NEW BEGINNINGS - a message of encouragement from God to His kids (the Jews and Jesus) about the new phase of life in which they were about to embark
* God to the Israelites:
* The Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land.
* What message would God have for them?
* God downloaded five books into Moses, one of them went back to the beginning - Genesis.
* The Jews needed this book to create a solid foundation for their new life.
* Many scholars believe that the Israelites fled Egypt around 1450-1440 BC.
* They also believe Moses wrote Genesis around 1400 BC.
* KEY - Whatever God forms He fills.
* But there’s an order to how He does it:
* Illumination - Separation - Habitation.
* He did this with all of creation - the earth first and then mankind.
* Gen 1:1-2 - He created the heavens and the earth.
* But the earth was FORMLESS - God needed to FORM it.
* The earth was VOID - He needed to FILL it.
* The Six Days of Creation are all about Him forming and filling.
* 1) ILLUMINATION: Gen 1:3
* 2) SEPARATION: Gen 1:4-9
* * light from darkness
* * waters below from waters above
* * land from water
* Illumination and separation prepared the way for habitation.
* 3) HABITATION:
* vs 10-31 - Vegetation, Animals, Humans.
Day 1 - Heavens and the earth (nothing but water) - He lit it up and split it up!
Day 2 - Sky - He separated the waters above and below
Day 3 - Land - He separated the water from the dirt - vegetation was a part of this
Day 4 - Stars - Gen 1:14-18 - Before habitation he had to create government so people could keep things separate.
Day 5 - Fish
Day 6 - Animals & Man
* EXAMPLE - ADAM: God did with Adam what He did with the earth.
* vs 2:19-20 - ILLUMINATION - no helper was “found” - he was looking.
* vs 2:21 - SEPARATION - feminine was removed from masculine.
* vs 2:22-25 - HABITATION - and they lived happily ever after.
* FLOOD - when God brought the flood He set the earth back to its original form (full of water) - He removed Separation. (Genesis 7:21)
* APPLICATION: Illumination - Separation - Habitation
* 1) Walk in the light. Spend time with God in prayer and the Word.
* 2) Stay separate from the world. “Be holy for I am holy.”
* 3) When we walk in the light and remain separate we live in God and He lives in us.
Gen 1-4 (1/8/13)
January 8, 2013 • Benham Brothers
Gen 1:2-16
* Order first, then Dominion
* Made man and then gave charge for dominion (1:26)
Gen 2:15
* Complete the Work
Gen 3:1-6
* If you leave your place of responsibility you lose your place of authority
Gen 4 - Cain's Sacrifice
* He gave a bad sacrifice
* The sin that crouched at his door came because of his poor sacrifice
* Bad sacrifice = rejection - God couldn't accept it and thus Cain got mad
* When anger birthed in his heart murder crouched at his door
* It all hinges on what type of sacrifice you give
Gen 1-12 (1/22/13)
January 22, 2013 • Benham Brothers
BIG PIC:
Adam - Noah (Shem, Hem, Japheth) - Abe - Isaac - Jacob - 12 Tribes - Moses (govt) - Joshua - Judges & Prophets (to enforce what Moses put in place) - cried for King - SILENCE.
* OT - God wanted you to keep you distance
* NT - God wanted you to come close
* Order had to come before God created Adam / Order had to come before God sent Jesus
Gen 1-12 (1/23/14)
January 23, 2014 • Benham Brothers
The whole bible can be divided into 2 segments: 1) Gen 1-11 - Beginnings (beginnings of man, earth, sin, etc). 2) Gen 12 - Rev 22 - it's the story of redemption. God created man to deal with the darkness that was on the earth - He made man to do battle with Satan.
When God told Adam to take dominion over all the earth that included Satan too.
When God wants to touch His material universe He does it through the portal of man. If it happens any other way it is called a miracle.
God made man to be His weapon of warfare against Satan and the battleground is the earth!
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil meant that man could determine what was good and what was evil - this was the great temptation. Eating from this tree replaced God with you, because you yourself become the judge between good and evil.
God put the tree there to give Adam an opportunity to put his faith in Him - this is the only thing that pleases God.
Satan tempted Eve - the anatomy of sin: Untruth leads to Unfaith leads to Disobedience leads to Curse. The anatomy of redemption: Truth leads to Faith leads to Obedience leads to Blessing.
Truth & Blessing are not "things" - they are not "its" - they are a PERSON. God Almighty.
Adam abandoned his place of responsibility and lost all authority over Eve, so she sinned and he did too.
Sin now entered into the equation - it separated man from God.
Sin always intensifies and it always extensifies. So God needed to do something about sin.
The same phrase in Gen 3:16 is the same one God used with Cain in the next chapter - when a man vacates his responsibility he loses all authority. The woman would now desire to have authority over the man, and the man's desire will be to just let it happen. This was the result of sin.
Sin extensified to a point where God wanted to start over, so he wiped out the face of the earth with a flood - Genesis 6.
Everything starts over with Noah, but then in Genesis 11 God needed to deal with sin again, so he confuses the language at Babel and thus ended the story of Beginnings.
Now, in Genesis 12, God gives His plan for redemption. He was going to bring about redemption for man through a man. He chose Abram!
The most quoted OT verse in the NT (it was quoted 14 times) - Psalm 110:1 - "The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for Your feet." This was used in reference to Jesus sitting at God's right hand. God was telling Jesus to sit down and stay down until He makes Jesus' enemies a footstool under His feet. Man would be the weapon God uses to accomplish this.
God was going to send Jesus to the earth but He first wanted to prepare the way for Him to come, so He needed a chosen people to bring Jesus through - the Jews
Abraham was the first of "God's chosen people"
Gen 1 (1/2/14)
January 2, 2014 • Benham Brothers
1) God - it all begins with Him
2) Creation - God created something
3) Illumination - God had to "light up" the darkness. Darkness came first, then light. It's the same in nature - night always comes before day - it's the announcement that day is coming.
4) Separation - what He created was "all mixed into one," so He separated it
5) Governance - God gave us light "fixtures" by which we could govern our actions - so we would know when day was coming and going. In the NT we see that "we" are God's light fixtures to help govern this world!
6) Order - He brought order to things before He created life (just like man was not "made," he was "formed" - there was order to man's creation, a process where God formed him like a potter forms a vessel. God made all the animals at once, but he brought about people gradually. We gradually populated the earth, the same way the Jews gradually took over the Promised Land.
7) Dominion - the first reason God created man was so that he could rule, have dominion
8) Rest - Gen 2:1 - after God did all these things, completing His work, He rested!
Genesis 1 (1/7/16)
January 7, 2016 • Benham Brothers
• God forms and fills everything for man to govern the world we live in.
• The world needed order first - then we could have dominion.
• LIGHT has to come first - this is God’s presence.
• Light did two things:
• 1) SEPARATION - Holy means “set apart” - like a chocolate chip.
• 2) GOVERN - the sun, moon, and stars are used to govern.
• vs 22 - The first blessing - taking part in creation.
• vs 28 - The difference in this blessing is that we have the authority to govern.
Genesis (1/4/23)
January 4, 2023 • Benham Brothers • Genesis 1
If you want to accomplish anything in life, picture what you want to accomplish and wrap a process around it. This is how franchises are successful. God works through process. So should we. Two Keys to Victory in your Life: 1) Create a Process. Def - “A series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.” Process gives you power. God’s process - illumination, separation, habitation. Illumination is all about JESUS (Tony Evans note). Genesis 1:3 - “Let there be JESUS!” God’s process created “time” and “seasons” (evening & morning). Time is determined by JESUS! (B.C. and A.D.). There would be time to stop and a time to start. A time to work and a time to rest. 2) Celebrate the process - “It is good!” If you want to stick to the process you have to celebrate the process. Why? Because God created us for reward. Celebrating little victories gives you fuel to keep going. Apart from celebrating you can’t experience rest in the process. Without rest there is no peace. Vs 31 - “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good…” When it was all said and done, God declared it “VERY” good.
Genesis 1:2 (1/4/18)
January 4, 2018 • Benham Brothers
* Whatever God forms He fills.
* He has an end goal, but He brings it about through a process.
* He could have done it all in one day, but He took 6.
* God is glorified as much in the process as He is in the end result.
* Days 1-3 He formed. Days 4-6 He filled.
* It works this way physically - my 15 year old is getting “filled out.”
* It works this way in marriage and salvation - it takes time to fill out your new identity.
* vs 11-12 - the first mention of “seed” in the Bible.
* It referenced the potential for life (specifically for vegetation).
* God created the potential for life if mixed with other things - air, water, light, etc.
* God put the potential for life inside of what He created so that we could be a part of the creation “process.”
* Not only were we made in His image but now we can operate in it as well.
Genesis 1:3-4 (1/5/17)
January 5, 2017 • Benham Brothers
* Right from the beginning God created the principle of separation.
* God formed everything, but before He filled it He had to bring separation.
* Separation - creating distance in order to make distinction resulting in an environment where life can flourish.
* Separation gives us the proper focus - we can see things better when there’s proper distance.
* We can apply this principle to lots of things:
* Spiritually, we have to remain separate in order to experience life and see the world properly.
* When a person is separate from the world (holy) they can make distinction which leads to life - this is why the priests are to teach the people how to make distinction (Hebrews 5).
* Personally, we need separation (margin) in our lives - space between our current pace and our limits.
* Corporately, as entrepreneurs we need to separate ourselves from the business, to work ON it not just IN it.
* Relationally, we need margin in order to flourish - overcommitment is a relationship killer.
* Look at verse 14 - Culturally, as the light of the world, we are to be separators.
* Light separates day from night.
* So we not only remain separate, but we separate…….light from darkness.
Genesis 1:5 (1/7/21)
January 7, 2021 • Benham Brothers
* Night is always darkest just before the dawn.
* Right from the outside of creation, before sin entered the world, “there was evening, and there was morning.”
* Vs 8, 13, 19, 23, 31 - it’s a pattern after all six days of creation.
* In the first four days God created it, named it, approved of it.
* In days 5 & 6 He created it, blessed it (the ability to reproduce), approved it.
* Animals could take part in the creation process, but they couldn’t name each other.
* Man could take part in the creation process, but they could name everything.
* This signified authority.
* Here’s the key - on each day darkness covered what God had just created.
* Satan was the source of the darkness.
* He wanted to hide God’s creativity.
* EX: I buy my wife a nice gift for our anniversary and then turn the lights off so she can’t see it.
* But God lit up what Satan covered up!
* This sets the context for the battle that ensues in the entire Bible.
* Satan hides it…God exposes it.
* On this foundation, God tells us to “be the light of the world!”
* We are darkness overcomes by nature.
* We were meant to be this way from the beginning.
Genesis 1:14-19 (1/8/15)
January 8, 2015 • Benham Brothers
Everything was dark until God brought forth light.
He created light, then light fixtures (stars), then the "lights of the world" (man).
When Christ tells us to be the "light of the world" we need to refer to light in Genesis.
Three things we see light used for:
1) Separation - day was separated from night.
You know it's day because it's light, because the sun is out.
When we show up then it will cause separation - some will hate us and others will love us, but nobody will ignore us.
2) Signs - light fixtures were used as signs pointing to God's order.
God wanted us to be "in the know" of His order, so He gave us signs that point to it.
We are to be signs pointing to God's order.
3) Government - The sun is in charge of the day and the moon and stars are in charge of the night. When they come out it will be either day or night.
The church is God's governor on the earth - just like a governor on a go-cart.
The go-cart can only go so fast because it's being restrained.
The church is God's boundary-maker.
Genesis 1:21-22 (1/5/17)
January 5, 2017 • Benham Brothers
* The first mention of “blessing” in Scripture was procreation - the ability and authority to be co-creators with God.
* This was the first blessing God gave man as well - we can co-labor with God and bring life into the world.
* Side Note - in Genesis 9:6 God involved man in the taking of life as well.
* God’s blessings are found within God’s boundaries - procreation is a man and a woman within the context of marriage.
* When we remove God’s boundaries then blessings are replaced with burdens.
* The first curse was that pain would be involved in this blessing - pain in childbirth.
* Malachi 2:1-3 - Because the priests dishonored God their blessings became curses.
* The greatest blessing is our kids (procreation) - Psalms 127:3.
* Our kids can become curses if we don’t honor God in our homes as priests.
* Malachi 2:15 - God is seeking “godly” offspring - not ungodly.
* This requires parents to honor God’s boundaries.
Genesis 1:26 (12/30/20)
December 30, 2020 • Benham Brothers
* God had a plan when He created the first man.
* Before Adam existed, an angelic war broke out in Heaven.
* Lucifer wanted to be God, so he was thrown to earth along with a third of the angels (Ezekiel 29:12-17)
* Lucifer turned into Satan and the angels into demons.
* Then God created man.
* Genesis 1:26 - Adam was given dominion over the earth.
* Psalms 8:5 - God created man “a little lower than the angels.”
* Why?
* Tony Evans - ““http://....god created man to demonstrate what He could do with less when that less is committed to Him, verses what happens to more when that more is in rebellion against http://him...god gave mankind the ability to rule to demonstrate to the devil that He could do more through a lesser creature in manifesting His glory than the once-shining star (Satan).”
* EX: Basketball coach with scrubs beat a team with all-stars - it points to the brilliance of the coach!
* This is why God didn’t destroy Satan - He wants to destroy him through someone less than him.
* Plan A was Adam #1 - he was the “fly route.”
* Plan B was Adam #2 - he was the “waggle.”
* When Adam #1 messed up, Satan got his kingdom (at least, for a short while).
* This is why God sent Adam #2, and is why Satan went so hard after Jesus - he knew Christ had given up His Godness while on earth and He fully became a man.
* It was Satan’s golden opportunity to keep his kingdom.
* But Christ kicked his butt!
* EX: Basketball coach tells his all-start to play with his opposite hand.
* God made us to smack Satan’s butt to prove that God can do more with less when that less is fully committed to Him!
Genesis 1:26-28 (1/4/23)
January 4, 2023 • Genesis 1:26–28
God made man in His image to defeat Satan.Tony Evans - “God created man to demonstrate what God could do with less when that less is committed to Him, verses what happens to more when that more is in rebellion against Him...God gave mankind the ability to rule to demonstrate to the devil that He could do more through a lesser creature in manifesting His glory than the once-shining star (Satan).”Three things God calls us and equips us to do: 1) Represent His image and nature. Vs 26a - “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” When people interact with us they are interacting with God Himself. When an athlete puts on a jersey, he represents that team. 2) Rule on His behalf. Vs 26b - “…And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth…” God gave us power and authority to be like Him on the earth.Authority and responsibility are linked. 3) Reproduce His presence throughout the earth. Vs 28 - “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…” God all living things the ability to co-create with Him. Plants have seed that reproduce plants. Animals and humans have the same ability. Humans are to reproduce more than just physically, but spiritually. Jesus in Matthew 28 - “Go and make disciples.”
