Creation: Blessings, Trust, Stewardship, and Dominion. | Rev. Elisha Satvinder

We continue in, you know, not an extensive, you know, exhaustive series, but we’re looking into the creation story and understanding a few things together about Adam and Eve, the garden,  sin, how it entered, what happened, what are the consequences. So today we are going to look at the idea of creation: what are the blessings, what is the issue of trust, what is the issue of stewardship and dominion.

So if we look back at Genesis—and I will very much encourage you, if through this week you can read the first nine chapters, read it a few times over—you will see a pattern emerge. Okay, that’s something interesting. And this is—remember one of our lecturers, Len, is an amazing teacher; he’ll always say, read the book over and over and over and over again, and then write what comes to mind as you see a pattern come through. As you begin to see different themes come through, you see words popping up, and you just see, “Hey, this seems to be popping up everywhere in this book, why is that so?”

So, so do that if you’re able to, uh, but let me come back to this and even as we prepare our hearts and our minds and our spirits for communion this morning. So the Book of Genesis actually, it’s actually very foundational. It—it’s foundational, and it gives us about three things. Of course, different theologians will say different things, but I would say three areas are very prominent in the Book of Genesis. Alright, one is we understand in this narrative God’s intention for mankind. Okay, God’s intention for mankind. All of us begin to understand it. Number two, we understand what God wants us to be responsible with. Okay, what does God want us to be responsible with? And the third thing is this: the boundaries he gives us. The boundaries he gives us. So three things, yeah: God’s intention for mankind, for us; one, two, responsibilities; three, boundaries. Very simple.

Okay, so we’re going to look over chapters 1, chapter 2, chapter 9, and understand what I just gave in this theme: the distinct blessings that God says, “I’m blessing you with prohibitions.” He says, “You can do everything, but there’s one thing I don’t want you to do,” and you will see it highlighted through. Okay, so let’s read Genesis 1:28-29. Yeah, okay, we’ll let them settle down first. Okay, God blessed them and said to them—God blessed whom? Adam and Eve. So God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number.” Different versions—this is NIV—would say, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Okay, so, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” Okay, “They’ll be yours for food.”

So we see a blessing, and we’re going to see a command here. Uh, what is the command? “Be fruitful, reproduce, multiply in it.” We will just see something very simple but very prominent: God’s giving us authority, and, very important, if you’re writing anything, write the word stewardship. Many times we skip that, we miss that, and then as we move through, when we come to the New Testament, we always abuse the word stewardship with prosperity. If we come back, we need to understand. And you know, last week I think the sermon was very simple by Bill High, but can you imagine working at somebody who earns 8 billion a year and gives away 4 billion? Astonishing, isn’t it? Yeah, astonishing. You give half of that away to bless the kingdom of God because people like them get a principal right: stewardship. They realize the money doesn’t belong to them; it belongs to God. Now, it’s so simple, isn’t it, for me to say this? So easy for you to say that. But can we pause for a second—we’re going to do quite a bit today here—pausing.

We are actually—are you ready for this, church? We are poor stewards. The way we handle our money, the way we handle our time, the way we handle our resources, our gifts—we’re actually very selfish. Stewardship. So we must understand this very clearly. Blessing and the command come; he gives us the authority, but he says, “You must be a steward over creation.” We—we had the—like last—the week before, we of course went off to East Malaysia. This week we had driven down, driven up, sorry, to Kelantan and different places, and you see the forest being butchered. You see how we do things. We—man has become such a bad steward of creation.

If you would remember me saying this, always think of this triangle. Okay, everybody look up, please. You’ve got to think of this triangle. Up at the triangle is God. God is the creator of everything. Agreed, everyone? Amen. God is the Creator. God created man, right? In the beginning, God created man. But God also created the earth, right? Everybody. Man is given stewardship over the earth. If you can think of this triangle—okay, God, man, and earth—God is the owner, the creator of man and earth. Man is supposed to be the steward. When God returns, he will say, “How did you live? How did you handle my creation?” I give an account. Everybody with me? We cannot run away from this. We cannot run away from this.

Okay, so he gives us this, and he says, “Look, I give you everything.” Wow, that’s an empty check, isn’t it? That’s a blank check: “I give you everything. All is yours, and all is for you to eat and to be full, and you know, you will not be hungry, but there’s only one simple thing that I’m telling you: manage this resource responsibly.” You get your gaji, you get your paycheck; you’re a steward of that money. You get pocket money, students; you’re a steward of that money. You and I have 24 hours a day; we are supposed to be stewards of that time. But many times, I can become the owner and not be accountable to God for what he has given me. Stewardship.

Okay, so he’s given us everything. He says, “Now manage this earth and your resources responsibly.” So, Genesis 2 now, 16-17, he says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.'” Is there a death toll? Okay. “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but”—everybody say “but”—”but you must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.” Only one thing he says, “Don’t do.” One thing. So he gives a blessing, he gives a command, and now he gives the blessing, command, and he says, what? One prohibition. “Don’t.” This is one thing I don’t want you to infringe on.

So God provides the Garden of Eden—rich, pleasant, the trees, oh my, good for food. Everything is amazing, including the Tree of Life. We will talk about that in one of the weeks, yeah, because it’s the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. And then later on, we read God says, “They’re not going to touch the Tree of Life.” Why did God say that when actually he says, “You can have it anyway?” So Adam and Eve were to enjoy the garden’s bounty, everything there. Enjoy it. Forbidden, one thing: “Don’t touch the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

What does this symbolize, dear friends? What does it symbolize? It symbolizes one thing; it stands for a very powerful thing here. There are boundaries that God gives us in the midst of autonomy. That means, why, I like self-governance, I like self-rule, I like to be independent. If you say, “No.” Okay, 24 hours, all your money, all your savings, what you do, how you manage resources—if you are asked to give an account, you know what you will say? “None of your business.” True. You will say… then so we Genesis, come back here: the fall of man is very corrosive. It has impacted us for thousands of years, and it’s only through Christ that we find that freedom and the restoration.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as we’ve been looking at it, it symbolizes a boundary for human autonomy and the necessity to trust God and to obey God. Why? Because he has given us everything for life, and in order to enjoy it, God says there’s a boundary. But in your wisdom, you will say, “This boundary is invasive, God, this—this boundary is difficult.” And God says, “No, this boundary is safety. It will keep you safe, and it will let you enjoy my blessings and my abundance.”

Parents, how often when you were dealing with kids, your kids, they never understood your boundaries. I want you to pause. Apply the same now to your life. Young people don’t like boundaries, but oh, come on, at least agree on something. Come on. We don’t like boundaries. At work, we don’t like boundaries. So we know that they disobeyed God, sin entered the human race. We call it the Fall, right? The Fall, and they are banished. We’ll read this. So, “The Lord God banished him (Adam) from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” Yeah, “After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” That one will be the next exciting episode, not today.

Okay, why to guard then? So we see this. Between the Fall and the Flood, something happens. Creation, God gives the blessing, God says, “Hey, don’t do this.” Boundaries, sin enters, man decides to do what he wants to do—the Fall. God says, “Leave now.” And then we see—now we’re going to look at very briefly—how it extends and then it comes to another marker in Genesis 9, the Flood. But what happened between this, and how does it affect you and me in our everyday life? Because from the Fall to the Flood, we see something that encompasses very significant events, developments of what, of the stage of God’s… How did it come that God says, “I’m going to deal with the…” We had some rain today, isn’t it? Imagine the flood coming in and destroying the whole earth, huh? Maybe God was kind enough to send the rain this morning to help me with my sermon. Okay. So the Flood comes in.

So between Genesis 3 and between—from—from Genesis 3 to Genesis 6, we see three things again. Okay, what is it? The early human history—how, what happened here, they grew up. Number two, unfortunately, we see the progression of sin. And third, we see God intervening, interacting with man, with his creation, to bring redemption. Alright, so first, let’s look at this: the consequences of the Fall. What are the consequences? Genesis 3, like I said, please read the first nine chapters if you can. It describes the Fall where Adam and Eve disobey God’s command. Why? By eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that act of rebellion introduces sin, but sin has its consequences. What are the immediate consequences?

Number one, separation from God. God says, “Adam, Eve, leave now. For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son.” Sin separates, whatever it is, sin separates. Sin always—when we—when we damage relationship, what happens? Always that wrong brings a friction, brings a fracture. It destroys, you know, when—when we are not right with God, you don’t like to read the Bible, isn’t it? You find praying very difficult, isn’t it? You find worshiping very—why? Because that fractured relationship, that compromise, has caused separation. It separates us, and it damages the relationship. And God is always drawing us and saying, “Come.” Since the beginning of time, I’ve always pursued. So when I want to be independent, what do I do? My heart is distant from God. I want to be independent from my parents’ rule. I want to be independent from being accountable to my my spouse. I want to be independent from being accountable to—to spiritual community. I want to be independent. I want to be—that always strains. Always, no matter what.

So, separation from God. Adam and Eve were banished. What does it signify? Broken relationship with God. The second thing is when we read through: it’s a curse and a struggle. God says, “The ground is going to be cursed.” And he says, “Woman, you’re going to bear the children in serious significant labor. Painful. Childbearing will be painful.” Third, we see the death, what part of human existence: physically and spiritual death. We all die.

So what happens? Let’s look at the early generations and the spread of sin. In Genesis 4, we—the famous Cain and Abel story, right? Cain and Abel. What does Cain do? Oh dear, he kills a brother, isn’t it? We see sin beginning to manifest its ugly head. Cain, in a fit of jealousy, murders his brother. He demonstrates what sin is now working in him, and it’s going to turn his disobedience to a place of violence, murdering people. God confronts Cain, and, you know, when you read chapter 4 of Genesis, we may see God dealing with Cain, but actually, God was kind to Cain, to say there is still redemption ready for you if you turn your heart back. So Cain’s, if you look at Genesis 4, Genesis 5, his descendants ended up building cities, they developed different parts of culture, but you know what? When you read it, sin began to flourish. Sin increased, and we will read our scripture soon.

But then Adam and Eve have another son, Seth. Not “sad,” Seth, just in case. Spelled also differently. Okay. And through the lineage of Seth, Genesis 4:26 says, people begin to call upon the name of God. People begin to call upon the name of the—this begins the godly lineage of the descendants of Cain, okay, from—sorry, contrast to Cain, sorry, this is the godly lineage. So, the growth of humanity and the increase of wickedness: Genesis 5 provides the genealogy from Adam to Noah. And what else does it show? The expansion of the human race.

Okay, sorry if it’s boring, just some details, and then I—I want to get to Noah. Okay, population growth. Wow, okay, boom—it’s a boom of humanity. Humanity multiplies, but with the multiplication of humanity and the population, there was an increase of wickedness. So we read all kinds of things that happen. What does it happen now? Now it says, “God is grieved, and he has a decision to judge.” Let’s read Genesis 6: “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth.” I want you to follow this narrative just for a while, okay. Creation, God, blessing, sin. God says, “Leave,” and as they grow, this is still an issue.

“Wickedness of the human race had become so bad on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts…” If you are underlining, look at this very carefully. It is talking about every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” His heart was only evil all the time—all the time. So God reveals. He says, “Yeah, the Lord regretted.” Now, have you ever read this and wondered, why did God regret something he created? “The Lord regretted.” So that means, what? What does it mean, God regretted? We regret a lot of things, right? But what did God regret? “The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth.”

Parents, when you really get upset, say, “Hey yo, why did I give birth to you?” Too late; you already made the kid, man. “The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” Deeply troubled. So it reveals God’s sorrow over what? Over [Music] wickedness—wickedness of humanity, total corruption. “Every inclination,” it says, “of the heart and the thought of man is continuously evil.” So God regrets—God—God expresses regret, and people look at this. Okay, God—God, what?—expresses… He said, “Why—why is this, that they are always after corruption, always involved in violence?” Now this passage—again, I am going to do a lot of things in three today. Okay, so again, it invites us to look at three things. Number one, this passage invites us to see the gravity of sin.

Okay, the gravity of sin. It invites us to see the gravity of sin. What Adam and Eve—what Eve thought was so simple: “I am going to be autonomous, I am going to do my own thing”—leads to what? Every action you and I take, we may say, “I have a right,” but pause and always think and ask yourself, how does it—? And—and I know people get—get—men, please look at me—men, we like to be heroes and king of the jungle, but our actions affect our families, our actions affect society. Crucify the ego, whether you’re married or not married. Careful. Women, your actions, and sometimes we can be—when I say “we,” ladies, okay—you can be manipulative to get your way. All of it has consequences. Everything.

Young people—yesterday you had No Apologies—I think it was a brilliant seminar. Choices, isn’t it? At the end of the day, No Apologies was about choices. Eve had a choice. Adam had a choice. Abel had a choice. Cain had a choice. Everyone that you read in Genesis had a choice. And if you go through the Bible, it’s about choice. And God says, “I give you, but you must learn to trust me, to obey me, because what I want to give you is beyond your imagination.”

We want prosperity without stewardship. I cannot stand to hear Christian businesspeople talk about, “Oh, I want to bless the kingdom.” I said, you’re so stingy with what you have. You don’t know how to bless the church, you don’t know how to bless people. It’s all about you, it’s about what you want, and you’re telling God must give you hundreds and millions. Come on. That’s a lie. That’s a lie. Come on. Don’t fall into the trap, “Oh, we had that prophecy.” I want to stone those fools.

Men, what do we do? We flaunt God’s provision. It’s dangerous. Please listen, guys. Listen. We live very much closer to the Lord’s return. We must get things straight. There must be some fear of God in our hearts. This passage invites us to understand the gravity of sin, but it also invites us to see the immense love of God. But it also shows us one thing: how God grieves over the broken relationship, strained relationship. So, Noah had great favor. So in the midst of all the corruption, God says, “I find this man to have it right. He is righteous in the midst of a corrupt generation.”

Prophetically, how can you and I see this prophetically, church? Friends, is that you and I stand up as God’s righteous standard in a corrupt culture. Men, raise up the standard of holiness in your life. Young people, raise up the standard of holiness. Women, raise up that standard of holiness in our lives. Don’t listen to the whispers of the deceptive serpent that comes through our social media and our movies and all that we read.

So between the period of the Fall and the Flood, it’s marked by what? A progressive decline of human morality, increase of violence and corruption. What are the lessons? I want to read one scripture here in the New Testament, Matthew 24:37. Jesus alludes to Noah’s time; he says, “As it was in the days of Noah,” because they all remember the story of Noah. He says, “Hey, do you remember what happened?” They all remembered. Now when Jesus was speaking to his audience, and he spoke that, they immediately remembered: creation, Fall, the Flood.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” That means we… “For in the days before the Flood…” What was happening? Kind of gave you big broad strokes, isn’t it? “People were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”

I’m so tired of hearing Christian prophetic—all these fools must be stoned. And I wish they all just zip their mouth. Be quiet. Go back and read the Bible. Your so-called prophetic words and some of us are so trapped with it. Doesn’t trump and doesn’t cancel God’s word. So, careful what you listen to and who you’re listening to.

So it is—what was the condition then? The filth of compromise and greed. Look at our world today. Is the church very far from it? No. It’s everything. “Give me more, give me more.” Hey, we have concerts on Sunday rather than worship. He says, “Hey, that’s a warning. I’m telling you, it’s going to happen.” So what is it? The seriousness of sin, the rapid increase of sin and disobedience. So much. Look at the way we treat human life today. That’s the impact of the Fall. Next is God’s judgment and mercy.

Despite human corruption, God’s interaction with people like Cain and Noah demonstrates God’s mercy and justice. How does that speak to you and me? As much as we are a standard, hey, engage people, tell them of God’s great mercy and love. Don’t leave reaching out to people, inviting people to church, to somebody else. All of us who have had the grace and mercy of God in our life and we say we’ve received salvation and we’re going to take communion today, all of us are supposed to wake up and say, “God, I need to reach people because it’s not going to be the Flood like it happened then, but it’s going to be your second return. And God, have mercy on us all, have mercy on all my family and my relatives, have mercy on my friends, oh God, have mercy on me, God. Let me live right.”

Why? Because we have hope in God’s faithfulness. The lineage of Seth and the faithfulness of Noah provides what? It provides hope and a reminder. It’s a reminder to us that the importance of us maintaining our relationship with God, despite what’s happening in society. Be a counterculture, not—and not swallowed by the culture. Eve is such a story for us, isn’t it? She looked and it was good. Yeah, of course, those things look good around us. But at what expense, my friends? At what expense? Independence, at what expense?

So Genesis 9:1-4: The Flood has come. It has destroyed everybody, everything. And the ark is a picture of Jesus, redemptive, saving us. And finally, after the rain recedes, the water comes down, they land on a mountain. And you know the story: he sends out the dove, then it comes back the second time with an olive branch. Now God says, “Okay, okay, Noah, let’s hit the reset button.”

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them—now, doesn’t it sound like Genesis—”Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” Let’s carry on. “The fear and the dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and all the fish in the sea. They are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” Just pause here for a while. What’s the difference between the first account and the second account? Now you can makan the babi. I mean, no, I mean, they still couldn’t.

You realize now you can eat meat? So there are people who will say, “God, in his creation, says only vegetation.” They forget to go to chapter 9. Somehow they miss chapter 9 because chapter 9 can say, “But there’s one thing. There’s no Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” So God says, “Now I bless you. I give you this, but there’s one thing you cannot do again.” There’s one thing. “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.” I know some people love to eat meat with all that blood, isn’t it? Sin, brother, sin. Why? Why? Is God a killjoy? No. Listen to this.

So God blesses them and he says, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.” He reiterates the entire blessing of Adam and Eve. He emphasizes—he renews all this to humanity after the Flood. But unlike Genesis 1, where only plants were given, now we’re given animals as well. So human diet, we have extra protein. But there’s one thing he forbids them: “Don’t eat the flesh that has blood.” Why? Have you heard the term, “He sucked my blood already,” isn’t it? “Sucked my blood already,” Asian terms, isn’t it? If you’ve heard the term “bled to death,” blood is life, isn’t it? In Leviticus, it says there, “The life is in the blood.”

Two, the atonement. Whenever they came before the priest to atone for their sin, it was the life that was in the animal. They slaughtered the animal. The blood was splashed on the altar. For what? For atonement. The blood. The priest, the high priest, would go to the Holy of Holies. What would he sprinkle? The blood. “It’s your blood that cleanses me.” We go to Revelation. “By the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony, we overcome.” Jesus says, “Drink this, drink my blood.” The New Covenant. So God says, “Respect that.” We want blood, isn’t it? Look at the way we kill lives. Look at the way we torture people. God says, “You don’t consume blood.”

Why? He says, “At the end of the day, life belongs to me, not to you.” We maintain respect for the life of creatures, of creatures, his creation. You go to Scotland—I remember going to Scotland—blood pudding is really blood. It’s… okay, anyway, let me come back here. Blood.

So what is the difference? Few things here. Number one, in Genesis 1, God gave the blessing. Blessing, dominion, stewardship, amen? He gives all this, plant-based diet, so the vegans never came out from Genesis 1, never read Genesis 9, okay? No explicit prohibition in Genesis 1. Huh. But God implies, “Hey, be a steward. Take care, be responsible, take care of creation.” Genesis 2, God gives the blessing: garden, everything in it. One thing prohibited: “Do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Okay? And God calls them into obedience. Then you jump to Genesis 9. It’s a blessing, it’s a renewal of the mandate: be fruitful, multiply, expand. “Hey, I give you diet as well. Now I give you the animal, but don’t consume the blood. Life is sacred to God. Life is sacred to God.” The way we butcher people in war…

Reflections. Stewardship and dominion. God’s blessing always includes a responsibility. Can I hear an amen? God’s bless… so when you pray, “God, bless me, bless me,” friend, also say, “God, let me be responsible. Let me be responsible.” I must be responsible because I cannot say I want that. You know, when I want God’s blessing, then I must manage it the way God wants me to manage it. Am I generous? You know, you’ve heard the term “crocodile hands,” have you? Everybody makan, then when it’s time to pay, the hand cannot move, cannot reach the pocket. T-B-O. You know, generosity is an expression of God.

How do I treat my 24 hours? God’s blessing. How do I treat my income? God’s blessing. How do I treat what I have? God’s blessing. How do I treat the community of people that I come and worship with every Sunday? God’s blessing. How do I handle the home God has given me? God’s blessing. How do I handle the family that I have? How do I handle the resource of education that God gives me? Church, everything is given by God. You don’t say, “My own two hands did this.” God blessed. You don’t bargain. Don’t be arrogant.

That’s why I said, serve the Lord with gladness, but who cares about your opinion if you say, “Now come on, church.” I know some of you, “Oh, you know, I don’t like this.” It doesn’t matter. Truth is truth. If I say now I come to the table, I’m saying, “God, my life belongs to you.” “Oh, but I think God’s wisdom…” That’s the problem with Eve. I don’t trust God’s wisdom. I don’t trust God’s giving. I will always have to do it my way. God’s blessing always includes a responsibility. Humanity is to care for and manage God’s creation. All he has given us, everything that he has given us, from the young to the old, all of us reflecting what? His image. In the image of God, he made us in His image.

The next one, obedience and trust. The prohibition in Genesis 2 highlights the need for obedience and trust in God’s wisdom. Disobedience leads to broken relationships and the consequences. Third is the sanctity of life. The prohibition in Genesis 9 underscores what? The value of life. Even after the Flood, post-Flood world, where human and animals’ relationships change. It changed. In Genesis 1, hey, the animals were not scared. Now they look at you, they say, “Oh, you come to hunt.” Man became a hunter. Where human and animal relationships changed, respect for life remains the most important. Paramount.

This narrative, dear friends, sets the stage for understanding humanity’s role—it doesn’t change—in God’s creation. The boundaries set for their good, our good, the blessings of living within God’s design. Amen? Earlier on, I read chapter 6 and I said, God grieved. So God grieves over sin. What is it? God has deep sorrow over the sin of men and humanity’s wickedness and corruption. Sin grieves God. Why? Because it destroys our relationship with him, that he desires to have with us.

This grief that God experiences does not indicate that God will change his plan, but it highlights one thing, dear friends: that he has—please listen to this—he has an emotional engagement with you and me and his creation. God has that tie. We can be so closely affiliated in our hearts, in our minds, in our emotions with a person, whether it be a spouse, whether it be a parent, whether it be a child, whether it be somebody else, or whatever it is, there’s such a strong… emotional… magnify that, amplify that, multiply that. God feels that way for you, and he longs for that.

So it’s not a chore to read his word. It’s not a chore to come before God. You see, the grief—we know what grief is, isn’t it? We know what grief is. There’s always human free will. We all want that. So God created man with free will, knowing this—please listen—knowing this: that he, meaning man, had the capacity to reject God. But this freedom is essential for what? Genuine love and relationship. You cannot force somebody to love you, right?

So if at my free will I constantly bargain to love God, I don’t want to read his word, I don’t want to worship, I will worship when I feel like it. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to give, I don’t want to serve, I don’t want to honor, I don’t want to live by principle, I’m selfish, it’s about me—it comes back to the Garden, Eve. It looks good. Wow. But look, God gave everything. “No, I want that. I want my freedom. You don’t have to tell me what I can have or don’t have.”

The sorrow expressed by God in Genesis 6 reflects the consequences of human freedom. I want to say this again: the regret, the pain of God’s heart reflects the consequences of man’s freedom. I want you to pause. I want you to think for a while: does my freedom inflict sorrow to God’s heart? Yeah, he gives freedom, but does that freedom inflict sorrow? I want us to think of that. We are all confronted—all of us—we are confronted with this question.

In preparing for this, you know, I look at it and said, well, actually, that consequence of freedom inflicted sorrow on God. Pain. I don’t like somebody to inflict—if my kids want that freedom, it inflicts sorrow. Come on, mom, dad, it inflicts sorrow, pain, upset, anger. So can—can—can I now say, “God, how have I been doing this to you? How have I been doing this to you? I don’t like people doing that to me. I like my relationships to be, to be, to be, you—you know, hey, back and forth, hey, give and take, to be honest, to be sincere. I don’t like to be taken for granted. I don’t like to be abused.”

The extent of humanity’s departure from God’s grace, mercy, blessing is so prevalent, we don’t see it. There’s this thing called anthropomorphic language—don’t worry about it, okay? I didn’t create that word; theologians created it. They use this language in the Bible—they said this language is used in the Bible to describe God, okay, to his emotions, especially to describe his emotions, his feelings, to help us understand his nature. So when we say “God regretted” or “God was grieved,” it is to communicate one thing: of his heart, his response to our sin, our rebellion, our independent attitude that we can comprehend. It doesn’t imply that God was surprised we made a mistake.

No, why? We’re going to look at the next one here, and I’m going to land. Worship team, if you can come. God’s justice and mercy. And as I explain this and I read two scriptures, and we read the last slide, I want us to prepare our hearts for communion this morning. I want us to prepare ourselves for communion this morning. You see, despite God’s regret—talk about justice and mercy—God’s decision to start anew with Noah demonstrates what, brothers and sisters? It demonstrates one thing: his justice and his mercy, his love and his concern, his compassion, his heart for you and me, for humanity. His justice requires what? Dealing with wickedness. God has to deal with wickedness. His mercy will preserve us. His mercy preserved mankind through Noah, the family. He provided redemption, restoration. Down the road, Jesus comes, and on that day, he says, “Take, eat, my body, broken for you. Take, drink, my blood, poured out for you.”

[Music] Freely you have received, freely give. I now send you. My faith is not for myself. The grace of God is not for me to say, “Bless me, bless me, bless me.” It is for me to be the redemptive agent of God in His image, to demonstrate and say, like Noah’s time, “Lord, let me stand and demonstrate that I’m not consumed by the culture around me.”

See, young people, I completely disagree when we say, “We cannot disengage from social media.” You don’t like liars. Neither do I. Neither does God. Who says you cannot disengage from pornography? Who says you cannot disengage from the consumption of social media? Who says you cannot disengage from drugs? Who says? The serpent in the garden or God’s truth? “I can’t change.” Who said that? I don’t want to. If I actually take my handphone, I always leave it on Sunday because I don’t want, and I actually say to the parent, and say, “The kids are with us, you know. Oh, they hate it.” “No, check in your handphone.” Why? Freedom. “I’m not a kid, I’m an adult.” See, my thing is this: if you’re an adult, behave like one. Fair? If you’re an adult, behave like one. “You know how old I am?” “I don’t know, please tell me how old you are, and at your age…”

See, this is rough conversation. This is raw conversation with your pastor. I’m not going to petty-cake you, okay? Why? Because the Lord is returning, and you must be ready for him. We did a 40-day journey. We’ve got a few more days of purity. We did it with the—I did it with the young people, the worship team, and some of it I’ve been sending it to you. But the whole issue is, can I pursue holiness? I can. Those who meet in the house, I’ll tell them. “I know you don’t like it when I correct you, but the issue is, it’s for your benefit to be a better person.” So the issue is this: your independence—is it hurting? Who? Now, church, we are going to come to the table this morning.

Parents, we also mustn’t excuse our children’s horrible compromises. Some will be just hard-headed and drive that rebellion. Our place is to stand in the gap, pray, intercede for them. But young people today, as much as I’m going to challenge everybody, I’m challenging all of you young people today—youth, youth culture, young adults—all of you, make the stand to be a counterculture. Don’t say, “It can’t.” No. Please, you have a choice. You cannot say you cannot stop secular music. “I’m consumed by secular music. I don’t even listen to worship.” That’s your choice because you think worship is boring, because you think worship songs are boring. And yet the people that we listen to live such horrible lives, and yet we will call somebody else in church a hypocrite. Who’s the real hypocrite? Sorry, this is…

This is Elisha, stand. Why? I’ve got one life to live. I don’t have ten lives to live. I face the Lord just like you, and we need to make a stand. Will we decide? Psalm 78:4, it says, “How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the wasteland.” Even when God took them out of Egypt, God broke them off that bondage. God takes us out from our past, and we still struggle with God. Ephesians 4: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” God was grieved by the sin of men. [Music] Says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.”

We ask ourselves some hard questions. “Lord, I want to stop grieving you. Where do I grieve you, Lord? I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Lord, because I want to live an independent life. But if I read Genesis 1, 2, all the way through 9 and more, I look at it and say, ‘This is what independence did. This is what it did.'” Last one: God experiences more sorrow than anger when we choose to disobey and live independently of his love and authority. No, God is not his killjoy, angry. No, he is grieved. Why? It messes up the relationship. He gives us his blessing. He gives us dominion, but calls us to trust him, that he has the best for us, and that we are stewards of everything he gives us—everything, church, everything. Time, talent, treasure, family, and community, our entire lives. Christianity actually is the most powerful revolution, but we struggle because we want to be independent of God.