Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Genesis 2.  We’re continuing our study of the book of Genesis.  And if you’ve been with us over the last several weeks, one of the things we’ve learned is that both men and women equally share in the image of God.  We learn that in chapter 1 and verse 27 when we talked about being created in the image of God.  Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him.”  And then here is that phrase that introduces us to the genders.  “Male and female,” he says, “He created them.”  That phrase right there is the strongest statement you and I can ever land upon that speaks to the equality of the sexes.  There’s a lot of discussion in our world today about men and women, about manhood and womanhood, about what’s appropriate in the church, what’s expected in the culture.  A lot of gender confusion out there.  A lot of angst both inside and outside the church when it comes to roles of men and women.  But if we just came back the owner’s manual and to the book of Genesis, we would find that any discussion about the equality of men and women really starts and stops right here in Genesis 1:27.  Both men and women equally share in the image of God.  But sadly, we have drifted away in our culture from God, from the Bible, from a creation worldview.  And it’s hard for our culture today to understand how men and women can be equal in essence but have been given and assume very different roles and responsibilities within two institutions that God ordained- marriage and the family, and the church.  And a lot of the angst is over that right there.  How do we understand men and women to be equal in essence before God, equal bearers of the image of God but have different roles and responsibilities?  It all comes back here to Genesis 1:27 and some of what we’re going to look at too here in chapter 2.

0:02:50.4

God could have created Adam and Eve out of the same lump of clay.  Remember last week we talked about how when God created man, when He created Adam He reached down and got some of the dust of the ground.  And He formed like a master potter.  He formed the man.  He could have done that with Adam and Eve at the same time.  He could have picked up a little bit more of that dust, a little bit more of that clay and formed both of them at the same time.  And if He had done that, it probably would have erased any questions we might have about the equality of the sexes.  But in His sovereignty, God chose not to do that.  He chose to create Adam first, and then Eve.  That’s the order of creation.  A little bit later in Genesis 2 we find Eve was created out of a part of Adam’s body.  In fact, the apostle Paul even makes note of this in 1 Timothy 2:13.  He just says, “Adam was formed first, then Eve.”  Now, if you take that to mean that the man is superior to the woman, you’ve misunderstood the Bible.  That’s not the point here.  But this ordering in creation that Adam came first and then Eve does tell us something about what God expects of a man.  There were certain responsibilities, certain roles that were given to Adam.  And with that responsibility came accountability.  And we need to discover some of that today.

0:04:19.0

Now, ladies, I want to ask permission to talk directly to the men this morning.  I’m not asking to excuse you from the room.  But much of what I want to say today is really directed to myself and to my fellow men in the audience here today.  Your time is coming is the weeks ahead, and we’ll get back to some of your roles and responsibilities when we get to that point in the text where Eve is created out of Adam and the wonderful implications that go along with that.  But we are still in that point in the creation story where Adam is being formed and where certain expectations, certain responsibilities are given to the man.  And I want to talk a little bit about that.  And I may touch on some things—ladies, you just need to know this—that tend to touch on the greatest fears and vulnerabilities and insecurities that a man might have.  Yeah, that guy that you’re sitting next to, maybe your spouse, maybe your fiancé, maybe your significant other, he tries to not show his insecurities and his vulnerabilities and his fears.  But I guarantee you that some of the things we’re gonna talk about here, those things bubble up to the surface.  So rule of engagement here.  No elbowing, ladies.  Okay? Your time is coming.  No grin on your face like, you know, you’re the cat that just ate the canary.  No going home and saying, “I told you so.”  Okay?  This is a time for us men to understand in the order of creation some responsibilities that were given to Adam.

0:05:51.2

And the first of these expectations is that God expects a man to work.  Look at verse 15.  “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.”  Now, that seems like a simple thing, doesn’t it?  Easy enough to sort of gloss over in the text.  You’re reading through the creation story here.  The retelling of that story.  That focus on the sixth day of creation here in Genesis 2.  And it says, “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden...[so he cultivated] and keep it.”  Don’t miss what’s happening here.  God created us for paradise.  We talked about that last week.  He formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and then He took him and He put him in the garden, not so that he could snooze in a hammock hanging between two coconut trees, okay.  That’s what we like to do in paradise, don’t we?  But so that he would work it.  Now, I know we live a culture where men and women are equally in the workplace.  I’m not here to discuss this morning.  I just want you to notice in the order of creation that God formed Adam first.  The Bible makes note of that.  And the first thing that God does is He puts the man to work in paradise.

0:07:11.9

It makes me think of my first job.  Do you remember your first job?  The first time I went to work was when I was a teenager in high school.  And in between sports seasons I worked on the custodial staff of my church.  I might have told this story before.  And if I have and you remember it, just act like you’ve never heard it before.  Okay?  Just humor me for a moment.  But I worked on the custodial staff at my church.  And after school I would go over to the church.  And the church was a lot like Immanuel in that it doubled as a school.  And so it was a very busy place.  And so I would come, and other high school students who were employed by the church on the custodial staff, we would come.  We would vacuum hallways.  We would set up rooms for church and then for school and then for church again.  We had a “gymatorium” for a while where we met for Sunday worship, and the transition on the weekend to get ready for Sunday worship had us sometimes working until midnight or after on Saturday night.  We even cleaned the toilets, the bathrooms. My first job was with a bucket and a swab, going into the restrooms making sure that they spit shine for Sunday morning.  My wife likes to remind me that I started by swabbing the toilets in the church and I later became the head pastor.  Think about that for a minute, okay.  That was my first job.  What was your first job?  Where did you first put your hands to the work that God wanted you to do?

0:08:38.0

A couple of thoughts I want to just kind of download.  Not a complete biblical theology of work, but just some things that we can glean from the text this morning.  First of all, your work matters to God.  Guys, your work matters to God.  And this is a principle that, you know, whether you’re a female in the workplace or a male in the workplace, you can take it with you.  But our work matters to God.  I take that phrase from the title of a book that Doug Sherman wrote years ago titled Your Work Matters to God.  And it’s one of the most complete theologies of, you know, what the Bible says about our work.  And the title of that book reminds us that work is a good thing and it’s a God thing.  Work is a gift from God.  And God was a worker wasn’t He.  He worked for six days, and then He rested on the seventh day.  Even Jesus said in John 5:17, “My father is always working, and I am working too,” He says.  Our work has intrinsic value, Sherman said.  Now, you may not like the work that you’re doing.  But that you work and how you work and the attitude you bring to your work matters to God.  And work is a gift of God.  Listen to this from the writer of Ecclesiastes 2:24.  “There is nothing better for man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good.  This also I have seen, that it is from the hand of God.”  Work is a gift from God.  It matters.  And our work, whatever that work might be, has intrinsic value.  That may just change the way you go to work tomorrow morning.  You may step into the office tomorrow with a brand new attitude and a brand new perspective, saying, “You know what?  What I’m doing behind this desk,” or whatever you do, “it actually matters to God.  And I receive it as a gift today.”

0:10:34.3

Secondly, work is an act of worship.  You say, “Wait a minute, Preacher, you are way, way over the cliff on this one.  Work is an act of worship?”  Yeah, look at it again in the text here, Genesis 2:15.  God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden.  Now, circle these words, “to cultivate it and to keep it.”  He put him to work.  And those words “cultivate” and “keep” are the same words that appear in the Old Testament to describe the work that the priests and the Levites did in the house of God to lead people in worship and to serve the Lord.  Now, a lot of us—or some of us, I should say—we worship our work, we work at our play, and we play at our worship.  Do I need to say that again?  We worship our work, we work at our play, and we kind of play around at our worship.  But we could bring the idea of work and worship together, this idea that what I do and how I do it is an act of service to the Lord, it may change the way you view your boss.  It may change the way you view the work that you do if you do it, as Paul says, “Heartily unto the Lord.”

0:11:49.3

Let’s go to Colossians 3:23-24.  In fact, let’s just read these verses from the screen here together.  Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, no for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”  I know of you no better antidote to a bad attitude that I might have at work or a bad attitude that I might have to a boss that I really don’t like than to say to myself, “It is the Lord Christ I am serving here.”  And you don’t have to serve on the staff of a church or some Christian ministry to have that attitude.  This is an attitude that you can have right there the Lord has you serving today.  But a lot of us have adopted the philosophy of one of my favorite theologians.  His name is Garfield the cat.  Garfield the cat’s work philosophy goes like this.  “I live for Saturdays.”  You ever heard that before?  “I live for Saturdays,” Garfield says.  In other words, Monday is a drag, Wednesday is a hump day, and Fridays…well, thank God it’s Friday, because I live for Saturdays.  And I learned a long time ago—and maybe you have too—is that life is too short just to live for Saturdays.  Okay?  Most of the time, men, we will spend is in the workplace.  We might even spend more hours of the week at work than we do engaged with our families.  Just do the math a little bit there.  But to have an “I live for Saturdays” mentality, which most in our culture have… “I just can’t wait to get through the week.  I can’t wait to get through the job today and the hours today so that I can begin the fun, which all happens on the weekend.”

0:13:47.5

And I’ve even met some people who think that, well, the only work worth doing is, boy, if I could just serve on the staff of a church.  Or if I could just work for Christians.  If I could just work for a Christian ministry somewhere.  Friends, the work worth doing is the work that God has given to you right now.  And if God calls you into vocational ministry, then that’s great.  That’s wonderful.  But if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, you’re in the ministry.  Did you know that?  You may not get your paycheck from the ministry as I do and the other pastors on this staff do, but neither did the apostle Paul.  The apostle Paul had a little business on the side.  He was a tentmaker.  And much of the support that he got for his ministry was through that tent-making business, okay.  You have contact with people that I never will have contact with.  And in many ways, I’m jealous of where you are.  I spent six and a half years in the corporate world before God called me vocationally into the ministry.  And one of the things that I grieved over was the loss of contact with people in the workplace who need to know Jesus.  And I have to work real hard as a pastor—and the other pastors on the staff, we’ve talked about this—we have to work real hard to get out from our insulated bubble as pastors on a staff and get out into our communities.  Get out into our neighborhoods.  Even get out into the workplace with you.  As regularly as I can, I come to your place at work.  I was with some Immanuel folks at the Pentagon this week just to be out in the marketplace some.  God has given you a ministry right where you are.  And your work matters to God.  That work is an act of worship if you see it in that perspective.

0:15:51.9

Thirdly, though, I want to suggest to you that lazy hands lead to poverty.  Lazy hands lead to poverty.  This another kind of work principle that bubbles up from the pages of scripture.  Chuck Colson and Jack Eckerd years ago wrote a book titled Why America Doesn’t Work that really peaked my curiosity, the title did, because it made me think about the American worker.  And there is no greater worker on this planet than the American worker.  That’s still true today.  But Colson and Eckert did talk about the declining work ethic.  A work ethic that was rooted in the Judeo-Christian value system, which formed the foundation of our nation and which is slowly eroding.  And with the slow erosion of the Judeo-Christian value system is the erosion of the good old fashioned American work ethic was the sort of the thesis behind Colson and Eckerd’s book.  And I think they’re onto something.

0:16:57.0

Turn in your Bibles with me to 2 Thessalonians 3:8-10.  I want to show you from the pen of the apostle Paul some of the work ethic that Paul tried to model to the people that he was ministering to.  He’s writing to the Thessalonians, and he says, “We were not idle when we were with you, 8nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it.  On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you,” he said.  “We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to follow.  For even when we were with you,” he says, “we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’”  I mean, here’s Paul modeling before the believers in Thessalonica a strong work ethic.  He says, “Oh, we could have had our hand out.  But we didn’t.  We worked, and we wanted to be a model before you and to demonstrate this wonderful work ethic.”  Where did you learn your work ethic?

0:18:10.3

Whatever work ethic I have I learned from my dad.  My dad is a strong, strong worker.  He grew up on a farm in Iowa.  And he learned from a very early age that the “cows don’t milk themselves,” as he says.  And so he was up at the crack of dawn before the sun even peeked over the horizon, doing the work that farmers do.  He’s got a handgrip like a vise.  You know, doesn’t intend to break your knuckles when he shakes your hand.  I’m just, like, “Dad, Dad, come on,” you know, because he worked with his hands from a very early age.  At the age of 17 he joined the Navy.  He enlisted, and he served for four years as a Morse code operator in the Korean War.  And then he was discharged honorably from the Navy and went to work.  Well, actually he went to college for a semester (0:19:00.0) first and found out that school wasn’t his thing.  And so he left school and decided to go to work.  But he didn’t know what to do to earn a living, so he learned how to cut hair.  And after he learned how to cut hair and to work with his hands, he said, “I’m gonna start a business.”  And so he did.  He started his own shop and his own business.  And he ran that for about 15 years.  And he used to tell me, “You know, I made more money cutting hair than some of my college-educated friends did.”  He worked hard building that business up.  And then in his late 30s he got tired of cutting hair, so he went into the real estate business.  He got his real estate license and went to work for the #1 residential real estate company in our hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana.  And through hard work and a lot of perspiration, he became one of the top-producing agents in the city.  And a couple years later, he was a business starter, so he started his own business. (0:20:00.1) And that business grew to the #2 residential real estate company in the small city of Fort Wayne, Indiana.  I mean, my dad worked day and night.  And that’s not always a happy memory for me, because sometimes he worked so day and night that I didn’t see him a whole lot.  But I learned from my dad.  I mean, my dad never looked for a handout from anybody.  Maybe a hand up, a help, a little coaching here, a little instruction there, but he was a hard worker.  And he modeled that for me.  Proverbs 10:4 says, “Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.”  And my dad modeled that for me.  I learned some of that from him.  I can have a lazy streak in me once in a while.  I like to sit in that hammock stretched between two coconut trees.  But then I just think of my dad and the model that he provided to me and my brothers.

0:20:59.7

You probably heard the numbers this week from the Labor Department- 240,000 jobs lost in October.  These are tough economic times, aren’t they?  The unemployment rate has risen to 6.5%.  That’s the highest it’s been in 14 years.  You know, over 17 years of ministry, I’ve run into a few men who have experienced unemployment.  And I’ve had some challenges even in my own employment, even in ministry over the years.  And I can tell you, ladies…and this is where the fears, the insecurities and the vulnerabilities come in.  You’ve heard the phrase, “If momma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.”  Well, if papa ain’t happy in his work or he wants to work and can’t get work, he’s the most miserable man on the inside because God made us to work.  The first responsibility He gave to Adam was to work the garden.  We’re made for that.  And when we’re out of work or we can’t find work that syncs up with who we are and our gifts and our talents, we are just kind of out of sync, aren’t we, guys.  I’ve been there before.  But just remember, your work matters to God. Whatever work God gives to you at the moment is work worth doing and can be an act of worship.  And my question is, who are you modeling that to today, that work ethic?

0:22:25.5

Well, that’s the first thing that God expects of a man is that he works.  Not that a woman can’t work, but that’s just not for a discussion today.  He’s talking about Adam, and the first responsibility that God gave to him was to work and what that means to a man.  Secondly, God expects a man to handle His Word.  And here I’m talking about the scriptures. Let’s go back to Genesis 2:16-17.  It says, “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’”  First God gave Adam work to do, and then He gave him His Word.  The first commandment comes to Adam.  And with that first commandment comes the responsibility, guys, for, in Adam’s case, the moral life in the Garden of Eden.  It’s interesting that this command is never repeated regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But we go into Genesis 3 and you discover that Eve knew something about it.  Because when the serpent came, she had some knowledge of this command.  The question is, how did she know?  God didn’t repeat the command to Eve.  We have no record of that.  We have to assume that Adam passed it onto Eve, okay.  It was his responsibility to oversee the moral life in the garden.  It was his primary responsibility.  Now, that doesn't excuse Eve for her role in what we’re gonna discover in Genesis 3.  But the primary responsibility for the moral life in the Garden of Eden was Adam’s.  God gave Adam His Word.  And he was also responsible for anything that might contribute to the failure of obedience to this particular command.  In fact, God made sure that Adam knew the consequences of not handling His Word properly.  He said, “For in the day that you eat from it.”  In other words, “If you eat the forbidden fruit, if you disobey me,” He says, “you shall surely die.”  Laid out the consequences right there.  “Adam, I’m giving you leadership.  I’m giving you responsibility.  I’m holding you accountable.  And if you disobey me…”  And this is where death enters into the world.  Physical death ultimately, spiritual death immediately, separation from God, a broken relationship with Him.  We get into that all in chapter 3.

0:25:02.7

But God expects the man to be the spiritual leader in the home.  That’s the takeaway principle here.  He gave us the command.  He gave us His Word.  And He gives us the primary responsibility, not the only responsibility but the primary responsibility to lead spiritually.  And He holds us primarily accountable for what happens in that marriage relationship spiritually or what happens in the home.  It’s a tremendous responsibility.  Now, most of us guys, we would love to hold onto the authority that God gives us.  We get that from Ephesians 5.  A man is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church.  He’s been deputized.  He’s been given authority.  But we would love to delegate our responsibility, wouldn’t we.  And we can’t do that.  We can’t assume authority—positional authority and relational authority and all that—and delegate our responsibility at the same time.  And I want to suggest to you, guys, that when it comes to spiritual leadership in the home, that we are to be the thermostats in the home and our wives the thermometers.  We are to set the spiritual temperature in the home.  And when we do that, our wives and even our children will follow in a wonderful way.  And I say that generally speaking, okay.  I understand that there are exceptions and there are complications in every relationship and in every home.  But it’s our responsibility as men to be the thermostats, to set the spiritual temperature in the home.  Now, if you’re like me, you maybe don’t necessarily know how to do that.  I didn’t have that modeled to me in the home that I grew up in.  My dad modeled a lot of wonderful things for me, but he did not model for me what it means to be a spiritual leader.  And so much of what I’m learning is through trial and error and through talking to some of you who grew up in Christian homes where you saw this modeled.  And much of what I’m learning is just kind of getting back to some models in scripture, like one that I want to show in the book of Deuteronomy real quickly before we finish here.

0:27:11.6

Deuteronomy 6.  This has helped me tremendously, men, when it comes to assuming my responsibility to be the spiritual leader in my home.  How do I do that?  Well, don’t go out and buy one of these, okay, and set it up in the middle of your den and say, “Okay, family, I’m now acting as the spiritual leader in the home.”  That’s not the picture here. Listen to this in Deuteronomy 6 beginning in verse 6.  Moses says to the people of Israel just as they're about to cross over the Jordan River, “And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.”  It has to start with you, guys.  It has to start with us, okay.  “It shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.  Tie them as symbols your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”  Did you see those phrases “when you sit at home,” “when you walk along the road,” “when you lie down,” “when you get up”?  There is the sense that just as you’re sort of going through the motions of life, as you’re living life together with your wife and your family, look for those opportunities to speak some kind of word from God to your family.  Make it as natural and as part of the normal flow of life as possible.

0:28:38.4

Let me just tell you a couple ways I’ve tried to do this just even recently.  This summer while on vacation, we did a lot of driving.  We flew out to California, and we drove up and down the California coast and saw as much of California as we could.  We spent a lot of time in the car.  I thought what a wonderful opportunity to maybe memorize some scripture as a family, okay.  And it wasn’t force-fed.  We just kind of landed upon a couple of verses and said, as we were “walking along the road”—that’s what they did back then—as we were driving along the road, we just from time to time recited some scripture back and forth with each other and just deposited that into our hearts and into our kids hearts.  This summer I found a devotional book for my kids.  And I really wanted them, especially during the summer months when they had much more time on their hands, to begin to practice just the daily discipline of time along with God.  My daughter has taken to this like a duck in water.  And I’m so proud of her because of that.  Before they go to bed at night we encourage them to have their quiet time with God.  And their get their Bible and their little devotional that we bought for them.  And it’s taking them through sections of the scripture.  Again, not force-fed.  If they don’t do it seven days a week we’re not piling guilt upon them, but just encouraging them to have that daily time with the Lord.  And, by the way, they need to see you doing that as well.  And maybe combine those opportunities as well to read the scriptures together and to talk about them a little bit.  We try to make sure we sit down as a family regularly during the week.  I mean, with sports schedules it’s really hard.  But to have a family meal two, three, maybe four times a week.  And when we do to pray together before we eat and to maybe periodically even talk about some spiritual things.  I find that even as I’m driving my kids to this sporting event or to that sporting event, my son is at an age now where he’s opening up and asking some really great questions.  And now every time we go in the car somewhere, even if it’s for 10 or 12 or 15 minutes, I’m just probing him with a few questions and at a time when he’s willing to open up a little bit and ask some really good spiritual questions at this time.  How does Moses say it?  “When you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up.”  Just as part of the normal course of life, Dad, just be ready to set the thermostat, okay.  Just set the spiritual temperature in your home and to begin to model for your kids what it means to be a godly man.

0:31:16.0

There’s a third thing that God expects of a man.  To work, to handle His Word, and thirdly, that’s to love his wife.  And we’re gonna talk about that next week, verses 18 through the end of the chapter, one of the most incredible sections of scripture.  So I want to encourage you to come back next week as we talk further about that.  Let’s pray together.

0:31:37.6

Father, thank You so much for Your Word.  And I want to thank You for the things we learn from Your relationship with Adam, the priorities and the responsibilities that You gave to him.  Father, what a challenge it is for us as men to lead today, to take upon us the mantle of leadership in our homes, in the church.  I want to thank You for a place like Immanuel that has so many men that have stepped up to the plate to lead in a place like this.  And, Father, I pray for that dad or husband here today who struggles with what that looks like and what that means, who feels laden with guilt knowing that he should be the spiritual leader in his home but doesn’t know how to do it.  I just pray that the simple instruction from Your Word, even from Deuteronomy, might free him up as much as it’s freed me to look for seamless and natural opportunities to set the thermostat in the home.  God, would You lead us in this time of commitment and in this time of application of Your Word as we leave this place, to put it into practice and to begin living out the truth of Your Word as You had asked us to do.  And I pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.

0:33:16.8