Worship Service Father's Day 2020

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God demonstrates Himself a good Father in His provision and protection of Adam.

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Man of faith, rise up and sing of the great and glorious King who was sown when you feel weak.
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In your brokenness come clean.
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Shout to the North and the South, sing to the East and the West, Jesus is Savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth.
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Rise up and sing of the great and glorious King who was sown when you feel weak.
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Jesus is Savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth.
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We've been through fire, we've been through wind.
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We've been refined by the truth on our way.
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Jesus is Savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth.
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Rise up, church, with broken wings.
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Fill this place with songs again of our God who reigns on high.
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By His grace again we'll fly.
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Shout to the North and the South, sing to the East and the West.
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Jesus is Savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth.
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We will shout to the North and the South, sing to the East and the West.
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Jesus is Savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth.
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Amen.
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Happy Father's Day.
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Happy Father's Day.
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It's good to have you all here worshiping together on the Lord's Day.
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And as Brother Andy comes and prepares to read for us, you may have a seat.
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And I just want to make one short announcement as he comes, and that is this.
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As you are leaving today, there is a stack of baby bottles in the narthex.
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Normally those would have been given out on Mother's Day and returned on Father's Day.
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And that money goes to the NESS, which is a women's resource center here in Jacksonville.
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But because of everything that happened with the virus and we weren't here on Mother's Day, but they weren't actively doing anything on Mother's Day, they've asked that we start today.
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So if you want to participate in the Baby Bottle Boomerang, that's the title of it, you can take a baby bottle, hold it, and then the date to come back is July the 12th.
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Fill it up with coins or folding cash or even a check and bring it back to us on the 12th, and all that money will be given to the NESS, a women's resource center.
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All right, then as we continue to read through the Epistles of Ephesians, this morning at chapter 5, so if you want to open your Bibles or you just want to listen, but let us hear the word of the Lord.
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Ephesians chapter 5.
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Be therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ has also loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.
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For fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness, let it not be named among you, has become it saints.
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Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.
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For this you know that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
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Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
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Be ye not therefore partakers with them.
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For you were sometimes darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
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Walk as children of light.
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For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
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And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
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For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
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But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light, for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
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Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
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See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
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Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God.
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Wise, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.
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For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body.
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Therefore, as the church is subject to Christ, so let wise be to their own husbands in everything.
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Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blame.
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So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.
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He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
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For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the church.
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For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
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For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, shall be joined unto his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.
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This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
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Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular to love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverences her husband.
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And may God bless his word.
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Amen.
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That passage that we just read tells us that we are to speak to each other in songs and hymns and spiritual songs.
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This is a reminder that the Christian faith is a singing faith.
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And I know not everybody likes to sing equally, but let me encourage you, when we come together, we're not singing as a performance to one another, and we're not singing to be heard by the person to our left and to our right, but we're singing to our Lord who loves us and gave himself for us.
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Our Father in heaven is our audience, and ultimately when we sing, we are called to sing out to him.
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So let us stand and sing to him.
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You are my strength when I am weak.
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You are the treasure that I seek.
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You are my all in all.
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Seeking you as a precious tool.
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For to give up I'd be a fool.
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You are my all in all.
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Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.
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Jesus, Lamb of God, taking my sin, my cross, my shame.
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Rising again, I bless your name.
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You are my all in all.
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When I fall down, you pick me up.
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When I am dry, you fill my cup.
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You are my all in all.
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Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.
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Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name.
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Jesus, Lamb of God, Jesus, worthy is your name.
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worthy is your name.
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One more time.
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Worthy is your name.
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Too many times I've tried to give God advice on how my life should be.
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I take unchanging truth, try to make it soothe my every need.
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You see, I don't seem to understand.
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The Father's hand does not need mine to move.
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So no matter what I do, truth is true.
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If I believe it or not to be true.
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In spite of me, I'm still by the truth set free.
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I know my will cannot change God's sovereignty.
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And even though I kick against the ghost, in spite of me, God's still in control.
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I can shake my fist, but as much as I resist, His perfect plan will move on.
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I can say that it's not fair, but quickly come away.
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That I am man and He is God.
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In spite of me, I'm still by the truth set free.
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I know my will cannot change God's sovereignty.
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And even though I kick against the ghost, in spite of me, God's still in control.
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In spite of me, I'm still by the truth set free.
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I know my will cannot change God's sovereignty.
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And even though I kick against the ghost, in spite of me, God's still in control.
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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to Genesis chapter 2.
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And then we're going to, after we finish reading Genesis 2 in just a moment, we're going to be moving to Luke 3, just to look at one quick passage.
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So, if you want to have your finger maybe held in your Bible at Luke 3 as well, that would be good.
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But before we read, I want to make just a few brief introductory comments.
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I'll give you a chance to have your Bibles open.
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I still hear pages turning, and that is an encouragement to any preacher when you hear the pages of the Bibles begin to open.
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My daddy loves me.
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There's nothing especially complex about that sentence.
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Yet it is one of those statements that's wonderfully profound in its simplicity.
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I'm thankful that I can say it, but I am also very aware that that is a statement that not everyone gets to make.
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There is a father absence crisis in the United States of America.
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According to the U.S.
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Census Bureau, 19.7 million children are currently living without a father in the home.
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That equates to one in every four children living without a father in the home.
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Some of these children will never know their earthly father.
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And some who do know them wish that they didn't.
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So many cannot say the simple statement, my daddy loves me.
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Over the years on Father's Day, I have preached several messages intended to reach fathers.
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I've focused on the role of men in the home.
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I've called Christian men to adorn themselves with the virtues of manliness and biblical masculinity.
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I've encouraged men to understand and pursue what God calls us to as Christian men.
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But today, instead of focusing on what God requires of earthly fathers, instead, I want us to see what God demonstrates to us as a heavenly father.
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I want us to see how He interacted with Adam in the garden.
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And I want us to understand that what God did with Adam in the garden is God took on the role of father to His creation.
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And I want us to recognize the provisions and the protections that the Father gave to His Son.
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And most importantly, I want us to see that God continues today to provide provision and protection to all who are His children.
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So let's stand and read Genesis 2.
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We're going to begin at verse 7.
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We're going to read all the way down to the end because I'm going to be making reference to all of the events.
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We're going to read down to verse 24, or 25 rather.
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That was a mistake on the screens I put in.
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I'm sorry.
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But it's all the way down to verse 25.
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And then we're going to jump to Luke 3.
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Beginning at verse 7, it says, Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
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And the man became a living creature.
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And the Lord God planted an Eden in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
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And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
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The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
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The name of the first was Pishon.
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It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good.
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The name of the second river is Gihon.
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It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush.
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The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates.
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The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
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And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.
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For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
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And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone.
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I will make him a helper fit for him.
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Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
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And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
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The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
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But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
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So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
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And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
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And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
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Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
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She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
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Therefore man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.
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And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
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And now to Luke chapter 3.
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At the end of Luke chapter 3 we have the genealogy of Jesus Christ which begins at verse 23.
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And you'll notice that it begins by saying Jesus when He began His ministry was about 30 years of age being the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Maphat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jemi.
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And it goes down.
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At the end though is the part I want us to focus on because this genealogy takes us all the way back to creation.
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And notice what it says in verse 38, speaking of the sons.
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It says, The son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
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May God add His blessing to the reading and to the hearing of His word as we continue to seek its understanding this morning.
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You may be seated.
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For those of you who have been here you know that we are in a study of Genesis.
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I took some time off during the situation with the virus to address various topical subjects.
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But I didn't want to take time off because today is Father's Day.
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I didn't want to take time off to do a special Father's Day message.
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So I said I was just going to keep preaching through Genesis.
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Well, it just so happened that as I began to prepare Genesis chapter 2, the message, I began to notice how appropriate this passage is for today because today is Father's Day.
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And what I believe we see in Genesis chapter 2 is we see the highlights of God's fatherly relationship with Adam.
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Notice again in Luke 3.
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Notice it calls Adam the son of God.
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Now, I want to make note that when it calls Adam the son of God, it's not calling Adam the son of God in the same way Jesus Christ is the son of God.
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There is a particular language that's given to Jesus that's not given to any other person and it is the language of only begotten.
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In the Greek it is monogenes.
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And literally what it means is unique.
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Mono means one and gene means kind or type.
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So when you say Jesus is the monogenes, what you're saying is Jesus is one of a kind.
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He's the only son like Him.
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Jesus is the only begotten of the Father.
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He is unique.
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But when we talk about Adam, we can talk about Adam as being unique as well because Adam is the only man in history to be created by God who didn't have a father.
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Adam didn't have a daddy.
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You know, all of us in one way or another had a physical father.
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But Adam didn't have a physical father.
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Adam had God who formed him out of the dust of the ground, who made him not as an infant, not as a baby, but made him as a man, a grown man.
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And God formed him as a grown man and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Adam became a living soul, an image bearer of God.
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And what does it mean to bear the image of God? Well, when we were in Genesis 1, we talked a lot about what the image of God is.
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We talked about the fact that the image of God references the fact that we bear certain characteristics that no other creature in the world bears.
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Certain types of intelligence and relatability and understandability and the ability to do things that are amazing because we bear the image of God.
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But one of the things that you have to remember that when you talk about the image of God, it's not what God looked like necessarily, but it's saying that God is being in a relationship with Adam that's different than all the other animals.
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My son bears my image.
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You could say he bears the image of his mom and me.
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He looks a little bit more like her, but the point is he bears my image because he's mine.
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He's my son.
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My girls.
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That little one looks more like me.
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But they bear our image.
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Now when I say that I'm talking about looks, but I'm also talking about the fact that they're mine.
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I participated in the producing of them.
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God produced Adam from the dust of the ground.
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And he became not only a living creature, but he became, as it were, a son.
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This is what Luke tells us.
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If you take the genealogies back, Jesus was the son, as was supposed, of Joseph.
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Why does it say, as was supposed? Because Jesus, again, monogamized, He is the only begotten.
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He's actually God's son, but as it was supposed, He was the son of Joseph.
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And Joseph was the son of this one, and He was the son of that one.
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But if you follow the line back, when you get to Adam, you can't go any further back.
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You have to go to the original father.
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And the original father is God.
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And so Adam is referred to in Luke 3 as the son of God.
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He didn't have another daddy.
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He had God.
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And so what I want us to see today is I want us to see how God interacted with Adam as a father.
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And again, I want us to see that this interaction that Adam had with God as a father is really a lesson for us as fathers as how we ought to interact with our children.
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God is the best example of everything, and certainly He is the best example of what it means to be a good father.
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God is a good father.
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So what we're going to look at today is we're going to look first at how God displays His fatherhood for Adam in His providence.
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We're going to look at four different ways that God demonstrated His providence to Adam.
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Now what does providence mean? To provide.
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The word providence comes from the idea of making provisions, or to provide for.
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And God provided four gifts to Adam that we see in Genesis 2.
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And we can turn back there from Luke now.
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If you still have your Bibles in Luke, I want you to turn back to Genesis because I want us to see these four gifts that God gives to Adam.
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The first thing that God gives to Adam in Genesis 2 is found in verse 7.
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God gave Adam life.
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That was the first act of provision.
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When God formed Adam, He formed him as dust of the ground.
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And at that point, He was no more than just a piece of flesh.
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But when God created him as a piece of flesh, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and all of those elements that made up Adam physically became live, became a living soul.
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See, Adam was not just elemental.
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We talked about this last week.
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Adam was not just made of material.
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He was also made of spirit.
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Adam had not only the physical, but he also had the spiritual.
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He not only had the material, but he had the immaterial.
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And when God created Adam, He created him with intellect, emotion, and will.
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And by the way, that's a very important thing to remember.
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What does it mean to be personal? It means that we have intellect, emotion, and will.
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That's the three primary components of personality.
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Intellect, understanding.
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Emotion, feeling.
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And will, the desire to do or not do.
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You see, God didn't create Adam as a robot.
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One of the things people get onto Calvinists for, they say, oh, you're a Calvinist, you believe people are robots.
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No, we don't.
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We just understand that man, after the fall, was bound by a sin nature.
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And that sin nature can only be released by the Holy Spirit of God who comes and regenerates the soul.
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But that doesn't mean that we believe that men are robots.
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No, we don't believe men are robots.
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We believe men do what they want to do.
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The problem is, is after the fall, we only want to do what's evil.
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The Bible says the desire of the heart is only evil continually.
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So there's no sense in which you should ever think that Adam was created as some form of a robot.
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No, he had intellect.
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We see his intellect in the naming of the animals.
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He had emotion.
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He felt shame after he sinned.
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He had will.
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The willingness to sin.
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So we see these primary colors of personality in the person of Adam.
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This is his personal makeup.
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This is his creation.
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God creates him as a reasonable, rational, and relational being.
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And who was the first relationship Adam had? With God.
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Adam didn't have a mate when he was created.
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So what was the first relationship Adam experienced? God.
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And how would he have related to God? Creator? Yes.
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But what else? Father.
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God gave Adam life.
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And God treats Adam as a son.
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So his first act of providence in the life of Adam was giving Adam life.
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But then, God gives Adam something else.
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Not only did He give Adam life, but He gave Adam a home.
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Notice verses 8-14.
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The garden becomes Adam's abode.
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God planted it for Adam.
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And He placed Adam there like He was placing him in a home that's for Him.
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And God caused the garden to give Adam everything that he needed.
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His sustenance.
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He gave him all that he required.
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Not only to live life, but to enjoy life.
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Can you imagine how good the fruit of the garden must have tasted? How much the food must have been not only nourishing, but joyful to eat.
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You know, you can tell the fall by how bad vegetables taste now.
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I know, I had to get some of you riled up a little.
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But there's a reason when we look at this, we see God creating this place for Adam to live.
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And it's amazing.
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And Moses tells us what it looks like.
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Moses tells us it had an irrigation system.
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Verse 10.
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Which is interesting because if you go back up to verses 5 and 6, it tells us that prior to this there was no rain on the earth.
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And the earth had some kind of an irrigation system we don't understand.
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It said water came out from the earth.
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And we don't know if that means that it misted, or if that literally means that it was like an aquifer in the ground that would rise up and soak the ground and then dry again.
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We don't know how it worked because it doesn't give us that much of an explanation.
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But we know this.
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By the time God forms the garden, God's not only created a place for Him to live, but He's created an irrigation system so that it's a sustaining place.
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It's got a spring that leaves out to four rivers.
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And each one of those rivers has its own place within the garden that's beautiful.
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Some even bedazzled with gold and precious stones.
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And what's most interesting to me about that is how much this compares if you look back at Revelation 21 and we see the picture of heaven.
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And you see the picture of Eden in Genesis 2.
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And you see the picture of heaven in Revelation 20, 21, and 22.
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And you see the comparisons.
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Think about the comparisons.
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Revelation 21, 21 says there's a city that's coming that has pure gold streets.
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The gold as pure as it is almost translucent that you can see through it because it's so pure.
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And the city has pearls that make up its gates.
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A single pearl makes a whole gate.
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And it tells us there's a river that flows in the city.
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And that the tree of life is there in the new city.
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What do we know about the tree of life? Where have we heard of it before? Genesis 2 tells us the tree of life was in the garden of Eden.
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So what does this tell us about what we have to look forward to? The paradise that was lost is coming back in an even greater paradise to come.
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So Adam lived in heaven.
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That's the point I'm trying to make.
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When we think about where we're going, think about what we lost.
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Adam was living in heaven.
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And God made it for him.
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Living in the paradise of God.
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So Adam was given life.
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He was given a home.
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And he was given an occupation.
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Verses 15 and 19 tell us that God called Adam to work.
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Look at verse 15.
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The Lord God took man, put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
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Now keep this in mind.
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This is an important thing to notice from that.
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Is that Adam is told to work the garden, which literally means to tend to it.
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This would not be laborious or painful because this is not like work after the fall.
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After the fall work becomes laborious, painful, torturous, and we have to deal with the earth that's always fighting us and the nature that's always fighting us and thorns and thistles and things.
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That's not the way it was there.
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But it was still a responsibility nonetheless.
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He had a responsibility to work.
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I love what Matthew Henry says about this.
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He said Adam could not have been happy if he were idle.
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And he goes on, Matthew Henry goes on to say this, it's still God's law that he who does not work should not eat.
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So even in the garden, that rule was there that Adam had something to do.
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And therefore he had work to do in the garden.
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But not only did it say he was to work it, it also says he was to keep it.
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Now this, I want to point out, this is a little bit of a theological thing because when it says keep it, this is not just a synonym for work.
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This is not a parallelism.
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When it says work it and keep it, it's not the same thing.
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Because the word keep here actually is the word for protect.
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We could say that Adam's first and greatest failure was failing to protect the garden from the entrance of the serpent.
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You see, there was a danger in the garden and it was his job to protect that garden.
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It was his job to watch over that garden.
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And who did the serpent go to? It went to his wife, the one who he was charged with the protection as his wife.
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Some have compared the garden of Eden to a temple and compared Adam to a priest.
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And while that specific language is not used here, we can certainly see the analogy because Adam was the steward of God's garden.
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As a priest, as a steward of God's temple.
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And Adam had a responsibility to work the work and protect what needed protection.
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Adam had a job to do.
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And as we'll see in the weeks to come, Adam failed.
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Adam also had another job.
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Not only did he have the job of working, not only did he have the job of protecting or keeping, he also had the job of naming the animals.
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I point this out a lot because I think it's cool.
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I just imagine one day where all the animals come.
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Kind of reminds you of what's going to happen with Noah later.
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You know, Noah didn't go collecting the animals.
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The Bible says the animals came.
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And at this point, the same thing.
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The animals came to Adam to be named.
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This tells us Adam was not ignorant.
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He was not some knuckle-dragging caveman.
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He understood.
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And he spoke language.
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And what language? We don't know.
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Some people believe Hebrew is God's language.
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I don't think that's necessarily true.
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But the point is, whatever it is, he understood and could communicate with God and he could name these animals.
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And that was his job.
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He was a steward over God's garden.
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He was a steward over God's creation.
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He was a steward over these animals.
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So God gave him life.
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He gave him a home.
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He gave him a job.
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And He also gave him a mate.
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Verse 21-22 It says, For the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
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And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man.
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Now, in the weeks to come, I'm going to look at this more closely.
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So I don't want to belabor today's point by all of the particulars here.
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But what we need to recognize is the great blessing that God gave to Adam when He gave her Eve.
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Now, some of you may be saying, but wait a minute, it was Eve who caused the sin.
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She was the one who was deceived and she brought the fruit to Him.
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She encouraged Him.
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How can you say she was a blessing? Listen, all of those things that I just said about Eve were true.
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But whose responsibility was it to keep the garden? When Adam sinned, you know who he blamed? God.
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The woman whom Thou hast given me.
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Where's the finger pointing? It's pointing at God.
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And guess what? God doesn't take that blame shift and neither should we.
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Adam was perfectly responsible for what he did as she was responsible for what he did.
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But we should not for a second cause us to understand that because of what happened between them, that God's gift of giving him a helpmate, God's gift of giving him a wife, was a bad thing.
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No.
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God giving him the wife was the greatest blessing Adam had received up until this time.
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He'd been given life, he'd been given a home, he'd been given a job, but the most important blessing that he'd been given is he'd been given one like unto him, but not just like him, but one who was a complement to him.
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See, God didn't make Adam number two so that Adam would have a buddy to run the roads with.
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No, God made Eve.
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He made Adam's counterpart.
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She was just like Adam in the most important ways.
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She was human, but she was unlike Adam in the more precious ways.
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She was woman.
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And beautiful, and wonderful woman.
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And as I said, I better be careful, I'm going to preach on the glorious union of man and woman over the next few weeks as we look at those texts, so I don't want to divest into that right now.
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But the point of this is God giving Adam a wife was an act of mercy and love.
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He knew what Adam needed and he filled that need.
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So just for a moment, consider what we've seen already about the fatherhood of God.
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God gave Adam life.
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He gave Adam a home.
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He gave Adam occupation.
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He gave Adam a mate.
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What does Jesus tell us about a good father? Matthew 7, verses 9-11.
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Jesus is talking about fatherhood.
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And what does He say? A good father knows how to give good gifts to his son.
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I'll read it to you.
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It's Matthew 7-9.
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Of which of you, if his son asks for bread, will you give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, you'll give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? See, the point of Jesus' analogy here, the statement is, if you who are fathers know how to be good fathers to your children and you're evil because you are fallen, how much better of a father is God? And so we see Father God in the garden with Adam and He is providing for him.
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And I've often thought about this.
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A good father gives good gifts to his children.
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That sort of...
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Because I know that you can spoil a child.
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And I know that you can overgive.
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And I know that you can make children not appreciate what they have by giving them too much.
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But, I look forward to certain parts of the year where the goal is to give a nice gift.
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Because I enjoy giving good gifts to my children.
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I love birthdays.
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Because we do something special for the child on the birthday.
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I love Christmas because we all seek to try to find that perfect thing to give.
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Not because it's about the gift, but because it's about the desire to love that person and give them something that shows that you know them and you love them and you care for them.
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And that's what we see God doing with Adam in the garden.
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God's giving him everything he needs.
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And He's showing Himself to be a good father to Adam.
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Doesn't this make your heart break even more when you know what's coming? Because we know how the story progresses.
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But at this point, Adam has the perfect father who's providing him the perfect situation.
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And so we see God's provision.
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But I want to show you one other thing.
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Because there were four parts of the provision.
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But now I want to show you that God also demonstrates protection.
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And by the way, if you've ever listened to my sermons on fatherhood, what are the three things a father is called to do? Protect, provide, and pastor or priest the home to preach.
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Protection and provision are the first two responsibilities of a good father.
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And we've seen God providing for Adam.
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Now we're going to see protection.
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You say, well, what do you mean protection? I want you to look with me at the text because God warns Adam of a very real and present danger within the garden.
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Look at verse 16.
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And the Lord God commanded the man saying, You shall eat surely of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.
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For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
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See, God provides for Adam a warning.
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You can have anything you want except this one thing.
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Everything else is yours to consume, but of this single tree do not eat because in doing so, you will make yourself a transgressor.
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And by eating of this tree, you will become intimately acquainted with evil.
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You see, here's something you need to remember.
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Adam understood that it was wrong.
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So when we say knowledge of good and evil, what did Eve say when the serpent tempted her? No, God told us not to do that.
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So it wasn't as if they were ignorant of the concept of right and wrong, but they only understood it in the abstract.
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God says when you eat of this tree, you will understand it in the actual.
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And that's not what I want for you.
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You can understand it in the abstract.
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I tell you don't do it, don't do it.
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But when you do it, you're now going to experience it in the most intimate and wretched of senses.
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It's going to become to you death.
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It's going to become to you a burden.
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It's going to be like acid in your mouth.
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And so God sets a limitation for Adam.
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He warns him of the consequences.
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Not only will this tree make you intimately knowledge of evil, but it will also make you die.
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Fathers, I ask you in this room, haven't we all given our children instructions for their safety? Knowing the possibility that they may not obey.
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We have all, who have older children, watched them in one way or another rebel, in issues large and issues small.
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We have seen them not listen to our warnings.
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And now we can see the fatherly heart of God who says there's one tree that you are not to eat of.
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That one tree is dangerous.
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Keep in mind, God is not tempting Adam by putting the tree in the garden.
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James 1.13 says, Let no one when he is tempted say, I am tempted by God.
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For God cannot tempt with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.
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Temptation to sin does not come from God.
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But we could say this is a test.
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And some people use the word probation.
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This was an opportunity for Adam to demonstrate faithfulness to God's command.
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And we all know that Adam will eventually fail the test.
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We all know that he will suffer for it.
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And we all know that ultimately humanity will suffer for it.
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But consider the warning from God.
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He tells Adam of the existence of the tree.
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This isn't something Adam had to find out on his own.
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It isn't something he tripped over on his way to the river.
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No, God says there is this tree and it is dangerous.
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And He tells Adam of the danger.
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If you eat of this tree, you will be in disobedience.
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If you eat of this tree, you will die.
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He gives him the consequences.
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He gives him the existence, the danger, and the consequences.
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And in these things we see the love of God for Adam.
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The expression of concern for Adam.
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And later we are going to see this.
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When Adam fell and he was naked and he was ashamed, God took animal skin and He covered him because he is still His son.
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God provides for Adam even after the fall.
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Thousands of years in the future, God provides Adam a Savior.
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Of which those skins represented.
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The skins that covered Adam's nakedness were a picture of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ which would be hung on the tree.
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As God provided salvation through Christ.
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God is a provider.
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God is a protector.
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God is a good Father.
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He demonstrates it with Adam in the garden.
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And He continues to demonstrate it today for all who believe in Christ.
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Here is the beautiful thing.
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If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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If you have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
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If you have been adopted into the family of God.
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By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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Here is the beauty.
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Please don't miss this.
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Please don't let this be the time where you stop paying attention.
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This is the most important thing.
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If you are in Christ, God is your good Father.
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The Fatherhood of God is not universal.
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Because of the fall, mankind is separated from God.
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And that relationship.
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But the Bible says this.
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To all who receive Him, that is Christ.
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To all who believe on His name.
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He gives them the right to become children of God.
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The relational Fatherhood of God belongs to all who believe in Christ.
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Remember at the beginning? When I said my daddy loves me? And I noted sadly that not everyone can say that? Turn with me as we close to Psalm 68.
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Because here is the most beautiful thing to remember on a day like today.
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In Psalm 68, the psalmist is singing a praise to God.
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Beginning in verse 4 it says this.
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Sing to God.
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Sing praises to His name.
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Lift up a song to Him who rides through the deserts.
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His name is the Lord.
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Exalt before Him.
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He is Father of the fatherless.
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Protector of widows is God in His holy habitation.
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Beloved, you, if you are in Christ, you have a good Father.
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Maybe you didn't have a daddy growing up.
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Maybe you didn't have someone, a man, that protected and provided for you.
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I know many people who could say that.
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But know this.
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If you are in Christ, you can say with all confidence.
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My daddy loves me.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the opportunity to praise You for Your fatherly goodness.
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Lord, it is an amazingly wonderful thing just to consider all that You are.
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You are a good Father.
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And we who have believed on Your Son have become Your children by adoption.
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You have received us not because You had to, but because You chose to.
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And Lord, now as we begin to consider what that means to each of us, I want to praise You for Your goodness to us.
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Your provision, Your protection, Your love.
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Father, as we close today, if there is anyone here who does not know You as Father, Lord, that You might even this day begin to show them what it means to be part of the family of God.
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To recognize their sin.
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To recognize their desperate need to come to You.
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As the prodigal son came back to his father and was welcomed, Lord, may those who are far away come back to You today and be welcomed by You.
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Lord, we know that this will only happen by the power of Your Spirit.
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So we pray that You would do what only You can in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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I'm never alone.
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You're a good, good Father.
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To You are.
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To You are.
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To You are.
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And I'm loved by You.
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To I am.
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To I am.
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To I am.
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I've seen many searching for answers.
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Far and wide, but I'm all searching for answers.
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Provide what we need before we say a word.
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You're a good, good Father.
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To You are.
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To I am.
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To I am.
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A perfect in all of Your ways.
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A perfect in all.
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So undeniable.
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Hardly speak.
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Peaceful.
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Unexplainable.
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I hardly think as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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Deeper still as You call me.
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To You are.
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To You are.
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And I'm loved by You.
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To I am.
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To I am.
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To I am.