His First Gifts of Grace

January 18, 2026
His First Gifts of Grace
Sermon Audio

CENTRAL TEXT: Genesis 2:4-17

These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

Gen. 2:5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Gen. 2:10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Gen. 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 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.” 

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 8

LEADER: O LORD, our Lord,
  how majestic is your name in all the earth!
  You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
  you have established strength because of your foes,
  to still the enemy and the avenger.

ALL: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
  the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
  and the son of man that you care for him?

LEADER: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
  and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
  you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
  and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
  whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

ALL: O LORD, our Lord,
  how majestic is your name in all the earth!

PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH: 1 Corinthians 15:45-52

The entire bible is One story; all pointing to the beauty and finished work of Jesus. 
Each week we offer additional readings & liturgy that connect to the central text and themes to 
help illustrate this continuity. Our central text for today is found in Genesis 1and so 
we offer these related texts found in
LEADER: So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living person”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like the one from heaven, so too those who are heavenly. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1Cor. 15:50 Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

CELEBRATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

CONFESSION OF SIN:  

LEADER: Let us confess our sin to the Lord.

ALL: You have made us for Yourself. You have given us all we need. Yet we so often turn elsewhere, thinking ourselves more competent, and You, too constraining–until we find the house we’ve built for ourselves atop sinking sand and too weak against the buffeting storm. Forgive us our arrogance. Help us to see and trust Your goodness, never the more evident as in the gift of Your Son.  

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Romans 8:29-32

LEADER: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

 ALL: Thanks be to God!

BENEDICTION: Revelation 1:5, 6

LEADER: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

ALL: Amen!

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • 1 Kings 3
  • Psalm 8
  • Ruth 1:14
  • Romans 8:29 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 

  1. Are you in any way with good your hands–as a gardener, an artist, or in repairing? How did that aptitude develop? Do you find any satisfaction in it? 
  2. Some look at the two accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 as slapdash editing for the distinct differences between them. But how do the two accounts complement one another in the way each is distinct? How does each reveal something the other chooses to focus on elsewhere?
  3. Besides your parents, who has been the most influential person in your life–the one for whom you have the greatest respect for all they invested to build into you what you now cherish? If we are to see in the intimate creation of Adam by YHWH our own worth to the Creator, and the worth of every human, how must that govern the way we think of each?
  4. What all has modern culture sought to prompt from us and imbue in us other than a posture of cultivating everything we’ve been given? Why does proper care of what is within our reach—our places, people, possessions, and our own heart–a more fitting purpose?
  5. Was one warning YHWH not to eat of the tree of the knowledge and good and evil His attempt to keep them from such knowledge entirely? What’s the point of the warning?
  6. Paul speaks of Jesus as the second and last Adam. Before we get to Genesis 3 and isolate how Jesus succeeded where the first Adam failed, let’s first ask what all does the first and last Adam share in common?
  7. Which of YHWH’s gifts of dignity, purpose, or wisdom has for you become a gift despised or at least neglected of late? How does the mercy of Jesus and His embodiment of that gift in you neglected offer hope that it is not a gift the Lord revokes? 

Illustrations:

Jan 18, 2026

Quotes:

God is essentially, to the depths of his being, God for us and God with us. 
- John Webster
God refuses to be God without us. 
- Will Willimon

It is hopeless to want to know for ourselves what Man was originally. . . we can know about the man of the beginning, only if we start from Christ. The attempt, as hopeless, as it is understandable, as again, and again delivered the church up to free speculation at this dangerous point. Only in the middle, as those who live from Christ, do we know of the beginning. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

For us who live in the middle through Christ and no our humanity in his resurrection, that God is free has no meaning except that we are free for God. 
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.” 
- Augustine
Little men spend their days in pursuit of such things [wealth, fame, etc.]. I know from experience that at the moment of their deaths they see their lives shattered before them like glass. I've seen them die. They fall away as if they have been pushed, and the expressions on their faces are those of the most unbelieving surprise. 
- Signor Marratta in Mark Helprin's, A Winter's Tale
The logic of Nazi racial science and the Manhattan Project is identical. Racial theorists computed genetic "fitness" to justify elimination. Manhattan Project scientists calculated casualties to justify deployment. Different variables, same equation: some deaths are acceptable if they serve the right purpose. The Enlightenment promised reason would end violence. Instead it gave us clinical language and mathematical models to obscure the same ancient sacrifices. 
- Laura London
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil presented the alternative to discipleship: to be self-made, wresting one's knowledge, satisfaction, and values from the created world and defiance of the Creator. 
- Derek Kidner
If you knew how quickly people will forget you when you die, you would not seek to please anyone but God. 
- St John Chrysostom
If you have trouble seeing the good in your neighbor, you are forever forbidden from denying this goodness to her, for you know that God is her Creator. God treasures her with the same burning affection that led him to make whatever you find most lovable in the world: a parent, a friend, a particular song, a favorite novel, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls. But perhaps this isn’t your problem. Perhaps you have trouble seeing the good in yourself. Perhaps you look inside, or in the mirror, and wonder whether there’s anything good there. God be praised, let me be the one to tell you the answer. You are God’s beloved. You are God’s creation. From before all time God knew he would make you, because he chose to make you. No one forced his hand. He chose because he loves you and wanted you to be one of the many unique and wondrous creatures to fill his good creation. 
- Brad East, Letters to a Future Saint
Might there be in procreation – that mysterious gift granted to the man and the woman, of bringing into the world of being who is the image of God – a reflection of divine creation? The word "procreation" suggests the idea. 
- Henri Blocher
God is steadfast in love and infinite in mercy. Though His kingdom is not of this world, trusting in Him makes living in this world more meaningful and less alienating. You are woven into it because He is. 
- Marilyn Simon 

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