that we receive it by grace.

We love you. Amen. Let me end with these good words from God's word.

This is actually from Revelation chapter three, Jesus speaking to the Laodiceans.

And he says, listen, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have

dinner with him and he with me.

The victor, I will give him the right to sit with me on my throne.

Just as I also won the victory and sat down with my father on his throne.

That is good news. Thank you.