I invite you all to open in your Bibles to Genesis chapters 1 through 3. Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3. Don't worry, I'm not going to read the whole thing. We'll read a couple of sections from the beginning and the end as we begin this. But as we turn there, I'm sure some of you might be thinking, didn't we just go through this? I preached through Genesis 1, 2, and 3 over the summer, and one of the things I taught rest of the Bible. It's a section that you have to understand to understand everything else that happens afterwards. And so it's a section that we can keep going back to over and over again and finding new important things to talk about. I'm sure some of you are also thinking, what does this have to do with Advent? What does creation have to do with Christmas? Well, in some capacity, There's no fall, there's no savior. So creation is innately linked to the Christmas story. But there are multiple themes and ideas that actually trace their way through the whole storyline of Scripture. There are some key ideas, motifs, that repeat themselves over and over and over again in our Bible. This might be a good moment to remind you that the Bible is not one book, but it's actually 66 different books written by over 40 authors in a time period of about 1500 years. And the fact that there are so many The whole Bible comes from God, and so there's certain things we see over and over again showing us that God worked through all these people to give us the truth He wants us to have. And so this Advent season, I want us to trace one of those themes through the Bible, the theme of Immanuel. The word Immanuel in Hebrew literally means God with us. I think one of the things we see over and over again in our Bibles is that God wants to be with His people. It is something we see from creation, through the fall, through the entire story line of the Bible, leading us to Jesus, where the eternal Son of God entered into humanity. well, God with us. So here in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, I want us to see the very basis for this claim, that God wants to be with His people. And we see that from the very beginning because God made So I'm going to read from Genesis 1, verses 26-28, and then I'm going to jump to chapter 3, verses 8-10. Genesis 1, verses 26-28, and then chapter 3, verses 8-10. Hear now the word of God. Then God said, Let us make man and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created him, male and female, and created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish, and the sea, and over the birds, and the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God under the trees in the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. God reveals Yourself, we pray reveal Yourself in Your Word. Through the preaching of Your Word, may we see Christ more fully and find ourselves in Him. Lord, just guide our hearts and minds to You this day. May the words in my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be ever pleasing and acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Redeemer. Amen. As I preach through Genesis 1 through 3 over the summer, we focused on how Genesis So today I want us to see in Genesis 1 and 2, in God's good design, that God made us and all humanity to be with Him. God made us to be with Him. But Genesis 3 separates us from God. First, we see that God made us to be like Him. We see this in verse 26, where it says, God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. God made us to be like Him. There's something about being human that is meant to show something of who God is. To be like Him. We see this again in verse 27, when it says, This isn't just about men, this is about mankind. All of us, all of humanity, have been made in the image of God to be like Him. And when something is like something else, they're often meant to be connected. How often has a friend of yours told you, I know this person you should meet, you're just the light? There's something about being like someone that makes it seem like there should be a relationship there. In fact, the fact that we are like him makes us different than the rest of creation. Because we share an image, there's a natural relationship. Think about it this way, there's a difference if you treat your dog than the way you treat your baby. Now, I know some dogs that are smarter than some we are not God, we do not become God, but there is something about us that just like a young baby is not as smart or as fast or as capable as an adult, we will never be as smart or fast or big or capable as God. But just like we are like them, so we want to raise them up and to be with them and spend time with them, so too God wants to be with us. There's something about being like God us to be with Him. Second, we see that God made us to rule with Him. We see this in verse 26 when He says, And I let them, let man, have dominion over the fish of the sea. We see this again in verse 28 when God blessed them and said, Let me be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the animals. The word dominion means to rule over, like a king. what God does in heaven. God rules over everything. He has dominion over everything. When he gives man dominion over the animals, he's not just giving up, he's I've often heard people ask, why is it that Adam and Eve were not supposed to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Like, isn't knowledge a good thing? Why is it wrong that they were supposed to know the difference between good and evil? Well, think about what it would mean if Adam and Eve did not know right from wrong. If they had to figure out what to do in a difficult situation, what would they have to do? They'd have to go to God. If they're supposed to rule with God over the animals, then what do they do when something difficult happens amongst the animals? Well, they'd have to go to God for the answers. The idea is meant to be that we have to go to God for everything. The natural design before the fall is that we would rule with God and go to Him. we see that God made us to be with Him and that we are made to glorify Him. This is an underlying principle of all of Scripture. God made everything and therefore He has the right to be praised by it, to be glorified by it. Revelation chapter 4 verse 11 says the reason God is worthy of glory is because He praise God. The Westminster Catechism says the chief end of man, our main goal as humanity, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. How can you enjoy God if you do not spend time with Him? How can you glorify God if you know nothing of Him? The fact that we are made to glorify and assume that according to Colossians, we are actually made for Jesus, the eternal Son of God. You see, Colossians 1.16 says, for by him, for by Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. Everything that exists, you and I, all of creation, was created through Jesus and for Jesus. It is a gift of God the Father to the eternal Son of God. We are a gift for the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew says that the Father has given everything into the hands of Jesus Christ the Son. Him. So we see in the things that God made us for that we were actually designed to be with God, to spend time with God, to enjoy God, to love God. God made us to be with Him. I think we also see this in how Did humanity dwell with God? Notice I use the word dwell here. The word dwell is not in Genesis 1, 2, or 3 at all, but it's going to be a significant theme in the next couple of passages we read about that. So, we see it here. Even though it doesn't say the word, we see God dwelling with humanity in Genesis 1 and 2. We see Chapter 2, verse 16, God commanded the man, saying, he talked to the man. He's able to communicate with him. In chapter 3, verses 8 through 13, which we read earlier, God comes down and speaks to Adam, and Adam responds. They're able to communicate back and forth. He also walks with them. In chapter 2, verse 22, when God makes the woman, it says that God brought her to the man. Just like a father walking a daughter down the aisle on their wedding day, God walks the woman to her husband. God walks with her. We see similarly in chapter 3 verse 8 that they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden and they hid themselves. It's almost as if they've heard that sound before and they know what it is. Probably because God has walked amongst them many times. God walks with Adam and Eve in the garden. All of this shows us that God made Even though we are separated from God by sin, even though there's all these problems in the world that prevent us, even though the fall happened and we've been cast out of Eden, God still relates to us in the same way. He still dwells with us the same way He does without me. He asks us to walk with Him by following Jesus Christ. He talks to us through His word, the Holy Scripture, And we can talk to Him through prayer. The very same way as God relates to Adam and Eve in the garden is the same way He relates to us today. Through talking with us and walking with us all of our lives. So we see in the creation story and throughout the Bible that God made us to be with Him. This is part of what it means to be human. There is a natural desire within our hearts to be with God. The Scripture says eternity is written on our hearts. There is something innate within the human mind, within the human person, that wants there to be something bigger out there, something real, something that is God. We're naturally drawn to this idea. God made all of us, all of humanity, to be get to know Him, and talk with Him, and walk with Him, and pray to Him, and read His Word, and love Him. God made us to be with Him. Do we all kind of get that? Am I going off on a limb, everyone with me? Okay. I can keep going, but there's something else that we need to talk about here. Yes, God made us to be with Him, but it's also important to see that sin separates us from God. That's what we see in Genesis 3. Remember, Genesis 3 is what we, as Christians, refer to as the Fall. It's that tragic moment when sin enters the world, when Adam and Eve rebel against God by eating the fruit God commanded them not to eat. It says in Romans that sin came to the world through one man, Isaiah 59 verse 2 says this, your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. In other words, sin separates us from God. In fact, I think that's what we see in Genesis chapter 3. we see two ways sin messes up the relationship. We see two ways sin messes with the way we relate to God. First, we see that sin makes us hide. That's what we see in verses eight through 10, which we read earlier. Adam and Eve heard the sound of God walking in the garden, and they hid themselves because they were naked, because they were exposed, because they realized they had done something wrong. There's something about sin when we realize that we have done something wrong before God, that we've done something we weren't supposed to, that makes us want to hide. It makes us turn and run away. Sin separates us from God. But I think there's something far worse at the end of chapter three. Chapter three, verse 24, God drove out the man. God cast them out of Eden. fully in the presence of God. And notice here that God does this for their own good. He says that it would not be good for them to eat of the tree of life. There's something about being passed out that is actually for their benefit. I think we often think of God casting out humanity as like a bad thing, and it is. It's a You see, the way John talks about the relationship between sin and God is the difference between light and darkness. If you bring a light, a candle, into a completely dark room, what happens to the darkness? It's destroyed. The darkness cannot stand where the light is. You see, God is so good, so holy, so wondrous, that He is the light. And when we come before God with imperfections, with sin, with wrongdoing, why we have to be made clean through Jesus Christ for us to enter before God. It's actually a blessing, a grace to them, that God passed them out of the garden. Eden is presented as a sanctuary of God's as GKU. The whole story of Genesis 1 and 2 describes the making of this beautiful And sin separates us from God. I think there's lessons here that helps us to understand why it's so difficult for us to get to God. Why is it so difficult to have a relationship with God? Why is it so difficult to believe in God or to follow God or do the things God says? The ultimate answer is sin. You see, sin is why people reject God in the first place. Romans 1.18-19 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has revealed it to everyone. You see, Romans is saying that everyone can see that there's a God. They may not be able to see that it's the God of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob who saves us from Jesus Christ, but all of creation shows that there's a Creator who has power and authority over everything. And the reason why some people reject the existence of God in the first place is because they are suppressing over them. I think this is also applicable to those of us who are Christians, who believe that there's a God. Most of us in this room believe there's a God and believe Jesus is the eternal Son of God. That's not new for most of us who are Christians. And so we're not suppressing the truth, so to speak, but yet we find it so difficult to get to God. Most of us know the things we're supposed to do to get to God. We're supposed to read our Bibles and pray, go to church and serve people. But why is it so much easier to read a novel than it is to read your Bible? Why is it so much easier to spend three hours talking on the phone to your kids than it is to spend five minutes praying to God? I think one of the many reasons is because of sin in our lives. Sin separates us from God and makes our hearts hard. And when we come to the Bible, it seems even more difficult. It feels like it's standing against us. We try to come to God in prayer, yet it feels like He can't hear us, like He's not listening. And perhaps it's because sin is getting in the way. You see, when Jesus came, he was trying to restore us back to God, and if sin is separating us from God, then maybe repentance is part of Jesus bringing us back to God. You see, God made us be with him, but sin separates us from God, and that's a pretty sad and grim reality. That's how the Bible begins. But as I've said multiple times over the summer, that's the beginning. There's a whole lot more to the story. Throughout the rest of the Bible, God is doing everything He can to try to bring His people back to Him. God is going out of His way throughout the rest of Scripture to be with His people, because that's what God wants. If we go back to this, we realize this is God came into the world to be with humanity. God made us to be with him, and yet sin separates us from God. So God, out of love for us, enters into humanity in the person of Jesus. And he lived the life we were always supposed to live. He lived a perfect life, but he died on a cross as a sacrifice for sin. And he rose from the grave, conquering the powers of sin and death, conquering the effects brought back to God forever. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. God created us to be with Him. Sin separates us from God, but Jesus brings us back. And over the next few weeks, we're gonna see everything God does to bring you back to Him. Amen. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you that you made us to be with you. We're sorry that we so often fall short in that, that we fail to be with you, to spend time with you, to love you as we ought. Lord, we ask your forgiveness for being far from you. We pray you restore us to you in the grace of your Son. May we turn to him who calls us to follow you and gives us a way back to you. And may we love you more with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our mind, with all our strength. We pray this for our good and in your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.