Schooled: Covenant

Last week we discussed sin and the impact it has on every person who has ever lived. We must understand sin if we are going to grasp just how loved by God we truly are. We are evil, but we are loved.

How would you respond if you were constantly sinned against? How would you respond to a friend who repeatedly told you lies, threatened you, stole from you, beat you, neglected you, abused you, and abandoned you? How would you respond to that person? God chose to send His son in response to our sin and neglect. He responds with covenant. He offers a promise.

A covenant is a binding agreement between two parties. God offered a covenant in Genesis 3 when He preached the first gospel message and promised Jesus would come to defeat Satan and redeem the world. This is amazing! This is how God responds to people who have abandoned and neglected Him! God owed Adam and Eve nothing. He could have killed them and sent them to hell, like they deserved, and been done with them. God owes us nothing.

Read Genesis 12:1-3

God makes a promise to Abram. He enters into a covenant. He promises Abram he would found a great nation and through that nation the messiah would come. There were a few problems. Abram was a pagan, he was in his seventies, and his wife was unable to conceive. He does not seem like a candidate to be founding nations.

Read Genesis 21:1-5

God makes good on His promises. God always makes good on His promises. Abraham was 99 years old when his wife became pregnant. He waited years for the promise. Can you imagine the questions that went through his mind over the course of all those years? Be patient and know that God has perfect timing and He will not forget the promises He has made to us.

Read Jeremiah 31:31-34

This is how God responds to our sin. He pursues and forgives through the blood of His son Jesus.

Questions for Reflection

0. Will you believe God's promises?

1. Will you be obedient to God's commands?

2. Are you running from God?

Schooled: The Fall

When you turn on the news tonight, you will find that something has gone terribly wrong with the world. You'll see war, violence, natural disaster, poverty, injustice, evil, loss, pain, suffering, starvation, neglect, tragedy, and more. After examining the situation, you are letting wondering one thing, "Why?" We have all asked, "Why is there so much suffering and pain?" We find our answer in God's Word. The find the account of something the Bible calls "The Fall." This is far worse than falling off your bike as your child and scraping your knee. This fall has an impact on all of creation.

Proverbs 20:9 says, "Who can say, 'I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin?"

The answer is no one but Jesus.

Read Genesis 3. Don't just read the words. Meditate on what you read. The story should not simply be for your reading pleasure. The impact of the Fall should devastate you emotionally.

What is sin? The Bible describes it as missing the mark, straying from the path, and walking our own way. Furthermore, sin is treason, madness, self abuse, and spiritual suicide.

In Genesis 3, we read of Satan's deception of Adam and Eve. Satan does what he does best, he twists God's Word. He tells Eve that eating of the tree really wasn't a big deal and it wouldn't really lead to her death. The lie is very similar today. Satan tells you, "You're not really going to die because of sin. Did God really say sin was such a big deal? You don't really need to repent of your sin. You don't really need God." Satan is a liar. You have a choice. Will you believe the truth of God's Word or will you choose to believe the lie?

Men typically want to blame Eve for the Fall. Where was Adam when the whole thing went down? He was there. What was Adam doing while Satan was lying and deceiving his wife? Nothing. Adam's sin was one of omission. He didn't do what he was supposed to do. What are you doing to end Satan's lies and deception? Is it nothing? Doing nothing is sin.

Sin has impacted all of us. It has impacted all of who we are as people. Our will, emotion, and thoughts are all corrupted by sin. Sin destroys our relationships, especially with God. Sin is rebellion against God's covenant and promise. And sin results in guilt, shame, and punishment. Before the fall, Adam and Eve walked the garden naked and felt no shame. This sin led to the feelings of guilt, shame, and worthlessness we sometimes feel. It is sin that has corrupted us.

You must understand the depths of your sin if you are going to understand the goodness of God. God has warned us about sin. We chose to rebel against Him. God is holy and must deal with sin. God is loving and chose to forgive and restore through the death and resurrection of His son Jesus. We can have a new relationship with God through repentance. We don't need a lifestyle change, we need a to be born again (John 3). We don't need to try harder, we need a new heart (Eze 36).

Questions for Reflection

• Are you a sinner?

• How have you sinned against God?

• Have you asked God for forgiveness?

• Have you repented?

Schooled: God Makes

The Bible doesn't say a lot about creation. It devotes the opening two chapters of Genesis and a few other passages to the subject. Why is that? It is because the Bible is not a science textbook. The Bible is a theological textbook. The Bible is far more concerned with the God who creates, rather than the method of creation. Does the Bible say anything about creation? Yes. The Bible tells us all we need to know about creation. It tells us what every natural scientist has been forced to admit, that the universe has a beginning. Everything finds its beginning in God.

Read Genesis 1& 2

Ex Nihilo- meaning "out of nothing"

Theologians use this Latin phrase to describe the beginning of our universe. In Genesis 1, we read that God creates out of nothing. He didn't have to go to Hobby Lobby and purchase a starter kit. He just creates. He then take His creation and molds it into something beautiful. God takes dirt and makes people. Did you hear that? God makes people out of dirt. According to God's Word, man did not evolve out of lessor animals. We're not just here by random chance. God made you.

God is creative. Look around and you will quickly see that God is creative. He could have used black and white instead of color. He could have made air filtration machines instead of trees. God is the most creative being in existence. This explains why humans are creative. We are all created in God's image and despite our sinful natures, we retain some of the characteristics of God. Many of you paint, draw, create music, sing, dance, write, blog, and more. These creative expressions are simply reflections of a good God.

I understand that not everyone holds to the creation story as found in God's Word. I have included the next section just for you.

The Problems with Evolution- Despite over 100 years of trying to replicate macro-evolution, it is all in vain. Scientists cannot, and will not, replicate macro-evolution.

+Evolution states that "Nothing made Everything."

That statement is just plain silly. Logically, this cannot happen. If you follow the theory of evolution to its natural conclusion, you will be left wanting. It simply cannot explain the creation and beginning of our universe. It takes a lot of faith to believe in evolution.

+Chaos does not create order.

Evolutionist and Atheist often fall back on the "Big Bang" theory. There are many holes in this theory. We know that chaos, such as a big bang, does not create order. The world in which we live is extremely ordered. There seems to be a natural design in which the creative order follows. We must also as the question, "What happened before the Big Bang? Where did the components necessary for the Big Bang come from?" Evolution and atheism simply cannot explain the beginning of creation.

Fred Hoyle, the great astronomer and mathematician, said the likelihood of the creation of order out of chaos, that evolution was the answer to the question of origins, was the mathematical equivalent to a hurricane passing through a junk yard and after the storm dissipates you find a Boeing 747 flightworthy and ready for take off after being assembled by the storm. You know that's crazy.

+Fine-Tuning Argument

There are certain constants in our universe that are simply too complex to have happened by chance. Such as; the gravitational pull, the rate of universe expansion, the average distance between stars, the nature of gravity, earth's distance from the sun, earth's rotation period, and the levels of carbon dioxide. If any of these constants were to change by one in a million parts, it would result in the end of human life and the inability to have ever been created.

If you do not hold to the doctrine of creation, you will most likely believe the following:

• You came from no one

• You are living for nothing

• When you die, you'll go nowhere

God is......

What we learn from Genesis 1 & 2

• God is the only God

• God is eternally uncaused. He eternally existed before creation or time.

• God is living. Life doesn't spring forth from unliving matter.

• God is independent.

• God is immanent. He is actively at work in His creation.

• God is personal.

• God is beautiful. Just look at creation.