God’s Uncommon Family

Announcement: As many of you know we are planting a Campus in the League City area. Now I know for many this may be the first time you’ve heard Me really dig into planting Churches…but this has been a part of the Vision God gave me as far back as 2008. That we would be a regional church, reaching into different communities with a Practical Supernatural Church Campus.

League City is one of many others to come. Here is the thing…

We need your help. Some we need to sew into the vision financially…others we need you to be a part of the Launch team until that campus can get its footing and the DNA of MercyGate Church is truly transferred and we just haven’t placed our Name on a Building.

So, on the 15^th of November, we will be having an interest meeting…I am asking that you would consider attending that meeting to hear more about our vision for what God is doing and going to do in the League City area.

I said last week we are not out of people, we are not out of finances or facilities…but we are running out of time…(I will address that a bit deeper in a moment.)

I would love for you to scan this QR code behind me and let us know you are coming or are interested in having a Conversation.

League City is Family…they are and will be part of the MercyGate Family…

Transition: Over the past few weeks, I have been leading up to this series…God’s Uncommon Family…

God is all about Family…His Family, Our Family, and Your Family…but what is so Uncommon about God’s Family?

The Gospel is all about the reconciling of Humanity from His Rebellions and Sins back to God…

If we don’t understand Genesis, you’ll never understand today…and especially current events on the News!!!

So Let’s Get into This:

Col 2:6-15, 6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. ESV

Sons of God
1. When you look around you and watch the news it is unmistakable that there seems to be two sides competing against each other…Good and Evil, Darkness and Light…
2. When we consider the Bible, we often think, because of Placement, that Genesis is the Oldest Book in the Bible…but it is actually Job…and Job tells us things that took place even before Genesis 1:1.

Job 38:4-7, 4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? ESV

These Sons of God were present during the Creation of the Earth…
1. This phrase “sons of God” in Hebrew can be inclusively translated “Children.”
2. This phrase “Children of God” or “Sons of God” implies family!
In the case of Job 38, this is a heavenly or supernatural family…
Gen 1:27-28, 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion ESV

This passage of Scripture tells us that God wanted a human family as well as his supernatural family…

Transition: The Story of Eden is letting us know that God wanted his two families to reside together in His Presence…that hasn’t changed…when we get to Heaven there will be more there than just people. Just read Revelation 4 and 5.

everything God created such as birds, animals, trees, insects…do not have the ability or capacity to have relationship with God!

Imagers
1. Genesis 1:27 “we were created in His likeness”
2. The image of God…we have to see Likeness in a verb context not a noun context…In other words we were created to IMAGE God – to represent God.
3. What Does it mean to Image God…
  1. God could have tended to the earth without us…but he relegated his authority in the earth for management purposes.
  2. We were and are to Partner with God…
    1. New Testament: “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven…” Jesus said, “pray this way…”

God created you and I to be like him…to have intelligence and to be creative…

One of the Greatest Attributes that show you bear the Verb Image of God…IS
1. FREE WILL
2. If you and I were not created with Free Will…we would not be Imagers of God.

Our likeness to him had to be authentic. Without the genuine freedom to make real decisions we simply would not be like God. Without genuine free will, we cannot authentically love God or obey God.

If decisions are pre-programmed, they aren’t really decisions.
Decisions like love and obedience for them to be authentic, they must be made against a truly possible alternative.

Rebellions
1. Angels had Free Will….
  1. Isaiah 14 and Ezek. 28
    1. The 5 ‘I’s” of Lucifer…took a third of the Angelic Host with Him…all of them following Free Will
  2. Adam and Eve Rebelled…
    1. Remember it was God’s plan for Angels (a title, not just one type of being) and Humanity to live together in the Presence of God…
    2. But when Satan fell and was kicked out…He was determined to Stop Adam and Eve from Imaging…Being Imagers of God. Stop them from doing what he was unable to do.

Genesis 3…Eve took of the Tree and turned and gave it to Adam…they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil…thus they used their Free Will to Serve themselves instead of Image God…
1. You may say but is it really free will if you can’t use it anyway you want to…YES…there are consequences to every choice…Free Will is not Free from Consequences.

Gen 3:9-24

14 The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.15 I will put enmity (Hostility, one of the Opposite tribe or Party) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Prophetically God is speaking of Jesus who would come and his heal would be bruised but Satan’s head would be bruised as well…

Transition: What happened here in Eden was just the beginning of the story…but God hasn’t given up on Eden…God removed Adam and Eve from Eden…not just for punishment’s sake…but for redemption purposes…so they couldn’t eat from the tree of Life. He cursed the serpent and cast him away from his presence (Isa.14:12-15; Ezek.28:16)

Second Rebellion
1. You would think everyone would get the message…yet they didn’t. Mankind plunges into a worse situation…along with “the sons of God” who were kicked out of God’s presence…
2. But Satan now knows how…just not when…”a seed from a woman” which is a message unto itself…is going to bruise his head…so contaminate the seed.
3. Genesis 6:1-4 is a strange bit of scripture in the bible…
  1. The story is about some of God’s supernatural children (sons of God) wanted to imitate God by producing their own children to image themselves. They decided to use human women (the “daughters of man”) for that purpose. This made them rivals to God, their own heavenly father.
  2. Rather than be happy with God’s desire to have humans become members of the family, they decided they wanted to be overlords of their own humans.

God wanted a Family, not slaves.

God Punishes these “sons of God”
1. 2 Peter 2:4-6

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; ESV

Jude 6-7, And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— ESV

The Problem is the damage had already been done:
1. Gen 6:5-8

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

ESV

Third Rebellion
1. Genesis 11 – the Tower of Babel
  1. We think this is no big deal…people trying to build a tower to God…which is poor language to be honest.
  2. They built a Ziggurat…a tower to mans glory or an attempt to make God come down and serve them…this action was primeval sin of trying to take the place of God.

God scatters Humanity into 70 Nations of Genesis 10, Confuses their Language, and God divorces himself from Humanity…

Up until this point…God had been dealing with Humanity as a Collective Whole…but at the end of Genesis 11 and going into the 12 Chapter…God goes after a Man…Abram!

All these who come from Abram, Isaac and eventually Jacob…are the People of Israel…
All these other nations are what the Bible calls Gentiles…
Gen 12:1-3

12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

ESV

Transition: There is so much in this…that I’d love to share…but let’s get back to the Gospel…the Goodnews. The rest of the Bible is tracing a Family and a Bloodline…arriving to the redemptive way for God’s Human Family…Jesus and The Cross!

It seemed as if ever time God said “You can still be with me – believe that and then show me where your heart’s at” the problem got worse!

The Cross
1. Jesus was that Promised Seed that would come from Eve…
2. Jesus dying on the Cross, rising from the Dead and Ascending to Send the Holy Spirit…is the solution to all three Genesis problems
  1. You can’t fix the death problem unless someone dies and defeats death…Jesus did that through the Cross.
  2. The depravity problem is resolved because of the Cross we are now New Creations in Christ Jesus…and Jesus said, “It is vitally important to you that I go away…so the Holy Spirit can be sent…” He will lead you and guide you into all truth.
    1. I shared 2 months ago that Romans 7 shows the wrestling of our flesh and how in our will-power we cannot defeat our own depravity…Paul uses this language…”who will deliver me from this wretched man that I am…”
    2. Paul goes into Romans 8 where it mentions the Spirit around 20 times…”if you walk in the spirit you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.”

Acts 2 “When the day of Pentecost had fully come…”
1. Acts 2:5-12

5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

ESV

The Holy Spirit solved the scattered Problem….

Closing
1. Jesus was the fulfillment of the Covenant to Abraham
2. Jesus is also the fulfillment of the Covenant God made with David
3. Jesus became the Perfect Imager…John 14:9 “He who has seen me has seen the Father…”
4. The Gospel
  1. Believing that Jesus has come to reconcile us back to God…the Gospel is not about performance.
  2. Eph 2:8-10

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

ESV

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…”

God wants us to believe this Good News…Salvation comes through Faith and placing your Believing Trust in what Jesus has done…that is what separates Christianity from everyone else…
1. All other religions either completely deny that man has a sin problem, or you have to go through a performance to be saved…
John 14:6 is what we have to believe to be saved: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (ESV)

Next Week: Learning and Pursuing the Family Business…

God’s Uncommon Family

God’s Uncommon Family

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