This morning we are going Back to the Beginning to remind ourselves of
the relationship that God established with humans when He created them and I'm
going to suggest that the word "Partnership" best describes that
relationship. We were created to partner with God in the rule and care of
creation. Sin disrupts and destroys that partnership and most of the Bible is
about the lengths God will go to in order to restore that partnership so that
we can once again take up the role we were created for. Those lengths culminate
of course in the life, death and resurrection of God the Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ, so that we can be born again, this time with power from above; saved
from the sin that destroyed the partnership and set free to be everything God
intended. We can of course use the word relationship instead of partnership,
but as you will see, and perhaps already know, partnership implies a lot more
than relationship.
As a text I've chosen verses 26-28 from our reading:
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.’
So God created mankind in his own
image,
in the image of God he
created them;
male and female he created
them.
God blessed them and said 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.’
Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our
likeness
The “let us” language refers to a God who consults with others, He
chooses to share the creative process with others, a God who partners with
others in Heaven. God is not alone in heaven. We now understand the
"Us" as the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and God the
Holy Spirit. Human beings are the product of a consultation and partnership in
Heaven. It is in the very nature of God that He partners with others. "Let
us make"
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he
created them;
male and female he created
them.
God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be
fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth
Notice that God blessed them both and commands
them both to be fruitful, increase in number and fill the
earth.
They now become involved in the creative process. The command to be
fruitful is given to them, but the decision to be fruitful is
theirs. God is in partnership with humans, right back at the beginning. From
the beginning God chooses not to be the only one who has or exercises creative
power. God establishes a power-sharing, partnership with humans. He wants a
world full of humans, He could have created the world full of humans, but He
leaves it up to the humans to play this role. He is the supreme delegator of
responsibility to those created to be in partnership with Him, and we see this
even more in the next part of reading:
fill the earth and subdue it.
In partnership with God and with each other, the male and the female are
told to fill the earth and subdue it. The word subdue is an interesting,
actually an exciting word, in the context of being partners with God. What does
it mean to subdue something ... it means to harness something and bring it
under your control. Think of subduing a horse ... when subdued, you have at
your disposal power to use for pulling a plough, power to till the land and
grow food for your offspring; when you learn to ride the horse you have power
to get from one place to another more quickly. Subdue in this context means to
tame something in order to release more creative power ... and they are
commanded to subdue the earth.
Notice that they get a world that still needs taming, subduing. Once
again, God could have given them a "tamed" subdued earth, but He
doesn't; instead He gives them the task of taming the world He has created,
bringing the world along to its fullest possible potential. I hope you realise
by now that the world was not meant to stay as it was when God finished
creating it. No, the world was always meant to progress as the humans carried
out these commands. And God leaves this up to them as His partners. Can you see
how partnership is built in to the very structure of our relationship with God
from the beginning? It gets better:
Rule over the fish in the sea and the
birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
Once again I remind you that this command is given to both the male and
female. In older translations the words "rule over" are
"have dominion" and in the original language the word must be
understood in terms of care-giving, even nurturing, not exploitation. The male
and the female were given the task of caring for and nurturing God's creation.
Notice again that God delegates the responsibility of nurturing His earth to
the male and female, His partners.
In the very act of creating, God gives to the created man and woman a
certain independence and freedom. God moves over, as it were, and makes room
for them. God leaves room for genuine decisions on the part of human beings as
they exercise their God-given power. This is true partnership. God established
a relationship with human beings where their decisions about the creation truly
count.
In this we see that God gives them powers and responsibilities in a way
that commits God to a certain kind of relationship with them ... and that
relationship is one where God, having said take care of creation, won't
interfere if they do it wrong. He tells them to multiply, but leaves that
action entirely up to them (interestingly we've had no problem obeying and
enjoying that command) ... what if they decide that they won't multiply. Evolution
says they will multiply because it is an instinct ... creation in God's image
says they have been given a command and therefore the choice is theirs.
At the end of day 6, the future remains open to a number of
possibilities in which human activity will prove crucial for the development of
the world. Will they obey the command to multiply and fill the world? Will they
care properly for the creation God has given them dominion over? Will they
subdue it and release its full potential? Will they keep other commands that
God is yet to give?
If God hadn't chosen to enter into partnership with them, none of these
questions arise, but when we go back to the beginning, we see that God did
things the way He did because He wanted a relationship of integrity with
humans, a relationship where we are not robots who have to do what He says, but
rather partners with Him with the free will to decide what kind of partners we
will be. This involves great risk on God's part, great trust on God's part,
since it includes the possibility that humans will misuse the power they have
been given. That does occur, but such is the partnership that when we become
bad partners, God remains a good partner and committed to the
partnership.
And we see a little later that they won't obey God in everything He
says, and they choose disobedience and sin, God doesn't dissolve the
partnership, but, as the responsible or senior partner, begins the long process
culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus so that you and I are
now given the choice of entering into partnership with God.
All the way through that process, God continues to enter into
partnership with humans, male and female. Two examples will suffice: when He
wants to free His people from Egypt, God calls Moses into partnership and
together they work for the freedom of God's people. God was certainly powerful
enough to just do it all Himself, but, because of the principle established at
the beginning, He continues to enter into partnership with people. Second
example, when God becomes a human being, He once again decides to go the
partnership route, entering into a partnership with Mary, to carry the Son of
God. Again, God could have just appeared in our midst as a human, but He
chooses to work in partnership with humans instead.
This is good news for us: because God is in partnership with you and you with Him, it means He is your partner in the workplace, school, home ... in fact wherever you find yourself. You can turn to Him. Got a bad week coming up ... He is with you ... turn to Him, say "Help" or "What now?" or "Where to from here?" If you are in Him, He is in you ... turn to Him and see what happens.
This is good news for us: because God is in partnership with you and you with Him, it means He is your partner in the workplace, school, home ... in fact wherever you find yourself. You can turn to Him. Got a bad week coming up ... He is with you ... turn to Him, say "Help" or "What now?" or "Where to from here?" If you are in Him, He is in you ... turn to Him and see what happens.
God loves the world He created, a world which we have really messed up
in so many ways. God really loves us humans, male and female, who have messed
up His world so much. He loves us so much that He gave Himself in the form of
His son on the cross and said that whoever chooses to believe in the Son and
what He has done on the cross, to that person He will give life and life in
abundance ... the kind of life that the first male and female were meant to
have. And God has entered into partnership with the church to take this message
to the world so that the world can be saved. He could do this on His own ... He
could write a message on the clouds every day about believing in Jesus ... but
He has stuck with His original plan, working in partnership with humans, male
and female, to take this message to the world and convince the world of its
truth. What is our message:
For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God –
not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us
to do.
God has so much work He needs doing in the world, just as He did at
creation, and He's calling you to do it. In fact, there is work that he has
prepared in advance, specifically for you to do. Are you doing it? We have gone
back to the beginning, now we must go into the future.
If you have said Yes to Jesus, you are in partnership with the God of
Creation.
Perhaps you are a very active partner playing your role to the full ...
alleluia! Keep it up.
Perhaps you have become a sleeping partner ... wake up!
Perhaps you've never met Jesus and haven't begun to work for God in the
world ... maybe now is the time.
