selections from Genesis 1-3
October 26, 2014
preached by Don Willeman
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“There is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Were he never so benighted, and forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man who actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual despair.”

~Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish philosopher, essayist and historian

“Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed.”

~Christian N. Bovee (1820-1904), American writer

“Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.”

~Jules Renard (1864-1910), French novelist and playwright

“None so little enjoy themselves, and are such burdens to themselves, as those who have nothing to do. Only the active have the true relish of life.”

~John Jay (1745-1829), American founding father
and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

“I would rather play well and lose than play poorly and win.”

~Chuck Noll (1932-2014), celebrated coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers

“…to lose oneself is to be a gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy.”

~Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish novelist

“True freedom consists in liberating one’s essential nature into its best and proper end…. But the modern definition of freedom puts it emphasis more on the individual ability to choose regardless of the ends that he or she might choose.”

~ David Bentley Hart, contemporary philosopher and cultural commentator

“There is no inconsistency between creation and salvation; for the one Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting salvation of the world through the same Word who made it in the beginning.”

~St. Athanasius (c. 296-373) in On the Incarnation

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be the blade that was broken, the crown-less again shall be king.”

~J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Sermon Passages

Genesis 1:26-2:5, 7-8

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; ³⁰ and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. ³¹ God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Chapter 2

¹Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. ² By 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. ³ Then 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. ⁵ Now 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…. ⁷ Then 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. ⁸ The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden…

Genesis 2:15-17

¹⁵ Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. ¹⁶ The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; ¹⁷ 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 3:16-19, 23-24

¹⁶To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”

¹⁷ Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;

Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.

¹⁸ “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
¹⁹ By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”

²³ Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.