Summary & Key points
In this sermon, Ps. Elisha explores the themes of creation, sin, and covenant, emphasizing the foundational aspects of God’s relationship with humanity:
- Creation and Boundaries: Ps. Elisha explains that God created Adam and Eve with roles of stewardship and responsibility, giving them dominion over creation but setting a boundary with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This boundary was a call to obedience and trust, with the fall representing humanity’s initial move toward independence from God’s will.
- The Power of Covenant: Describing covenant as a sacred commitment and agreement, Ps. Elisha uses the example of marriage to illustrate how covenant requires mutual respect, honor, and commitment. He highlights the relationship between Christ and the church, urging believers to uphold their roles with integrity both in family life and in the church, demonstrating God’s values through sincere relationships.
- Contentment in God: Through a personal story, Ps. Elisha shares an encounter with a humble family who radiated joy despite having little material wealth. This reflection led him to question the true source of happiness, reminding the congregation that the pursuit of material gain and societal validation can detract from genuine contentment and spiritual connection with God.
- Seeking God’s Presence Over Material Blessings: Ps. Elisha challenges believers to seek God’s presence rather than His material gifts. He urges the church to find satisfaction in God’s love, calling them to prioritize an intimate relationship with Him over worldly pursuits, and to rediscover the peace and joy that come from a life centered on God rather than on accumulating possessions.
Good morning. Come on, look at somebody and say, “Good morning, good morning. Good to see you, good to see you.” You know, I’ve been kind of parked between a few chapters of Genesis, and I just want to keep building it. You know, the whole issue of creation, actually, which I touched on very, very, very, very, very, very, very briefly, but talked about the place of Adam and Eve, how the fall—what was the real issue? What is the meaning of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? And we saw the whole issue of, you know, independence—not trusting God, wanting our own thing. And then we still hear the whispers of the enemy. We don’t have talking snakes, but we have talking heads who whisper the lies of the snake into our ears, into our lives, whether it’s through social media, whether it’s people, friendships, books, movies—whatever it may be—and how, actually, that carries on till today. And how, actually, Jesus comes.
So the scriptures that we’re going to read right now are kind of just going to briefly look over what we’ve done for the last few weeks, and then we’re going to dive a bit deeper today, all right?
Genesis 1:26-30:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our own image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said—we kind of covered that a bit last week, right?—“Be fruitful and increase in number.”
This is, if you look at it theologically, they have a few covenants that we see in the Old Testament, and this we call the Adamic Covenant—God making a covenant with Adam, and hence with man. And let’s see how it goes on. Today, we’re going to look at, briefly, three overviews and then understanding the covenant: “Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, 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.”
God blesses, plants a garden, and says, “It’s all yours—but except one,” right? Okay, let’s move on.
“And to all the beasts of the earth, and all the birds of the sky, and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has breath in it—I give every green plant for food,” and it was so.
Genesis 2:15-17:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to—what?—to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, 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.”
Please listen to this here. Remember, he spoke to the man. He said, “You shall not eat.” Okay, so there’s a sense God gives us a place of responsibility, accountability, and he says, “Hey, in this relationship, hey, listen here, Adam—everything but there’s one thing that you don’t do in this relationship.” All right, move on.
Genesis 3:14-19:
So the Lord God said to the serpent—this was after Eve was deceived by the enemy—you know, and he says, “Did God really say?” and she saw it was good, she takes it, and she gives it to Adam. Now, Adam should have had the sense to do what? To say no. This is not right.
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
This is already God speaking of what’s going to happen when Jesus comes—okay? Bruising him, and actually Jesus will break that curse and set mankind free again.
To the woman, he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe.” All of you who have given birth—severe. When you go to heaven, you know who to see first. With painful labor, you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
To Adam, he said, “Because you listened to your wife—I mean for the right thing, not for the wrong thing—and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you—Adam, I spoke to you—you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; from dust you are, and to dust you will return.”
“But I will establish”—here’s the word—“my covenant with you.” Now God is speaking to Noah. So we saw it in the last few weeks, right? Adam, Eve, then they had Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel, and then different offspring. Man multiplies, and then we saw it again last week, isn’t it? It says the desire of man is continuously evil. God says, “I regret”—right? I mean, “What have you done? You’ve taken what I’ve given you, and you’ve abused it, and you live for yourself.”
So God says, “I will establish my covenant with you.” He’s speaking to Noah—that’s the word there, covenant. “And you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.”
Then Noah built an altar—this was after they had finished the whole, what you call, the floods, okay? And Noah finally anchors on a mountain, whichever that mountain may be. Everybody is guessing, so don’t believe all those conspiracy theories—“They found the ark, they found this.” Only God knows where it is, okay? And when the first thing he does is this: he builds an altar. He sacrifices—the first time now the sacrifice is taking place, isn’t it?
And taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. Now, just in a bit of a side thing here, we always think, if you read carefully the Genesis account, we always think it’s just two by two, by two, by two. Yes? No? We saw that—actually, that’s not true. Do you know which is the only created being that wasn’t on the ark? Fish. How to die? No fish tank? No fish tank, yeah.
If you read carefully—some of you, oh yeah, yeah, it’s okay, you can take me out later—if you read carefully, there were different animals that were in sets of sevens. You know why? Well, not how. If only two—the moment he gave the offering—extinct! So we must read the Bible a bit more carefully, huh?
So Noah, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every”—again, that’s the word—“inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.” So don’t say, “Innocent as a child.”
“And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. As long as the earth endures”—this is beautiful—“seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter”—I always ask God, “Why give us four seasons?”—“summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.”
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” We see this whole thing revisited again, isn’t it? Yeah.
Then we move on. They multiply, and then God says, “I have to move on in my covenant. I have to move on.” Now he comes to this person by the name of Abraham.
Genesis 12: Then the Lord said to Abram (later Abraham), “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.”
You see this whole covenantal language coming out over and over again—from Adam and Eve to Noah, and then now to Abraham, okay? God is carrying on with this: “I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”
When we jump into what you call Galatians, we will also see Paul speaking about this covenant, which we might look at next week: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
So one spectrum here, okay? Can you shout this word: covenant? Covenant! You know we have the Old Testament—Old Covenant—and the New Testament—New Covenant. Okay.
We all have in our lives—you sign agreements, anybody? That’s known as a covenant, isn’t it? An agreement, right? Yeah, agreement. When you get married, what do you do? You exchange vows. It’s a covenant. When you do business—agreement—it’s a covenant.
So a lot of different things. And we will look at covenant in the next few weeks to understand why is it such a big deal for God about relationships, about agreeing together? Why is it such a big deal? How do we see this happening in Jesus? What does it mean to you and me? What does it mean to Jesus and us? How does it manifest with you and me together, whether in our families, in society, or in church? Okay, so we’re going to see this whole thing about the power of covenant.
Now I want you to remember this picture Ben picked up. Now, if you look at it, it’s roots, right? So I’m not talking about roots here, but when the root loses its hold on where it’s supposed to be, it begins to slip, okay? Covenant holds everything—everything—together. So the power of covenant.
But let me ask you a question again: what is a covenant? What is a covenant in its simplest yet most powerful and profound understanding? I’ve already used the two words. It means this: commitment and agreement. Everybody say it with me: commitment and agreement. One more time: commitment and agreement. Very simple, okay?
From the beginning, God establishes covenants with mankind—sacred agreements that define his relationship with us. And it doesn’t stop there—our responsibilities to him.
In Genesis, we see these covenants unfolding, beginning at Adam. It moves on to Noah, then we see it developing in Abraham, and then it moves on. Okay, now I want to look at the next thing here. Like I said, I will develop the thought in the next few weeks. By the end of these particular thoughts, you will be able to talk about covenant to a lot of people.
Our responsibility: the covenant with Adam was what? God gives an outline to humanity: be fruitful, multiply, have dominion on the earth. But he gives one prohibition: “Don’t touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Adam and Eve’s sin—what did it do? It was the entry point of sin into the human race. Now, in the Hebrew language again, the idea of sin has this meaning. It’s actually talking about crossing boundaries that have been set by God. You cross a boundary. God says, “Don’t cross.” You cross. “Don’t touch.” “I touch.”
You see that in children. “Don’t touch.” What do they do? Touch.
So it talks about crossing the boundary. When we look at it further, it actually has the meaning of missing the mark. That’s the mark God gives, but I miss it because I decide to not want to pursue that—or straying from the path.
So this leads—what has led all mankind to the fall? Curse. And then God needing to redeem, and we see that happening with Jesus.
Noah, same thing. It’s like a reset. After the flood, God says, “I won’t destroy.” And what was the sign of the covenant? The rainbow. God says, “I will give you a sign in the sky. Every time you see the rainbow, remember this promise: I will not destroy man with a flood again.”
Because man destroyed the earth, not God bringing floods down.
So then we see Abraham. God further reveals. So these covenants—what do they highlight? Very simple. There is a place of obeying God, and there’s a place to be responsible in our part of the covenant.
So it’s not this—and we have it in, uh, we have it too much in these teachings today. What do we say? “Because you’re a Christian, you are supposed to be prosperous.” But it never talks about the part of you being responsible.
It’s like a kid saying—it’s like a teenager saying, “Give me the credit card, give me an open credit line,” but is the kid being responsible with that credit card or not? Isn’t it? We exhaust credit cards, right? That’s an abuse.
I remember this young person came to talk to me one day—three credit cards, overdrawn, in debt. I took his three credit cards. I said, “I can solve your problem.”
“How, Pastor?”
I took out scissors from my drawer—I kid you not, I did it—I cut all three cards in front of him. He left so angry. Until today, he says nasty things about me, but he never tells the story about me picking his three cards and saying, “You are addicted to spending money. You’re in a mess.”
So don’t come for counseling with me, okay? Very straightforward. This is yes, this is no. This is right, this is wrong. This is black, this is white. Which one do you want? Very simple.
All right, so I’ll never be a good psychologist. A knock on the head—“Wait, just do what is right.” Anyway, it’s a powerful example.
So, is it just that, you know, now that you’re a Christian, everything is okay? No, no. It’s a covenant. Let me explain a bit more. Let me use the marriage covenant as an example.
It’s a powerful example when we look in the New Testament, when we look at the book of Ephesians, when we look at the Beatitudes—Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7—all right? It speaks about relationships. It speaks about husband and wife, children and parents, parents and children.
So this whole marriage covenant, marriage relationship, actually is a powerful demonstration, a symbol of the covenant with God, okay? Because in the covenant, God establishes responsibility and roles—okay? God’s part, our part, okay?
Marriage defines roles of the husband and the wife—mutual respect, honor, commitment. You know, uh, culture comes in and messes it up in many different ways, isn’t it? You know, in some cultures, when the husband dies, the wife has to burn herself. I’m like, “Hey, you’re going to burn yourself? What for? Why die for me?” You know?
Think of it sometimes. In some cultures, they will say, “The husband is like God.” No, he’s not God. And if you look at the scriptures again—prophet, priest, and king is given. But we always think we are kings. But we forget that we are supposed to be priests, and forget that we are supposed to be this example, you know, of pursuing God and chasing our heart.
It’s supposed to be that way. Sometimes dads—and I know you guys get upset with me—but you know what? The example that we set is: Do we have a heart after God? Do we have a heart after God?
Our wives—are they inspired? The boy that you want to date—you know—hey, you know, is his heart after God, or after himself? Or after lust, or after sex, or after money? After what?
So after marriage, what? You know?
So, hey, listen here. Listen here, everybody.
(You’re like, “Why did I come today? I should not have missed a day!”)
No, listen. This is the most powerful demonstration of covenant God gives us—through the family.
The role of husband and wife and children—honor, commitment.
Husband—we’re supposed to be protectors. But you know—yeah, we’re supposed to be providers. But today, wives also work. And sometimes the problem is we have house husbands, isn’t it? Okay? Husbands can miss it.
Hey, if both work, that’s fine. Praise God, right? Everyone—you don’t answer, right? Everybody, yeah.
So, I don’t think there’s any issue whether the wife earns more, less, or 100 times more. Whatever the issue is, can we honor and respect? Very important.
So there’s a place—you know—the wife’s place of supporting, building the home together. Honor and respect for one another reflects the relationship between Christ and the church: love, truth, faithfulness, trust.
Listen, I give you that example for one thing. If I get upset—now in the New Testament, it says the church is the bride of Christ. Right? Okay.
So I’m telling you, it’s the bride of Christ. That means God says, “I’m like a husband, and you’re a wife.”
How do we treat the bride?
I want us to consider this very carefully because we can be vicious with our mouths, with our commands—men and women. We can treat the church very badly. We can treat the body very selfishly.
You see, if at home you come in and come out and you say, “Hey, this is not a hotel.” Everybody plays a role at home. Yes? No? Do we play roles—our roles—well?
In the body, we belong to him. He belongs to us. How do I live out this covenant?
When you read the New Testament, he tells us how to live together, how to honor one another. If there’s dishonor in the home, it’s a very stressful home, isn’t it?
If there’s dishonor and disrespect in the church, it’s also a stressful place.
Men just mouth off. We torture the church; we torture people. “You’re not going to go to church.” Wife, husband, or children—they’re not going to go.
You see the things that we do? You know what? We’re hurting. We’re hurting the body. We’re hurting the bride.
Covenant is very powerful, church. And God, in the New Testament, in making us relate to Christ and the covenant, speaks so powerfully through the marriage.
It’s very powerful. None of us can actually argue. How do I treat the bride? Do I attack?
Consider it carefully.
Imagine every time your kid gets upset, “I’m leaving home.” You want to smack that kid, isn’t it?
“I’m leaving church.” Grow up. Grow up. Play your role with honor, with respect, with sincerity.
Then the next layer comes in—procreation in the relationships. Another layer comes with children—parents and children. That relationship, again, is supposed to reflect what? God’s relationship of love, respect, nurture, responsibility.
And a father can get upset with kids at home but completely disrespect the church, and he thinks it’s okay.
A mother can be completely upset with the kids but completely misbehave with the body of Christ, and that’s all right.
And we say, “God, where are you? God is supposed to bless me.”
God says, “How are you treating my bride?”
Covenant.
What? Say Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham—all the way. He goes through, then he speaks to Israel.
Look, sometimes we champion the country so much. You know what? Sin is sin. Dishonor is dishonor.
If they dishonor the covenant, they pay the price. They pay the price.
So I’m not going to elevate a person and say, “Wow.” No. You dishonor, you dishonor. You’re bringing sin; you’re bringing a curse.
The whole thing is this: the marriage covenant, or this—it’s not a social contract. It’s a divine institution. It mirrors God’s covenant.
We live by God’s values. It’s a powerful testimony. It’s a powerful testimony.
I used to do marriage counseling. I no longer do it. No, I don’t.
Because halfway through, I already know what the marriage is all about.
Because I don’t do—you know the Alpha course? I don’t do all that. I have my own set of notes that I do. And one part of my notes is called expectations.
“What are your expectations? In-laws? Outlaws?” I do that, actually.
And I go through the whole thing. I ask a lot of questions, and halfway through, I already know this one will last or won’t last.
“What the marriage is all about?”
So, I remember this marriage—this discussion—and I said, “Why do you want to get married? I said, can you go back—don’t come next week—go back, you guys think. Don’t end up killing each other. But go and think. Throw plates at each other.”
My goodness.
And I said, “My goodness, I said if you all bring children into the world,” I said, “and please don’t tell your neighbors you all are Christians.”
I said, “Because you completely misrepresent God’s covenant.”
Very challenging.
So, the marriage is a powerful, powerful symbol.
How am I living with God as well? How do I look at God? How do I treat the covenant?
“God, you’re my Savior, as I lift my voice.” You know?
Hey, we talk about God. So if I’m the bride, how do I respond to him?
I’m looking at the time, and I’m looking at my notes.
An example of living by God’s values and being blessed. I want you to consider a family.
And it can be a family that has just a simple amount of money, a family who is middle class, and a family that has enough.
Okay, but I want to deal with a value here. Now let’s pick a family that is a simple family, a simple home—maybe a simple car. Everything is quite simple.
They are honest with one another. They are honest with people. They have good mutual respect with one another. They are happy people.
Neighbors love them. You know, they think, “Good people.” They share their simple life, but they have this sincere love for one another.
They enjoy simple meals—not extra, but simple meals. A simple meal, you know, a simple nasi lemak can bring the biggest joy for them.
You know, it can bring the biggest joy in their life.
Some of you—I think some of my most joyous times when we were also beginning dignity—we had different people staying with us. I think some of the most fun meals were in the food court.
Simple. You know, everybody sharing the food. We didn’t have a lot. You know, we really didn’t have a lot. Lord, a simple meal. But everybody is eating and having a fun time.
The heart is full of thankfulness, without stress of competing for branded goods. No societal need for approval. Nothing. Nothing.
“My friend has this, I don’t have this.” Nothing of that.
A personal story: I was driving to speak in another church. It was a beautiful, beautiful morning. Really beautiful. Sunshine, nice. I was just driving, and my thoughts—it was a strange morning, but of course, it was a setup for me.
It was a divine setup. God had set that morning up for me. He wanted to speak to my heart. We’re thick-headed at times.
And as I was on the highway, it’s like—it’s hard to explain—like God slowed everything down. You know in the movies, everything slows down? It’s odd.
And this car—it’s a simple, very simple car. It could use a paint job. You know, there’s a patch here and a patch there.
And like I said, everything slowed down, and my car came in almost this way. It’s odd. I don’t know how to tell you what happened that morning. It’s like God slowed everything down and moved all the other cars away.
And I can’t remember any other car, or motorbike, or anything.
I can take you today—I can drive you to the exact spot of where this happened. And this happened over 10 years ago. I can take you to the exact spot.
This family—it was obvious they had very simple, very little money.
And all of a sudden, I look into the car. Everybody is just so happy—mom and dad and three kids behind. I think the fourth one, yeah—one on the mother’s lap.
And it’s just… I feel like God saying, “Look, look at that. Look at that.”
I’m like, “What’s happening?”
And then this boy—maybe he’s 13, 14—he puts his head out of the window, and he’s laughing. And he’s just so happy, you know?
He goes back, he’s saying something to the mother. The mother laughs. He puts his head out again.
And all of a sudden, I felt God ask me a question: Do you have joy in your heart?
Huh? No. Do you need things to be happy?
Start looking at this. It’s a family that probably has more than them. It’s a very simple family, but they are so happy.
Have we lost our connection with God? Has it become all about things?
If it was about having something more—not satisfied with what God gave her—it is that pursuit that we wring our credit cards, we take loans, we get into debts.
Relationships break. Marriages break.
Because it’s money.
I will never forget that morning. I’ll never forget that morning. You know, till today, I can see that boy’s face. I can see his face in my mind.
I can see the father reaching out. I can see the color of the car.
Everything is so clear in my mind.
And then God—divine setup, you know—and God just speaks to my heart and says, “Son, are you happy? Do you have joy?”
“What do you mean now? Are you satisfied?”
When you’re not satisfied with your spouse, when you’re not satisfied with friendships and relationships, and the dissatisfaction with God—then we pursue something else.
We cross the boundary.
We crossed the boundary. We missed the mark.
We missed the mark.
Sunday—we want noise and lights and smoke machines and the feeling of “God, give, give, give, give, give.”
No. God says, “Hey. Come. Can we talk? Quiet time. Shhh.”
“Five minutes.”
“I’m busy. I’m busy.”
Prayer is always binding and loosing and getting something.
When we read Genesis, God walks in and says, “Adam, where are you?”
Adam is hiding.
Did God know where he was? Do you think God knew where he was or not?
See, when God asks this question, “Where are you? Do you have joy in your heart?”
“Do—why—no—do you trust me? Are you satisfied with me? Am I enough?”
Am I satisfied with God, His love? Can I see this covenant—God, you are my God. I will seek you. I will honor you.
Lord, I don’t seek your hand; I seek your face. God, I seek your face.
So often, we want to seek the hand of God and not the face of God.
“Adam, where are you?”
“We heard. We heard you.”
“Why?”
“We’re naked.”
“Who told you you’re naked? Adam, did you eat?”
“No. This woman.”
You see? Broken relationship. I always blame it on somebody else. Another circumstance.
It’s the church. It’s the pastor. It’s my husband. It’s my wife. My children. My teacher. My boss. The country.
So when God asks a question, He’s never looking for answers. He’s just drawing you in and saying, “Quiet your heart. Can you see what’s happening here?”
I want you to pause right now. Everybody, I want you to pause.
Are you satisfied in His love, or are you looking for more all the time?
All of us, just pause.
Am I satisfied, Lord?
Do I seek your face, or do I seek your hand?
Am I looking for satisfaction in all these other things except you?
Will money truly make me happy?
Will more houses, better jobs? Sure, but is that what you value as satisfaction in your heart?