C4: Character

Pastor Ron Aguilera
C4 is a series on the Bible book of Genesis and God's design for our lives, looking at Creation, Community, Covenant and Character. These four topics will have an explosive effect on your life. Listen to the message in MP3 audio (4.1MB)

This is the last message in the C4 exploration of the book of Genesis. Themes explored thus far have been:

• Creation: We were created to be in relationship with God, to bask in the fellowship of the Trinity.
• Community: Sin destroyed God's dream of community, but God will not let the dream die. He made a promise.
• Covenant: God made a covenant with man. He will be "cut" for us.
• Today, we explore Character: God is at work. As we read through the stories in Genesis, we see God at work, molding character, trying to restore.

Today, many believe God exists, yet many live as Deists. We lieve as if we don't believe God is with us. We try to live on our own.

God is with us today, just like He was with Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. You are not alone.

God has never made a promise He has not kept.

And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:20b

Bible references: Genesis 24:12-19; ch. 24:27a; ch. 28:15, 16; ch. 29:9-11; ch. 29:25; ch. 33:4; ch. 37:2; ch. 39:2; ch. 45:5.

C4: Covenant

Pastor Ron Aguilera
C4 is a series on the Bible book of Genesis and God's design for our lives, looking at Creation, Community, Covenant and Character. These four topics will have an explosive effect on your life. Listen to the message in MP3 audio (4.34MB)

The Trinity (God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit) existed forever and created us to be in community with Them.

Today, we'll discuss the core of Genesis: Covenant. Webster defines covenant as "the means to create a binding relationship where none existed before."

God made a deal (literally, "cut a covenant") with Abraham. The tradition of sealing a covenant of the day was to cut animals in half and have the parties to the deal walk between the pieces to signify what would happen to a party who broke the deal.

The LORD cut a deal with Abraham to bless the world through him and "walked" through the pieces alone, signifying that the whole onus for the fulfillment of the deal was on the LORD. Abraham's descendants broke the deal, so God paid the penalty through Jesus.

Questions from the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob:

• What do you need to leave behind to fully follow God?
• Are you walking with covenant relationship with Jesus today?
• What are you waiting for?
• If you are in a relationship with Jesus, will you commit to walking in God's grace and share with someone else?
• What step of faith will you take today will help you grow closer to Jesus, the manifestation of the covenant God of the Old Testament?

Bible references: Genesis 11:31-12:4; Galatians 3:8; Genesis 12:4, 11; ch. 13; Jeremiah 34:18; Genesis 15:17-18; ch. 21 & 22.

C4: Community

Presented by Senior Pastor Ron Aguilera
C4 is a series on the Bible book of Genesis and God's design for our lives, looking at Creation, Community, Covenant and Character. These four topics will have an explosive effect on your life. (Listen to this message for a limited time in MP3 audio format: Download 3.53MB)

Community is a group of people together with common intersts, beliefs and goals. Sin has distorted our view of community.

Genesis chapters 3-11 have four acts of a story:

1. Adam & Eve
2. Cain
3. Noah
4. Babel

What did mankind do, and how did God respond?

The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but 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." (Genesis 2:16, 17)

Why did God give this command? Why doesn't God want Adam & Eve to have that knowledge?

God was testing them. By eating the fruit, they were declaring that they already knew the difference between good and evil rather than waiting on God to teach them the difference.

Genesis chapters 1-3 show us how temptation works. Satan, showing up disguised as a serpent, distorted and twisted the truth so Eve would not trust God. Eve then tried to correct the serpent, but then she added something. Eve started seeing God as more severe than He really was. She already was doubting God.

Eve got the information from Adam. That is why Adam was blamed for Eve's deception. Satan went after the person who only heard it second-hand.

We often play with temptation alone. Eve is becoming obsessed with the fruit and thinking about what she will gain.

The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. (Genesis 3:4-7)

They thought the knowledge would bring good things, but it brought them into a nightmare at that moment. All they wanted to do was hide — from God and each other.

That act instantly changed human nature — made it sinful, rebellious. We are predisposed to do wrong given the right circumstances. We want to do what is right, but we are prepared to do wrong.

We became alienated form the Creator. God's dream was shattered.

They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" (verses 8 & 9)

God knows where Adam is, giving Adam a chance to show himself and confess.

He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." (verses 10-12)

The first mentions of nakedness and blame in the Bible. Adam blamed Eve and her Creator.

Glimpses of God's grace

1. God puts hostility between Satan and mankind then promises Eve's offspring (the Messiah, the Annointed One) will destroy Satan (verse 15).
2. God sheds the first blood on earth to make clothes of skins to cover their nakedness, to restore mankind's relationship with Him (verse 21).

Hope for the Messiah

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, "I have gotten a manchild — the LORD." Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:1-9)

Cain brought his leftovers, not the first from the ground or the best. Abel brought the best. Cain was moving away from God and keeping the best for himself. God warned Cain to repent, to reverse his course. Cain goes to the extreme to kill Abel instead.

After the murder, God calls to Cain in another bid for repentence. Cain doesn't respond, so God exiles him. God's judgment (exile) is followed by His grace (mark of protection from veangence).

From bad to worse

Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. (Genesis 6:11-12)

Cain's descendants got worse and worse. The world was more and more corrupt, but one bright spot was Noah. The level of corruption was so high that God's only way of resolving it was to start over.

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." (Genesis 9:1)

After the Flood, God repeats to Noah what He told Adam & Eve: Let's try it again. However, things didn't get better as the last family left on earth emerged after the Flood.

• Noah gets drunk.
• Ham disrespects his father.
• Noah curses Ham's son Canaan.

They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)

The construction of the Tower of Babel shows the folly of human arrogance. It's the same story as thinking that man can be like God. He constrained the folly by confusing the languages of the builders of the tower and scattering the people in different language groups across the earth.

Trends in the opening chapters of Genesis

1. People are sliding deeper and deeper into sin, and God keeps giving grace. He doesn't give up.
2. Pentecost (Acts 2 & 3) was the reversal of the Tower of Babel. There was a renewal of community, but it lasted for a short while.
3. God will not give up on His dream or give up on you or me.

C4: Creation

Presented by Senior Pastor Ron Aguilera

C4 is a series on the Bible book of Genesis and God's design for our lives, looking at Creation, Community, Covenant, and Character. These four topics will have an explosive effect on your life. (Listen to this message for a limited time in MP3 audio format: Download 3.65MB)

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

This is one of the most important and controversial statements in world history. Ancient Near East civilizations had many myths about how the world came to be, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. The myths helped shape those cultures with these ideas:

• The universe was filled with many gods.
• The gods are petty, jealous, and morally fallible.
• People lived in fear of the gods.
• People participated in temple prostitution and human (often child) sacrifice to placate the gods.
• Man was a slave to the gods, to do the work that the gods didn't want to do.
• The gods were in conflict with one another, so national gods were invoked in curses upon people.
• There was no hope in life.

Observations from Genesis 1 & 2

Why did God create anything? Create us?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-3)

The Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit) is seen at the start:

• Verse 1: God the Father
• Verse 2: The Spirit is hovering over the waters. Similarly, the Spirit hovered over Jesus at His baptism.
• Verse 3: God speaks, and it comes to exist. The Word is Jesus. (John 1:1, 14)

In the beginning, the Trinity were in unity. God didn't create because he was lonely or need work to be done. God knows fellowship is good so He invites humans to bask in the community of fellowship. God wants mankind to be part of the wonder of communion.

God wanted His creation to have a wonderful place to live.

He makes it clear that we should know the difference between the Creator and the created. Humans still have that problem today.

The cultures around Moses at the time he compiled Genesis were worshipping and sacrificing to the sun, moon and stars. However, God's revelation in Genesis runs completely counter to this form of worship -- and the religion of materialism preached by atheistic scientists today.

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. ... Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. (Genesis 1:3-5, 14-18)

God created light on Day 1 and the sun, moon and stars on Day 4. The writer is not scientifically confused. The point is that God created the celestial bodies, and they aren't gods. God can provide light on His own (Revelation 22:5).

The lesson here is don't give your life to your stuff. Today, gods can go by the names of Lexus and BMW.

Nature reflects the awesomeness and power of God (Romans 1:20).

The crowning part of God's creation were human beings.

Some think chapters 1 & 2 are different creation stories, but they're really two perspectives of the creation of mankind. God simply spoke all the other things into existence but with mankind, He formed out of the dust of the earth.

Genesis 1:27 says that mankind (both male and female) were made in the image of God. We are not apes without tails. The Bible doesn't define what it means by "image of God", but we do know that it's not meant literally because God is spirit. Being made in the image of God means God created mankind to be moral agents with freedom of choice.

Genesis chapter one also tells us that God created us to subsist on a vegetarian diet and He also created us to work. (In other words, work in and of itself is not a consequence of sin.) In scripture, God invites us to be co-regents with God rule with Him. He did not give this degree of dignity to the rest of creation.

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18)

Adam later affirmed this when he said,

The 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." (Genesis 2:23)

God's desire is for 2 to be 1 and for the community to be 1, just as the 3 of Them are 1. God's math is pretty easy.

Infants who are never touched or loved die. Teenagers thirst for belonging is so strong, they are willing to join clubs, groups and gangs. We were created with a hunger for community and this hunger doesn't go away when we become adults.

The Walls Will Come Down

Elder Ron Christensen

We often sin against God and carry a load of guilt. I was a hospital chaplain and heard many times that a patient thought he or she was being punished for sins done.

I don't believe people are judged now for things done before. Judgment comes at the resurrection when Jesus returns. The God I serve doesn't punish twice.

Death is a part of living, and it's not part of dispensation of God. Bad things happen to good and bad people. Life for us is pretty precarious. We can ask God for relief from suffering because we know God is not sending diseases.

When you think God is causing your problems it is like taking your prayers to the veil that separated the people of God from Him in the temple of Israel.

After you sin, you have two choices:

1. Go to the wall between you and God, built brick by brick by your own hands.
2. Do what the Lord says and come to Him with your burdens, cares, sins — and the wall will come down.

Texts: 1st John 2:1-2; Hebrews 9:27.