Genesis 1:26-28; Genesis 2:15-25
If you would please turn in your
copy of the scriptures to the book of Genesis. Our scripture
readings are Genesis chapter one, verses 26 through 28 and
chapter two, verses 15 through 25. As we spend a few Sundays
this Advent season thinking on some of the grand themes of Scripture,
our study will take us through, as it did last week, the days
of creation. Why did God make the world and
everything in it? Well, He was creating a stage for His drama
of redemption. Today we’ll consider God’s command
to man and woman made in His image to be fruitful and multiply
and fill the earth. We’ll see how that command was
commanded over and over in Scripture. Uh, next week we’ll consider
that man and woman being made in God’s image should subdue
the earth and rule over it. Uh, and then, um, I believe the
18th we’ll consider the fall of man, uh, what happened in
the garden when the serpent entered and tempted Adam and Eve. And
then on Christmas Sunday, we’ll consider, uh, the grand story
of God redeeming mankind through his own son, the Lord Jesus.
Let’s give our attention now to Genesis chapter one, verse
26. Then God said, let us make man
in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens 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. In the image of God, he created
him male and female. He 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 of the
sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living
thing that moves on the earth. And then in chapter two, beginning
at verse 15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden
of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the
man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not
eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should
be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. So out of the ground,
the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of
the heaven and brought them to the man to see what he would
call them. And whatever the man called every living creature,
that was its name. The man gave names to all the
livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast
of the field. But for Adam, there was not found
a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one
of his ribs and closed up the place with flesh. And the rib
that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman
and brought her to the man. Then the man said, at last, this
is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called
woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall
leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and
they shall become one flesh. and the man and his wife were
both naked and they were not ashamed. Pray with me. Our great God, we thank you that
you’re a God who speaks and that by speaking, you tell us about
yourself. You tell us of your nature and
your character. You tell us about your work,
your work of creation, but also your work of redemption. You
also tell us about ourselves, who we are made in your image,
our marching orders to be fruitful and multiply, to rule over the
earth and have dominion over it. You also tell us the way
of salvation through Jesus, for you know well that our own wills
and desires get in the way of our obedience to you. And we
thank you that by your word and by your spirit, you speak and
you remind us of what is good and right and true. And you awaken
us, you shake us from our stupor, from our sleep, and you awaken
us to your holiness and your desire for us to be holy and
obedient. And so we pray now that you would
be gracious to us. Let our eyes see and our ears
hear, our hearts perceive, and help us to go from this place
today, better willing to obey you and to follow after your
commands. This we pray in the name of Jesus, our savior, amen. I was reading up on some statistics
in our country. And did you know that our birth
rate is 1.8 children per household? Now, I don’t know how you get
1.8 children, but I guess that’s mathematically speaking. But
did you know that 50, 60 years ago, that birth rate was nearly
3.8 children? The birth rate per family in
our country is decreasing. I looked at some statistics about
marriage in our nation. The average age for marriage
these days is about age 28. You go back 20, 25 years ago,
the average age was about 23. And you go back just a few generations
before that, maybe some of your parents or my grandparents’ generation,
they often married in their late teens. It used to be that families
were large. It used to be that families provided
socioeconomic status to a family. It was a retirement plan. It
was a way to make the farm work. It was a way to keep a cottage
industry going. Home life was central and important
in our culture. And now we, in our nation, barely
have one child. 1.8 is the birth rate. Think
globally in the statistics we might find if we look around
the world. China has a one-child policy. Infertility is a major
issue for many married couples these days. In fact, many days,
marriage is not even in the picture in our social structures. Over
half of the world is not marrying but remaining single or simply
cohabitating with the person of their choice. Many marriages
end up childless, no children. And we can answer the reasons
for all these things. The answer is always sin. The
answer is always pride and selfishness. It’s our self-centeredness. It’s
our desire to be worldly and not word-centered. It’s our desire for ease. Maybe
abortion has a large part to do with it. There’s some other
statistics in our world that are rather alarming. 34% of children
are living in single-family homes in the world. Some years ago,
maybe 50 years ago, that rate was only 9%. 40 to 60% of children,
it depends on which statistics you look at, are born out of
wedlock. They’re born to a single parent
or to one parent who will ultimately raise them. And how does this
settle with scripture, we ask? How does the world and the statistics
we read, how does it match up with scripture? Well, the two
are quite contrary. Why is that? Well, the Bible
presents the way that God intended for things to be. And sin has
ruined it. Sin has messed it up. Sin has
marred God’s original design. But thanks be to God for Jesus
Christ. He’s come to make His blessings
known as far as the curse is found. Brothers and sisters of
the Lord Jesus Christ, our minds and our hearts and even our lives,
our family lives ought to be shaped and structured and formed
by the word of God and not by culture and not by statistics. You see, as we studied last week,
God created the world and everything in it. He formed what was chaotic,
and He filled what was empty. And now He says to us in this
passage of Scripture today, it is our turn to be God-like. It is our turn to be little creators
who are made in His image. And it’s our turn to fill the
world with children. To fill the world with little
God-fearers. You know, you get behind a car
in traffic and you see on the back of a minivan, or sometimes
it’s a large vehicle, you’ll see stick figures. And there’s mom, and there’s
dad, and then if there’s one child or two children or nine
children, whatever, and then there’s the cats and the dogs
and all other assorted animals. We get behind those, and that’s
a very godly thing. That family, that vehicle is
full of people who, for whatever reason they have done so, they
have followed God’s command. They’ve been fruitful. They’ve
multiplied. They have filled the earth. You know, some of
us might ought to get a bumper sticker on the back of our car
that says, God, he’s been building his church. He’s been building
his family since 4000 BC. You see, we don’t think of it
these days. These statistics sort of cloud our minds. They
eclipse what God has designed the family to be and do. But
these statistics have ruined us in a sense. But a family is
one of the most ancient and foundational institutions that God has established. So let’s consider today a handful
of things from the scripture about what God is doing through
the family. Remember, we’ve considered that
God is the director of this drama of redemption. He’s the director
of this drama, and on the world stage, He will show us who He
is and what He’s like, and how He comes to save sinners through
Jesus Christ. And on day six, when God creates
man, it’s as if there’s a casting call. I need characters, I need
actors, I need players. And so we’re told in the passages
of scripture we read in our hearing just a few moments ago that God
creates man, male and female, in his own image, after his likeness. And he creates us with knowledge,
with righteousness, and holiness. And he gives us dominion over
his creation. In a sense, he has created kings,
many kings, we might call ourselves, to rule over and to do in his
creation what he did in larger creation, and that is to make
the world work and to fill it with little blessings of children.
So I want to consider a couple of things today from this passage.
The first is marriage. God’s institution of marriage.
We’re in football season now. If you watch, say, ESPN Game
Day, and say they were to take you down to the University of
Mississippi, to Ole Miss, we call it, and you would see the
largest tailgate party in college football under the oaks. The men in their seersuckers
and the girls in their sweet summer dresses, it’s a tradition.
It’s a big deal. That might especially be a big
deal on the day when they have their rival game. But what would
those folks do if we came down to Oxford, Mississippi and said,
you know, your tradition is stupid. Let’s cut down those trees. Let’s
get rid of football program altogether, or even to go to Alabama or how
about Clemson and say your traditions, your sporting events are worthless. They’re useless. What would they
say? They would say, you leave our town, you go away from here,
you leave us alone. But why is it that Christians,
have let the world tear down our traditions. And our traditions
are founded upon the word of God. Our traditions were put
in place and in practice by God himself. And so God says of marriage,
it is not good for man to live alone. I mean, there was Adam,
a bachelor, naming the animals. the first taxonomist, giving
them all their names, all their classes, whatever he named them,
that was their name. And God said, no, this is not
good. It is not good for Adam to be
alone. And so he created a helpmate, a helper suitable for Adam. where Adam was deficient, the
woman Eve that he made for him was sufficient and vice versa. And so they compliment one another.
We believe the Bible teaches that men and women are created
equally, but with different functions. And God has given men and women
different skills and abilities, but different functions in life,
but put together in marriage, it’s a powerhouse. It’s a team. It’s something that the world
must always wonder at. And the Bible goes on to say
that a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his
wife. They shall leave and cleave.
They shall become one flesh. They shall become one unit. And
as Jesus says, never to be torn asunder. You read through the
Bible and after God gives his benediction on Adam and Eve and
all marriages thereafter, after he puts his blessing on it, you
read throughout the scriptures that God has a high view of marriage.
For example, in the book of Proverbs, when the wise man is teaching
his son how to live, how to be wise, how not to be foolish,
how not to die early from lack of wisdom. The book ends with
finding a virtuous woman, finding a good wife, finding one that
will be suitable as a helper in marriage and in life. And
the Bible over and over through Jesus and through the apostle
Paul says, marriage is a good thing. So friends, when the world
says marriage is no good, when the world is down on marriage,
when statistics show that we are not affirming what God is
at work doing in the world through the family, we must go back to
the scripture and wonder at the mystery of marriage, which as
you’ll remember from the book of Ephesians gives us a picture
of Christ and his church. And so it’s one thing to say
marriage must be upheld because God ordained it. Marriage must
be upheld because the family is one of the most basic institutions
of creation. And it’s our, it’s for our good
that we hold to it. Well, there’s an even better
reason that we uphold the family because it shows a reality of
Jesus and his relationship for the church. When the Apostle
Paul tells husbands in Ephesians 5 to love your wives, he tells
them to do it in a very specific, very theological way. Love your
wives as Christ loved the church. Well, how did Christ love the
church? He laid down his life for her. Now, that doesn’t mean
when you’re walking down a New York City street, you got your
wife’s back. I mean, it does mean that, of course. Don’t hide
behind her. But it means that you will serve, you will sacrifice,
you will do whatever it takes for her good. But you go on through
Ephesians and you see that the husband washes his wife with
the water of the word, cleansing her, making her holy. Man, it
is your job to be like Jesus to your wife, to make her holy
and presentable before God himself. And so, yes, the world may be
down on marriage, but God is not. And when the Lord’s Supper
today, when we partake of the bread and the wine, we think
of it sometimes like this. It’s an engagement ring. and
how appropriate for some thoughts on marriage. Jesus is saying
through the Lord’s Supper, he says it through baptism as well
when you come to this fountain or baptize. He’s saying, you’re
engaged to me. You are mine. I have bought you
at a price. You are my child. And yes, I
may be gone and in heaven, but I’m coming again for you. And
I’ll take you, my bride, my church to be home with me. Remember
several weeks back in our study of Hebrews, The writer of Hebrews,
whoever he is, said these words. He says, let marriage be held
in honor among all. Don’t defile the marriage bed.
Do not defile the sacred bonds of marriage. And so friends,
let us have a high view of marriage for God does. The apostle Paul
does, Jesus does, the world may not, but God’s saints ought to. So there’s marriage. The second
thing for us to consider is marriage and children. I have, on occasion,
when meeting with a young couple to get married, you know, they’re
all googly-eyed. Everything’s hunky-dory, everything’s fun,
everything’s exciting, and they come to your office and you’re
there to prepare them for marriage. But you know why they’re really
there? They’re there to make sure you know what kind of wedding
ceremony they want. And so while they’re there to
prepare for the ceremony, I’m there to prepare them for marriage.
And so the first meeting, when I meet with a young couple, This
scares them to death, but I say to them, we’re going to meet
maybe for an hour. It might be two hours. But we’re
just going to talk. And it may be that at the end
of that talk, I decide that I will not perform your wedding ceremony.
For marriage is a huge, huge thing to enter into. But one
of the things we talk about, one of the questions I ask is,
if you get married tomorrow, are you ready for children? You use the general answer as
well. We thought we might wait about five years. And I say,
you know, God has a sense of humor. God has a sense of humor
and he sends children when he wants. We read in the Bible over
and over that it is God who opens the womb and he closes it. And
so I tell young couples, if you’re going to get married, be ready
to be parents because it can happen mighty quickly. And so
marriage and children go hand in hand. But why is it in this
world we are afraid of God’s blessings? I can remember when
I got married. I was 22 years old. And the guys
at work, they heckled me. Oh, you’re going to take on the
ball and chain. Oh, you’re giving up all your freedoms. I mean,
on and on they went. It was as if marriage was something
like a prison sentence. And maybe it was for them. And
then later, when my wife and I were married for some time
and began to have children, you get the comments from people. Well, you’ve got your boy. And
you’ve got your girl, are you done yet? You know, you’ve got
your one and your one, or your 1.8, I guess it is these days.
Well, I’m happy that there’s three. And if there had been
four and five and others, the Lord would have been gracious
in doing that for us. But you see, marriage and children
go hand in hand. But even bigger than that, children
are a creation mandate. For God says to married couples,
be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. One person has
said it so well, and it’s humorous, but true. What’s the greatest
way to grow your church? We all think about evangelism.
Gotta have some program for evangelism. No, it’s simply having babies.
How does God grow his people? Well, what did he tell Abraham?
I will give you descendants. From you shall be so many offspring,
you can’t count them. They’ll outnumber the stars in
the heavens and the sand on the seashore. How does God grow His
church? Oh, He does it through babies.
He does it through families. Oh, He does it through evangelism.
I’m sure many of you could say, I did not grow up in a Christian
home and I wouldn’t be sitting here in church today unless someone
outside my family proclaimed God’s word and I got saved through
Jesus. But marriage and children, it
grows the church. It grows our culture. It grows
us economically. be fruitful and multiply and
fill the earth. It’s interesting that God gives
Adam and Eve this command because guess who he just gave it to
in chapter 1 verse 22. He gave it to the birds and the
fishes and the other animals. The very same three commands,
be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. He tells the birds
to do it. He tells the animals to do it. And now he’s telling
in a very special way man and wife, husband and wife,
male and female, have children and fill the earth. Now, sometimes
you’re reading through your Bibles and you skip over these chapters.
I know you do, because I do it too. But you get to those chapters
about the begetting and the begatting. You’ve gotten to those? There’s
about seven or eight of them in the Bible. And it talks about
Abraham. What did he do? He begat Isaac,
and Isaac begat, I don’t know, who was it? Jacob and all the
rest. And we think through, I’ll skip over those few pages. But
then you get to, what, Matthew chapter 1. And what is Matthew
chapter 1? It’s a bunch of begetting and
begatting. And where does it start? With
Abraham. And where does it end? With Jesus. And so we see how important the
command for married couples to be fruitful and multiply and
fill the earth is. I mean, you could have the little,
it’s a wonderful life principle go on in your head for a moment
and say, what if little so-and-so wasn’t born? What if we didn’t
have so-and-so grace our family? Well, what if Mary and Joseph
in Bethlehem had not had little baby Jesus? Because all those
others had not been fruitful and multiplied. And think about
that just in human terms. Think if there had been no Thomas
Edison. or Albert Einstein, or Winston Churchill, or you go
through history and you think about people who did wonderful
things, you see how important it is to be fruitful and multiply,
for God is at work in the world through being fruitful and multiply,
and not only is He at work in the world, He saves the world
through children. Even Jesus, our Savior. And we thank God in our culture
that many are desiring to have children. Though the birth rate
is 1.8, we see large families. We see God doing wonderful things. But our marching orders are to
fill the earth. Our marching orders are to fill
the church. And the family is that place
where children can grow in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord. And they can then grow up and have children as they
are fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. There’s a third
thing for us to consider, not just marriage, not just marriage
and children, but marriage and children and heaven. Do you know
what always happens after a show runs
its course? Maybe you’re in a high school
musical or you’re in a Shakespeare troupe, or you’re in an orchestra
that plays a number of concerts. There’s always a cast party at
the end. We’re so relieved. We’ve run
our shows. We’ve performed. We’re worn out
and weary and we’re excited. And so there’s a cast party.
Well, you know, there’s a cast party for Christians. And it’s
going to come in the new heavens and the new earth. In fact, when
we take the Lord’s Supper in just a few moments, it’s a reminder
that this is a little feast and there’s going to be a great big
feast. And at that great big feast, everybody’s going to be
there. And everybody who had a part
to play in the drama of redemption who trust in Jesus and has faith
in him, they’ll be at that caste party. And you remember John
when he was on the Isle of Patmos as a prisoner for the sake of
the gospel. He gets to see in heaven. That’s the way God always
encouraged his saints of old, is he gave them a picture of
his throne. He gave them a picture of events that would come. He
did this with Ezekiel and he did it with Daniel. He did it
with others who had visions. And now John has one in Revelation.
And what does he see? He sees a picture of God. gathering
all his children together. All of those who are the result
of being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth, he gathers
his church together. And so we think sometimes of
Genesis, or I’m sorry, Matthew chapter 28, the great commission,
go into all the world and preach the gospel to every nation, baptizing
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching
them to do all that I’ve commanded. We think of that as the great
commission, and it is. But do you know what the first
Great Commission is? Be fruitful, and multiply, and
fill the earth. Raise your little ones in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. That’s why we Presbyterians,
I think, are the most right. Because we’re covenantal. We
treat our children as part of the covenant. We don’t treat
them like pagans, as others do, waiting for them to come to faith.
We treat them as children of the covenant. And so we encourage
families. We encourage growth. encourage
covenant nurture, but friends, heaven will be a gathering of
all those who are the result of being fruitful and multiplying
and fill the earth. And it’s going to be one big
family celebration. Some of our family went to a
little yearly gathering yesterday. Those who are still alive are
there. Those who are born into the family, they get to come.
But you know, in heaven, there will be generation after generation
after generation. And you can picture in that celebration,
God is there. Jesus, the Holy Spirit. But how
about Abraham? Remember, Abram called from Ur
of the Chaldeans, childless, childless, childless, till he
was age 100. And what did God do to show him that his promise
of children and many offspring would come to pass? He gave him
a new name, Father many and that must have been a joke for Abraham
in his time father of many when he had his 1.0 Isaac who almost
died on an altar but there in heaven we’ll see father Abraham
can you imagine just speculate a little with me God whispers
into Abraham’s ear and he says can you count them
The number is massive. The multitudes have gathered.
And friends, the drama of redemption has finally reached its climax.
God himself, the great father of all, has gathered all his
children together to be with him. If you want to be at that
family gathering. Put your faith in Jesus. Recognizing
that you’re a sinner in need of salvation and that that salvation
comes only through Jesus. It comes only through Christ.
And it’s a gift that is received by faith in him alone. And pray with me, if you will.
Our gracious God, our Lord and master, we bless you this day
that you’ve given us these words, these commands, these marching
orders to help us fill the earth with your glory, to help us fill
your church with little ones and big ones who love you and
who call on your name and who rise up and call on the Lord.
We thank you that you’ve made this possible through Jesus.
We thank you that you’ve made this possible through marriage. We thank you that you’ve made
it possible through the power and the work of your Holy Spirit.
And so we ask now, give us grace in our own lives and in our extended
families and with those whom we have contact with to proclaim
the goodness of family and children so that your church may be full
of those who rise up and call on the name of the Lord. And
this we pray in Jesus name, amen. Let me ask the elders to please
come forward as we prepare for the Lord’s Supper. After having the Passover supper
with his disciples, he took bread and broke it and he gave thanks.
And he said to his disciples, this is my body, which is given
for you. Take and eat. And in the same
manner, after the supper, he took the cup. And he said to
them, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. And
he said, as often as you eat this bread and drink of this
cup, you proclaim my death until I come again. He was reminding
them that The prophecies were true. A savior had to die for
sinners. He was reminding them that a
prophecy would come true, that he would return again and take
them home to be with him where he was in heaven. But he was
also reminding them that he was not leaving them, but that in
some special way he would be with them. And so while Jesus
is not present with us bodily, you know, he’s ascended into
heaven where he sits at the right hand of God, the father. He he
serves his church through means. And we believe that Christ is
present, not in some strange. fleshy way, but in a spiritual
way through this meal, that when the partakers who truly by faith
have repented of their sin and received Christ, He comes and
He sups with you. He eats this meal with you. He
eats this meal with us as a church. And He nurtures us in a way that
we cannot explain in ways that are unimaginable. But we know
that when we leave this place, we have eaten with Jesus. And
we proclaim His death until He comes again. And so if you have
trusted in Jesus alone for your salvation, If you’ve been baptized
and you have identified with the church of Jesus Christ, not
necessarily this one, but if you’re a member in good standing
of another evangelical church, we invite you to this table.
Come and eat with us. But if you have not yet come
to faith in the Lord Jesus. Let these elements pass you by.
But don’t leave this place today without asking one of these brothers
or finding me or someone in the church that you trust and saying,
what must I do to be saved? For I want to be with Jesus and
with the family of Abraham forever in heaven. What a gracious thing
that would be. Pray with me, if you will. Our
Lord and God, we thank you that you feed us and we ask now that
this bread and this cup, these ordinary elements would be set
apart for not common use but uncommon use. Come and by your
Spirit and through our faith feed us, nurture us, fill us.
Remind us that your banner over us is love and that nothing in
this life, neither death or powers or principalities, even our own
sin and shortcomings can separate us from the love of God. Feed
us, we do pray, our dear shepherd and lamb. Amen.