Thank you for being brave on our coldest day this winter. Have a hot coffee or tea to warm up, and enjoy the warmth of fellowship this morning. I continue to believe that every one of you is here because God brought you, so that you could both receive a truth from Him and bring your gift for the rest of these people. Please allow God to do both this morning!
We are starting a look at ‘Who are We?’ God wants us to see where our faith comes from and where it needs to go from here. Today we start with ‘Where are your roots?’ which includes our origin and where communion comes from.
So come with me on this journey back to our roots! We have to start at the beginning, so let’s look at:
Genesis 1:26-28 NIV
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our 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.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “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.”
Genesis 2:15-16 NIV
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
16 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.”
Notice that woman is not on the scene yet. God gave the man the first commandment. The man was to teach all who came next to obey this single command.
Genesis 2:18 NIV
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis 2:21-22 NIV
21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.
22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Genesis 3:4-7 NIV
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.
5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3:8-13 NIV
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Genesis 3:14-16 NIV
14 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.
15 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.”
16 To the woman He said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Genesis 3:17-19 NIV
17 To Adam He said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded 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.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Genesis 3:20-23 NIV
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
Mankind is now separated from God due to sin. Being separated from God is spiritual death, and being out of the garden is physical death. What hope is there for people now?
Romans 5:12 NIV
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
We will skip over all the stories in the Old Testament today, but I encourage you to go read them, for they will show you how God tried to reconnect with our ancestors and the struggles they had in finding their way back to God. There was a hope they had of a time coming when they could be God’s people again.
Isaiah 11:10 NIV
10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His resting place will be glorious.
As we continue into the New Testament, we find the words of Isaiah quoted by the apostle Paul.
Romans 15:12 NIV
12 And again, Isaiah says, “The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; in Him the Gentiles will hope.”
That root is the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to earth as a man to reconnect the people to God.
John 3:16-21 NIV
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Jesus is the way back to God. Physical death is a consequence of a physical action against God. Spiritual death is separation from God’s grace.
We need to accept the gift of grace that Jesus offers, to be back in the arms of God. Jesus came to teach us how to live, then He died for our sins and He arose to show us that life with Him sets us free from spiritual death.
Ephesians 3:14-19 NIV
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Colossians 2:6-7 NIV
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,
7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
We are alive because God created us, we long for an intimate relationship with God as our Father and we need to accept the loving sacrifice God gave us through His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth and took our place in death so we might live forever reunited with our creator.
Next week, we look at ‘What do you believe?’ We will discover our Baptist roots and see how our beliefs came to be what they are today.
Today, we will be joining together to take Communion (The Lord’s Supper) in celebration and remembrance of the lengths to which God went, so that we could be reconciled to Him.
Stanley Grenz, in his book ‘The Baptist Congregation’, states that there are perhaps five basic, interdependent themes concerning the significance of this meal in the New Testament.
First, the Lord’s Supper is significant as proclamation.
1 Corinthians 11:26 NIV
26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Second, the Lord’s Supper is significant as a recalling of Jesus’ death.
1 Corinthians 10:16a NIV
16(a) Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?).
Third, the Lord’s Supper is significant in that it is a symbolic participation in Christ
1 Corinthians 10:16 NIV
16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?
Fourth, the ordinance is an expression of the unity of the church of Christ
1 Corinthians 10:17 NIV
17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
Fifth, the Lord’s Supper is significant as a reminder of the future return of Jesus
1 Corinthians 11:26 NIV
26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.1
Leave a Reply