Adam & Eve

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Welcome to Thrive. It's good to have you here today. And it's good to start a new sermon series for the summer called The Story of Us. What's your story? You know, in fact, I think here at Thrive, we've really enjoyed getting to know each other's story, that is, how God has worked in your life, some of the struggles, some of the aspirations, some of the dreams and hopes. And we want to be with each other throughout the entire story. And we find in this series, God's story has been going on since the beginning. And each of the stories in the Bible are not just stories about the characters in those, but they're also our story as well in a variety of ways. And so that's kind of what we're looking at, is how God has interacted. By the way, the Bible is not, you know, it's a theological, it's not a theological dictionary. You can get things out of it that way. It's not just kind of a book to find an answer whenever you want one. It's really a story from beginning to end. It's the story of how God has interacted with humanity. And so we are going to be looking at these different characters throughout. And in their struggles, I think we'll see our own. And in the midst of those struggles, we'll also see God's grace and goodness in our lives. Before we go on, I just wanted to say, you know, it's kind of a bittersweet day today. We are saying farewell and God bless to Hugo and Ashley, as they will be traveling to the East Coast and living in Merritt Island, right? Is that it, Hugo? Merritt Island. And they will be welcoming a new child to them. I think you've already picked out the name, right? Levi. Not as in Strauss, okay, but the Levi from the Bible, Levi. Yeah, so there's a lot of good history there. And so afterwards, we're going to have a little reception for them, but they have been integral in so many ways to our congregation over the last few years, as well as the campus ministry. And we just want to thank you for all of that and just pray that God's peace and blessings be upon you in this transition, okay? So what we're doing today is not simply something that, you know, we came up with. It's something that actually St. Paul thought about and said to the Corinthian church that we look back and we can see how each of these individuals, as well as the history of Israel, is all about setting examples for us. We get to learn from others, okay? So he says in 1 Corinthians 10, now these things happened to them, Israel, as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. What he's talking about is the fact that when Jesus came to earth, when God was fulfilling all of his promises that start actually back here in Genesis 3, which we'll get to today, and that whole course of history is coming to a climax in the person and work of Jesus, where he comes and he becomes the first human being on this planet, by the way, since Adam and Eve, that was fully human and being fully God. And he's bringing everything together and completing it so that he becomes our future. And we can see now each of these biblical characters and the ways that they are like, the trueness that God had for us from the beginning, and also how they too, just like us, the brokenness of each of these individuals. And yet God's grace runs through it all, which is so fantastic. So all the characters we're going to look at this summer, and boy, we could go on forever, and in fact, today, I could just, Adam and Eve and Genesis 1 to 3, we could spend the entire summer on, but we're not. And I think you're happy that we aren't. But we're going to see from them all sorts of things, and one thing I can't do with any of these, let me tell you, I'd like to, but I can't, is say, how could they have? I can't say that about, how could Jacob have done? How could Abraham? I can't believe, because I can believe, because I know myself a little, enough to know in those circumstances, that's probably me too. That's part of what the story of us is about. So today we're going to be starting our, where it kind of all begins, with Adam and Eve in the garden, and we're going to be reading from Genesis 1 to 3 today. We've got to only choose a little of it. So in Genesis 1, we read on the sixth day, at the evening of the sixth day, this is what it says, Genesis 1 verse 26 and following, that 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...