Weekly Sermons

Genesis is a Greek word meaning Origin or beginning; The Hebrew title is Bereshith which means “In the beginning.”

Read 1:1

Genesis is the beginning of the Old Testament and the entire Bible.

It also the first of the 5 books known as the Torah (Law), or Pentateuch (5-fold book), written by Moses (Daniel 9:13; Mark 12:26; Luke 24:27; John 1:17)

Genesis is a perfect first book of 66 perfect books!

To people hungering for information about the beginning of things Genesis overflows with help and hope.

The book of Genesis gives us the beginning of information on well over a dozen topics (God’s attributes being one example), and provides the context to understanding the rest of the Bible.

Outline:

The early history of the world                                                               Genesis 1-11

            Creation, Curse, Christ/Covering                                 chapters 1-3

            Consequences of the curse                                            chapters 4-11

                        But also instances of common and saving grace

The early history of Israel                                                                       Genesis 12-50

            The Patriarchs and the Abrahamic covenant           chapters 12-36

            The 12 tribes and their blessings                                 chapters 37-50

                        Two dominant tribes: Joseph and Judah

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The early history of the world                                                               Genesis 1-11

Chapters 1-11 contain over 2,000 years of history; Chapters 12-50 contain about 300 years of history; Exodus through Deuteronomy will cover about 40!

            Creation, Curse, Christ/ Covering                                  chapters 1-3

CREATION:                                     

Read 1:3-5

Gods ex nihilo creation of universe (ex nihilo = Out of nothing)

A pattern emerges:

Then God said, “Let there be…”             And there was…

God saw…                                                    It was good…

Evening and morning, first day!

Another key phrase is in 1:11                 God created “according to its kind.”

Read 1:26-28

Mankind created in the image and likeness of God!

Placed in the garden of “delight” (Eden)

Responsibilities:

2:7-8, 15       Meaningful work

2:9, 16-17    Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

HINTS OF THE TRINITY:

1:1-2

Spirit active

John 1:1-3 says through Jesus all things were made

‘Us’ as a reference to the Godhead occurs 3 times in the first 11 chapters: 1:26-28; 3:22; 11:7

Read 2:1-3

THE SEVENTH DAY:

Note it says 7^th day, not the Sabbath

I believe the Sabbath was Israel’s way to keep the Seventh Day Principle, whereas the Lord’s Day will be the Church’s way to keep the Seventh Day Principle, marking one difference between the Old Testament/Covenant and the New.

Read 2:18-25

MARRIAGE:

Not good for man to be alone

God’s plan is 1 man + 1 woman = 1 Flesh

Sex is for bonding and procreation within marriage bond

NA + CL = something new, SALT!

Read 3:1-13

ORIGINAL SIN/ THE FALL OF MAN/ CURSE:

Our very real enemy is introduced – the serpent (Satan, the Devil)

Lust of eyes, lust of flesh, pride of life

He promised them, “You will be like God” if you sin (verse 5)

Consequences of their choosing self-autonomy over God’s authority:

shame (v. 7), blame (v. 12-13)

Spiritual death – people now born will have a decaying body and a darkened brain, but a dead soul.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.   -Romans 3:23

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”           -I Cor. 15:22

Woman will seek satisfaction in her relationship with her man, but be frustrated (v. 16); Man will seek satisfaction from his work, but be frustrated (v. 17)

Banned from Eden (v. 22-24) If they ate from tree of life now, they would be like those guys in Pirates of the Caribbean, alive forever in a sorry, sinful condition

PROPHECIES OF COMING CHRIST/ TEMPORARY COVERINGS OF SIN:

Read 3:14-15

Seed born of woman will bruise serpent’s head; serpent will only bruise his heel

Read 3:21

God clothes them, presumably meaning God offers the first animal sacrifice  

            Consequences of the curse                    chapters 4-11

                        But also instances of common and saving grace

4:9-10           Cain kills his brother Abel, whose blood cries out for justice

4:26                Men begin to call on the name of the Lord

5:1      Key phrase in book: This is the genealogy, the history, the record of…

2:4      5:1      6:9      10:1, 32        11:10, 27      25:12, 13, 19           36:1, 9           37:2

Moses probably used these handed down oral histories to compile Genesis, which all happened before his birth.

Read 6:1-7

Consequences of sin – a universal flood; age will soon be capped at 120 years.

But God’s grace – 6:8-9    Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord

Noah’s ark is a type of our salvation in Christ (2 Peter 2:5)

The flood represented judgment; The ark lifted Noah and his family out of judgment because they were in the ark- if you are in Christ, you will be lifted out of judgment.

Read 6:18

Key word – covenant – beriyth (284 times in 264 verses)

This is an unconditional covenant, and the sign of it is the rainbow (9:8-17). God will not judge the world again by a universal flood.

Noah comes out and builds an altar to the Lord, and receives afresh the command to be fruitful and multiply (9:1)

9:6-7 Capital Punishment

Table of nations is given in Genesis 10, with the first reference to Babylon being in 10:10

Read 11:4-9

The tower of Babel

God judges their pride and desire to be like God

11:10

Shem, father of the Semitic peoples, including Abram/ Abraham

Key concepts in these first 11 chapters:

God created and sustains; man rebelled and sins constantly; God must judge sin, but extends certain common graces to all people; God provides eternal redemption to those who turn to Him

The early history of Israel                                                                       Genesis 12-50

            The Patriarchs and the Abrahamic covenant           chapters 12-36

Read Genesis 12:1-3

This is another unconditional covenant

Abraham and his descendants are promised 3 things:

The Promised Land; A wonderful legacy (great name, nation); A lasting difference (in your seed all the peoples of the world will be blessed).

Remember the word seed in Genesis 3?

When this covenant promise is repeated to Isaac and Jacob, it says, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” Both Old and New Testaments will refer to this as a promise of the coming Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world!

Read 15:6

The Abrahamic Covenant is repeated many times for emphasis:

12:1-7; 13:14-17; 15:1-21; 17; 18:18; 22:17-18; 26:3-5, 23-24; 28:3-4, 12-14; 31:11-13; 48:4-6

Abram responds by building an altar and calling on the name of the Lord.

And the places he builds altars gives us an idea of key points within the Promised Land: Terebinth tree of Moreh, between Bethel and Ai (12:6-8); Hebron (13:18)

Abe plants a tamarisk tree in Beersheba (21:33), and also buys a burial plot in Hebron when Sarah dies (Ch. 23), a sort of “down-payment” on the holy land!

Later we see the sign of this covenant was circumcision (18:18)

As Abraham and others grow in their experience of God, they often call God by a name that signifies what He is showing them (21:33 – El Olam, the everlasting God)

We also begin to see that the Bible is amazingly honest with us about both good and bad examples:

Both Noah and Lot get drunk and taken advantage of

Abraham is a man of faith and prayer and sometimes valor, but he also twice calls Sarah his sister to avoid trouble (Genesis 12, 20)

We see intergenerational sins, as Isaac repeats that sin of his father (Genesis 26), and Isaac and Rebekah’s children and grandchildren often practice deceit

We also see many times when it looks like Jesus appears on earth

Later in John 8:56, Jesus says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day.”

Several times it looks like that happens

Abraham meets Melchizedek in 14:18-24 and tithes to him (See also Psalms 110 and Hebrews 5-7)

 When the Word of the Lord came to Abe in a vision 15:1; Read 15:13-16

When the Lord appears to Abe and Abe intercedes for Sodom (chapter 18)

Abe is willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, but anticipates that “God will provide a Lamb” and God calls out to him not to harm the boy, and a ram is found in a thicket as an acceptable substitute (Genesis 22).

What Abe was willing to do, God later did, sacrificing His Son for the sins of the world (Isaiah 53; John 3:16-17). Abraham then calls God, “Jehovah Jireh,” The Lord will provide!   

In chapter 25, Abraham dies and is buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael, showing God’s common grace – Later Jacob and Esau together bury Isaac.

The covenant promises made to Abraham are reiterated to Isaac (ch. 26) and Jacob (ch. 28) at places where Abe also met with God (Beersheba, Bethel)

Chapters 29-30 recount the births of the 12 sons of Jacob to Leah, Rachel, and her maids Bilhah and Zilpah.

Jacob is still growing, and has an all-night wrestling match with God (Ch. 32). His name is changed to Israel. Rash sins by the three first-born sons Simeon, Levi, and Reuben are shown in chapters 34-35.

            The 12 tribes and their blessings                                 chapters 37-50

                        Two dominant tribes: Joseph and Judah

It is easy to like Joseph in chapters 37-50. He is a man of character and excellence, filled with God’s Spirit and worthy of our emulation!

He perseveres when done wrong by his brothers, his employer’s wife, and his fellow prisoners! He went from the pit to the palace!

Many outlines simply summarize the whole section as the story of Joseph.

That’s a mistake, because something deeper is going on, something that sets us up to understand not only the rest of the Old Testament but references in the gospels and even the Book of Revelation.

That other something that is going on is what happens in the heart of Joseph’s brother Judah.

Genesis 37-38 doesn’t make Judah look good.

In 37:26 he leads out in selling Joseph into slavery, and deceiving his father.

In chapter 38 he goes into a prostitute, doesn’t know it’s his daughter-in-law, and impregnates her with twins: Perez and Zerah.

Not a nice guy!

Meanwhile, Joseph is being an overcomer down in Egypt. He has married and has two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim.

In chapter 37 he had a dream about towering over his brother and parents.

By chapter 41 he has become the second in command to Pharaoh, and is saving that part of the world from intense famine.

When his brothers come to him for food, he knows the dream has come true!

Joseph looks so Egyptian the brothers don’t recognize him; he uses that to test them.

When he threatens to imprison Benjamin, his father’s pride and joy and only other son of Rachel, the other brothers are despondent for Jacob’s sake.

And then something very significant happens in chapters 43-44.

Judah steps up and is willing to take his brother’s place of judgment (44:16,33).

At that point Joseph loses it, and reveals himself to his brothers (Genesis 50:20).

I think another thing happened: I think Jesus looked down from Heaven, and said, “when I go to earth to bear their sin, that’s the tribe I want to be from, because that’s what I’m going to do – trade places with them, taking their judgment, so they can live!”

I guess that because after Jacob comes to Egypt to be with his boys and survive the famine in Goshen, before he dies, he blesses his sons.

In chapter 48 Jacob blesses Joseph’s two sons, putting Ephraim before Manasseh, in essence giving Joseph 2 of the 12 tribe slots, a double inheritance.

In the rest of the Old Testament Joseph’s two tribes are more significant than all but one tribe – the tribe of Judah.

In chapter 49 the other 11 sons are blessed by Jacob – 5 receive negative words and 6 receive positive words. The most positive of all is reserved for Judah.

Read Genesis 49:8-12

Over and over again Judah and Joseph are more dominant than the other tribes, and later Judah is synonymous with the South and Ephraim is synonymous with the North.

Read Rev. 5:1-5

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In Genesis:

We get some very satisfying answers to our questions about where we came from, why we’re in such a mess, and hope that God is at work in our world.

We begin getting specific prophecies that we can look to be fulfilled as the Bible and history unfolds!

We understand the early history of Israel, its Patriarchs and its Tribes, that the rest of the Bible builds on!

Exodus starts with God’s people enslaved in Egypt; Genesis 12-50 lets us know how they got there.

The whole Bible is going to show all people enslaved in sin and in need of Christ’s redemption. Genesis 1-11 shows how we got there, and introduces the One (Christ) who would crush the serpent (Satan).

 Another key phrase that will run throughout the Bible is “The Lord was with…”

The Lord was with Joseph 39:2, 21

I think that’s the greatest promise in the Bible – God’s presence with His people as they face the challenges of life!