Jesus in Genesis: God's Story or Your Story #2

GOD’S STORY OR YOUR STORY #2

OUTLINE

• Resting (Genesis 2:1-4)
• Running (Genesis 2:5-15)
• Relating (Genesis 2:16-25)

QUESTIONS:

1. (Genesis 2:1-4) God finished His work and rested. Why did God rest? What makes it difficult for you to rest? How does the Gospel free you to rest (John 19:30)?
2. (Genesis 2:15) God put Adam into the garden to cultivate and keep it; create a space and place of beauty where mattering things could happen. We all have a space He has given us to cultivate and keep. What kind of space are you cultivating? How does the Gospel free you to create a space and place of peace to cultivate the mattering things?
3. (Genesis 2:16-25) When we write our own stories, we get to be the hero and pick the villains. People become the problem. In God’s story, people are the point. Who have you picked as the bad guys? How does the Gospel set you free to love and serve people who are different from you?

SCRIPTURE REFERENCE:

Genesis 2:1-25
The Creation of Man and Woman
1Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.4This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. 5Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.10Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. 11The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. 14The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.15Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”18Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23The man said,“This is now bone of my bones,And flesh of my flesh;She shall be called Woman,Because she was taken out of Man.”24For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.