Mark 10:2-16 & Genesis2:18-24 Grace 10/4/2009
Why did
God make you? For what purpose did He
make you? - - - - - - -
A child
was told to write a book report on the entire Bible and it is an amazing
report!!. I wonder how often we take for granted that children understand what
we are teaching?? Here’s the Bible in a nutshell through the eyes of a
child. I am only reading the first few
lines since the whole report is nearly 2 pages long. Here we go…
In the
beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God,
darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord Thy God is one, but I think
He must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and
someone did. Then God made the world.
He
split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't
embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed
God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden.
Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.
Why did God split the Adam and make Eve as this child puts it? When God asked for a light and someone did, He then created the heavens and the earth and the animals and man. And after each of these Genesis says, “…it was good.” Five times it says this in chapter 1. Then, at the end of chapter 1, God sort of stepped back and beheld all that He had made and Genesis says, “…it was very good.” It was good, it was good, it was good, it was good, it was good, it was very good!! Then in chapter two God says, “it is not good…!” What is not good? - - - - - - - “It is not good that man should be alone.” (2:18)
One scholar wrote this in commenting on that verse. “We have already mentioned the Velveteen Rabbit. This story is only one way of expressing the foundational truth about what it is to be human: that we are made for fellowship. One of the disastrous consequences of Enlightenment philosophy – despite all the good light that it shone on many questions – was its concentration on the individual as a centre of rational self-consciousness. The end of that road is the misery of the ‘Me-generation’. Deep cracks open up in our culture, as we have seen, between facts and values, mind and body, reason and emotion, subject and object – and words like meaning, purpose, fellowship and community so easily fall through. Yet personal communion is what the image of God is about – and not only communion between Man and God, but between Man and the rest of his environment, especially his fellow human beings. The sense of isolation and alienation of so much of contemporary society, where even families are often defined only by their sharing the same roof and the same television set while each pursues his or her detached and separate life, serve to underline this Genesis text: it is not good to be alone.” [i]
Let me repeat a few of those lines. Purpose, fellowship and community… We are made for fellowship…personal communion is what the image of God is about… How much God loves us. How highly God values us. This verse in Hebrews says an awful lot about that. “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.” (Heb. 2:6-8)
So let me ask again the questions
I asked you when we began. Why did God make you?
For what purpose did He make you?
- - - - - - - We were made to
be in relationship, to have fellowship, to be in communion with God and with
other people. And it was very
good! Adam and Eve were naked, but
they weren't ashamed not because mirrors hadn't been invented yet but
because they knew nothing at that point of evil and therefore nothing of shame. But then, they disobeyed God by eating one
bad apple and all of what history could have been changed.
Jesus
knows this as the Pharisees ask Him a question to which they already know the
answer. They are trying to trap Jesus
so as to discredit Him. He doesn’t fall
into their trap but turns the table and shows them up instead. In addressing divorce, the breaking of a
significant relationship, Jesus shows that “this law of Moses was not only a
permissive, instead of a categorical imperative; it was positively concessive,
because of the unresponsiveness of men’s hearts to God.” [ii] God, through the words of Moses, allows it
but it is not God’s design. His design
and our purpose was to have unbroken fellowship and community with God and one
another. And while both are important,
our relationship with God comes first in the design. Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher, mathematician and theologian
once said, “There is a God shaped vacuum inside of every man that only God can
fill.” That really says it all.
So what can we be doing to help us grow in our relationship with God this week? - - - - - - -
· Pray – that is talk to, chat with and listen to God.
· Read the Bible – read it as love letters rather than a “rule book” or “owner’s manual”.
What can we do to help us in our relationships with others? - - - - - - -
· Talk to others and ask them questions about themselves
· Listen to them as they respond. They may really need to talk and be heard.
Take one or two of these ideas and put them into practice this week because God made us to be in relationship with Him and others.