Genesis Chapter 2 Verse 1

• If God can create all that was created, the entirety of creation, in six days…then surely He can certainly do all that He has promised! I so often underestimate God…I shouldn’t. Look at what He can do in less than a week…He made man in one day! Man with the eye, the heart, the cardiovascular system, the appendix…HA! I wonder if He said, “Oh well, just leave it…” Ha!

Genesis Chapter 2 Verses 2 – 3

• God rested on the seventh day. That is not to say that He needed to rest…He just simply was finished! Isaiah 40:28 says, “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.” God created all of creation and then to complete the week, He blessed. I love this! Yes we read that He rested and then in the next breath, He is active! “He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it!” If He actually took the day off then everything would come apart!

• This isn’t God checking out for a day…it’s rather God taking the day to simply be…the work is complete, and so it is a day of rest, a day of blessing, a day of sanctification. Rest is a part of creation…but here’s the thing…notice, the work is complete. The rest we need, the rest that is designed into us, is a rest physically yes, but also mentally and spiritually. Notice He rested, He blessed, He sanctified.
• If there is work undone, projects incomplete…there’s an element of this blessing, resting, sanctifying that you’re not getting. Get the work complete. Finish what you start. Do it as unto the Lord…and then the rest of the Sabbath Day will be as it out to be…

• Now God will later establish the covenant of the Sabbath with Israel and declare that they should keep it for all of their generations but understand that commandment was part of the law…one of the 10 Commandments and even the Sabbath was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4 says the work is complete…Jesus completed all the work necessary for us to fulfill God’s perfect laws upon the cross and so as we enter into Jesus we enter into the “rest of God.” And so those that teach that the Sabbath must be kept in terms of the law today are sorely mistaken…

• Some of those same groups teach that worship should occur only on the Sabbath or Saturday but actually we have no indication in the New Testament that the early church either kept the Sabbath or worshipped on the Sabbath. In fact, we see in at least two places that the early church met on the first day of the week which would be Sunday. Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. Argue this until you’re blue in the face but two facts prevail…all of the commandments of God are affirmed in the New Testament except for 1. The Sabbath is never reaffirmed in the New Testament. Jesus said in Matthew 12:8 that He is the Lord of the Sabbath! And the second fact is that Romans 14:5-6 and Colossians 2:16-17 clearly state that days mean nothing!
• "One man regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind.” Romans. "Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day; things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ." Colossians.
• I thought this was cool though…think about this. The Bible defines the week as a seven day period. From the beginning of time. God laid out the design for our time cycle of weeks and eventually, (by perpetuating the week), months, years, decades and so on…You say, “Who cares!?” Here’s what I think is cool. Why is a week, our week, a week today…in the year 2017…why is a week seven days? Why not 8? Why not 10? Man we could accomplish a lot more if we have 7 work days and 3 days off instead of 5 work days and 2 days off…

• I did a little research here and there are all kinds of astrologists and other “ists” that have all of this mumbo jumbo (scientific term for stuff over my head) but I just think it is grand…believer or non-believer alike…you’re counting years by my Lord and you’re counting weeks by my God. I just really like that, man…it hearkens to Romans Chapter 1…, “What may be known of God is revealed, for God has shown to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are created…”

• One last thing here…every other day ends with, “So the evening and the morning were the day…” Not this one. Why? Because I believe that it points to the coming Messiah…that man will walk in the wilderness until he/she reaches the end of trying to create himself…and then they will enter into the promised land of rest in the Lord and that rest will have no end…but carry them right into eternity…

Genesis Chapter 2 Verses 4 – 7

• Here we have a new title for God. This is the first time we see something other than Elohim in the Hebrew. Here we see in verse 4…, “The LORD God.” Literally YHWH (or Yehovah) Elohiym. Whenever you see LORD in all caps in the Old Testament then that is the name of God or what’s known as the Tetragrammaton, the unspeakable name of God. Now you’ll see Lord not in all caps and when you see that then the Hebrew word is Adonay (such as Genesis 15:8) which could be translated, “My Lord.”
• Now check this out. I love this! Man was active in tilling the ground before the fall…there was stuff to do in the Garden. Not backbreaking work, no sweat…that came after the fall…but somehow, someway, man was the “keeper” of the Garden and I love that…and I also love this statement that God formed man out of the dust. Here’s what’s cool about that. Scientific fact. Observable truth. Man and dust are made of the same basic elements! HA! So cool!
• And yet God did something to that dust that set it apart for eternity…He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. Man can make stuff out of the dust, but only God can bring it to life!

Genesis Chapter 2 Verses 8 – 17

• Now why would God even create this tree? There are a couple of important answers. First, without choice or the ability to choose there really can be no true relationship or true love. If I am forced by either circumstance, environment or compulsion then the resultant relationship will be a lie. It’s not a relationship its slavery. Second, God’s plan, God’s perfect will and desire for the life of man only comes about when man recognizes, realizes, comes to his/her senses about this whole thing…and submits to God’s directives. We are His children, man. And it is only through complete submission and obedience that we accomplish His will. God’s results – God’s ways. That’s the way it is today…that’s the way it always was…even at the beginning of all things…so get with the program.
• Now the mysterious, grace-filled, mercy-packed statement here is seemingly that God knew what was about to happen…and most certainly He did. He did not say “if,” He said, “In the day that you eat of it…” Must have been a tense moment…and literally, what He said here is, “In the day that you eat of it, dying you shall die…” Death will enter the world. He didn’t say, “I’ll kill you!” He says, “Adam, you’ll kill yourself.” Exactly what sin still does today…

Genesis Chapter 2 Verses 18 – 22

• Notice, and I love this, God brought Adam his wife…what an awesome word for you who are waiting upon the Lord for your wife or for your husband…Are you looking for what He wants for you? Or are you looking for what you want for you? Trust Him and really truly desire what His heart is in terms of a spouse…

Genesis Chapter 2 Verses 23 – 25

• This idea of naked is much more than physical but emotionally, spiritually, fully exposed, known perfectly and not ashamed and why do I bring that up as we close…because out of Adam’s side came his bride and the same thing happened with the second Adam. Out of the wounds, the final wound being in His side, the bride of Christ came forth…and as we open every heart compartment to Him, give everything over to Him, our shame flees…