In the Beginning | Genesis 2 | Jarryd Cole

Last week you guys talked about the creation story and the how of creation you answer this question How did God create the world a micro the great job coming through that talking about how God declared and he Designed and he delighted and he delegated as he put himself to work to create the world And so this is what we're doing. It's not talking about the how but we're talking about the who? Okay, who did God create if you want to know what chapter two of dentists is all about we can see after two is The people chapter and what Genesis two wants to do is set the pace for the flourishing of the human race and Genesis 1 this is the creation account but Genesis 2 this is kind of like the creation account magnified And what we're going to see is the camera kind of zoom in on the creation of man and the place they live and what their Experiences to be like while they live there But the ironic you're already the engine is just chapter two and what you guys it doesn't really start quite yet Man, okay, it starts with a really unique thing it starts with the Sabbath if you're in the world I'm gonna start reading here in verse one. Here's what it says It says so the heavens in the earth and everything in them were completed on the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work He had done God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy for on it He rested from all his work of creation So those of you who are new to the word Sabbath, that just means like rests on a deep level And you're looking at this part of the text and what we see is it kind of capstone to creation and that you guys heard last week And it's so unique because it feels like this part of the text should be back in Genesis 1 Yeah, we hear find it in Genesis chapter 2 and so we have to ask why if this is a capstone to all God had created it And then in day six and now we're in day seven and it's now this rest day that should be in chapter one, but it's in chapter two why Here's what I've come to know the Sabbath is about God's power and authority in creation as he rests on this seventh day But here's what's true it points to humanity's dependence on him And so it fits in Genesis chapter two Like the world had already been created on day six God made his crown jewel of creation and humanity He created man and he clearly had something planned for us But instead of getting us straight to it He allowed man's first day in the world to be a day of rest why so that we would know that God's main purpose for man Isn't you just get up and work but it's primarily dependence on him? It is to know him and it's to love him and find ultimate rest and satisfaction in his glory And so once we know that we as people don't live primarily to please God But we live out of the pleasure that God already had for us and it should cause us to want to experience and draw near and worship him even more So this is why Sabbath at the end of chapter two. This is why it kicks off right here Because it highlights the chief purpose of man Which is to glorify God and enjoy him forever So these few verses kind of act like the conclusion to a busy and action packs opening scene to a movie Creation here creation there then all this kind of stuff you flip the page into Genesis two And it's a sad if you're gonna kind of fill it come to this abrupt stop You can feel like the the panning kind of come to a stop you feel the calm among the creation And then now we pick up a verse four zoom right back in right around the event of the sixth day It's the creation of man. Look at this verse four These are the records of the heavens and the earth concerning their creation And at the time that the Lord God made the earth in the heavens no shrub of the field had yet grown on the land And no plan of the field had yet sprouted for the Lord God not made it rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground This would come up from the earth and all the ground and the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground Here it is and breathe the breath of life into his nostrils It's the creation of man and the man became a living being So I don't want to unpack everything here in the test But I do want to pull this out right here the few things we have to note about the creation of man primarily at the creation of man had humble beginnings Literally man was created out of dust And this is the most insignificant material you can ever imagine And as we think about the creation there that this can kind of be overlooked why because you can have in your mind That when you think about man being made from the ground you can think like mud Right water and dirt and all this kind of stuff. You could be thinking hey man had this kind of glorious beginning because we were made from some of the greatest water and Ground that ever existed, but no the Bible doesn't tell us that It tells us that man was it made from mud or this glorious water and ground, but it was made from the dust the dust of the ground And you guys know what dust is Like dust is that kind of stuff you have in your in your dorm room, right? Maybe have a roommate and you're just like you just wish they would clean up a little bit So the nasty stuff all over the place, right? You're just like this. This is an annoying insignificant And stuff you want to just package up and throw on the trash, right? This is dust. I remember when I was young and I would like look at my windows You remember that like the sun would come through these kind of these blinds and sometimes little particles We're just dance in this in the sunlight, right? Like the stuff that I was just dancing floating the air here like here and then go on you can't even follow it because it's so fine And so insignificant like this is the kind of stuff that the Bible is saying that man is made out of I've remained from that kind of stuff. It's insignificant and yet look back at verse 7 How it gives us the image of what God does with this dust He somehow carefully gathers up this dust and what he does He takes his time and he forms men out of it and he doesn't just form man out of it But he delicately breathed the breath of life into him So here's a question for the room. Aren't you grateful that God is God and we're not Because where we see something that is disposable and insignificant God sees an opportunity for his greatest creation yet In whom he gives ultimate significance So if you're wondering what God thinks about you if you're wondering what he thinks about humanity You need to know this that before you ever do anything the Genesis 2 creation narrative tells us that you already matter to God You already matter I'm a terrible potter My family and I like to take a trip to the Dels once a year every year And if you've been to the Dels before maybe when you were young as a little kid, right? There's this thing that you can do in the wilderness hotel Anybody been to the wilderness hotel before at the Dels amazing, okay? And when you go upstairs is like a second floor you go upstairs And there's a spot where you can actually make pottery at the Dels my kids love to do this and my kids are telling me go I hate that I want to do the pottery. I'm gonna do this kind of stuff I try to do it with them and my stuff ends up just Trash, okay, but there's actually pretty cool. It's how they love doing it They'll take the time and press it and massage it and mold it and seal it And with the toss it into the kiln they come back the next day and it's this beautiful creation at least It's beautiful to them, okay, and they still keep a lot of the stuff that they make from the Dels if you ever come to my house Maybe a little really you would someday right and you would see this kind of stuff Maybe it will look insignificant to you, but you want to know what to them is they cherish it And I want you to know that's how God views you Like you might see yourself as like this Really unkipped pottery type of thing, but God says I don't know. I've created that I breathe life into that And so you matter to me So what you mean to know is that in the world where we can try to find our worth and dignity and so many different things our sports our relationships Our family our academics our reputation. Here's what I want you to remember from Genesis chapter two and God creating humanity is that God gave you value first He put value in you With his breath And I know in a room like this has got to be some people who are struggling with this right now Like maybe you came in tonight feeling like your dust you feel insignificant Maybe you're new to college your freshman Maybe you just transferred from some other school or whatever and college is really just kicking you in the teeth right now I know it just started, but it can feel like that sometimes or maybe you're down because of a failed relationship that you thought will last much Longer than it did listen I want to remind you that you don't get your worth and value from your surroundings or anything that you do But you get your value because you have the breath of God in you You get it from the start Already matter And so God created man out of dust. Let's look at the rest of the narrative look at verse 8 Says the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and there he placed the man that he had just formed The Lord God caused the grow cost of grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food Including the tree of the life in the middle of the garden As well as the nausea good and evil we'll talk about that a little bit more I went out from Eden to water the garden from there. It divided and became the source of four rivers The name of the first is peace on which flows from the entire land of Havela where there is gold and gold from that land is pure But telling him and Onyx are also there, and the name of the second river is Gihon, which flows from the entire land of Kush, and the name of the third river is Tigris, which runs east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. There's a lot of kind of flowery language right here to kind of just help give the audience a picture of this place that God has just created. And what we're supposed to do is know how beautiful this place is, how teaming and beautiful and flourishing with life that this place is, the fruit bearing trees, the amazing water sources, there's some of them, there's godly resources, but delium, there's onyx, rich and valuable. So if we can sum it up, he puts, he puts man right in the middle of it, so if we can kind of sum this up, how God has created this garden, how God has created Eden, we could say he created Eden for the enjoyment and the wonder and the flourishing of humanity. So the question we have to ask is what part did humanity play in this kind of grand perfect and beautiful world of creation? So for the rest of my time, there's three things I just want to kind of unpack from the rest of the text about what part do humanity play in this beautiful, beautiful creation. The first thing is this, they were to work and manage the creation. The second thing is they were to obey the commands of God and third, they were to find relationships with one another. The first one, they were to work and manage creation. Verse 15, look at this, says the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and to watch over it. So we see very quickly that one of the man's primary purposes in the garden was to work it. Like literally, man was created, life breathed into him, didn't he worth value, all that kind of stuff. So he's not working for it. He already has it, but now he's to work the ground, literally man created to be a groundskeeper in the garden of Eden. God was like, hey, created you, you want purpose great here, Mothalan, right? There's a little more important than that, obviously, there, like did their work, was to not only Mothagrass, trim the branches, like this was unkempt garden we're talking about. So what they were doing was literally bringing order into chaos and accordance to God's design. And we got into this work was good. So for some of you who needed to need this note, that work is not a product of the fall. Maybe the thing you know about working the Bible is that it talks about work being hard and sweaty and all this kind of stuff, you know, work by the sweat of your brow from Genesis chapter three. Yes, that's true, and we're coming to that. But that's not how work was intentionally designed. Work is not a product of the fall, contrary to popular belief, and I know it can feel like that, like in some of you in the room, maybe you've never worked a day in your life and you're dreading that time, you're going to actually have to wake up every day and go punch in and go to work. And some of you you're working right now and you're counting the days until you can get to retirement. That's just the nature of kind of how we are on this side of the cross, and you're struggling to love it. But work isn't a product of the fall. However, the pain and the toil that you experience from your work is a product of the fall. Maybe Michael will touch on this a little bit more next week in Genesis three. But I want to go and win just a little bit of theology of work here for a moment, because the way we often experience work now is that work is tedious, it's demanding, manual labor is tiresome, work with your mind is draining, but you didn't know that this doesn't mean that work is bad. Work is really good. Like work is an opportunity for us to reflect the hard work, the intentionality and the care of God in the same way that he worked to create creation. And even if it's painful, even if it's tiring, it's still good. And we have to believe that, like some of us are trying to find the ways to make the most amount of money doing the least amount of work and the least amount of time. This is kind of what we have in our minds. We want to graduate, we want to leave our parents, houses, we want to do whatever we want to start doing work. Like what's the easiest thing I can do to get me the most amount of money so I can do it for at least amount of time and just be on my merry way. How fast can I just ride off into the sunset in my life? Listen, I'm not dog going to retire, I'm not dog going to make all the money, you should pursue those things, that's fine. But don't begrudge the work that you're able to do in this life because your main purpose is to help cultivate God's creation to align more with His design. I know this even from my own experience, and I'm in a relationship with a lot of older men and women in my life and what I come to find is as you get older, you actually start desiring to put your hand to some of the work around you. And so I'm in a relationship with 50, 60, even 70 year olds who, yes, could retire, maybe are even retired, but they're like, man, I want to do something else, I want to take a victory lap. Like I want to do it again, God, give me some meaningful work to put my hand to. And some of us are doing this because they have found that kind of enjoyable and meaningful work for them. But part of it is that they really think that work is a phenomenal way to honor and glorify God. And I think that would be a good thing for us to know our minds as well. So I need you to hear this, what if your view of work actually changed? What if your mindset on how you view work from the way it was created in Genesis 2 actually changed? What if God is setting it up right now in your place of work? Maybe in your internships, the internships that you desire to get some points, maybe even in your classrooms, but it is to be an agent for the gospel to help cultivate the place and the people around you to align more with his good design. Like, while you're sitting there wondering, when is this going to be over and how long is this going to take? And why do I got to study for that? And why do I have to go here now? Why do they call me to do it? Why do they call? Say, look, I don't know, whoever asked, like, why do they have to call me to do it? Like, what if your mind shifted and what an opportunity for me to help cultivate the places and the people that I'm in, how, according to God's good design, for work? What if the job that God blesses you with after college isn't just a means for your provision, but a chance to be on mission to do your best work and to give him credit for it? Like, I believe Christians should be the best artist in the world. I think they should be the best doctors in the world. They should be the best accountants, the best teachers, the best mechanics, the best engineers, the best scientists. Christians should just do really good work. A lot of young people always ask me, like, post-college, I mean, like, how can I glorify God? I'm doing my doing enough. I'm doing enough. I'm like, well, what do you do for work? I'm a doctor. I'm going to be the best doctor to the glory of God. It's simple. You know how you glorify God with your work? You do good work. You do good work. This is a way to glorify God. Not because there's so much special or good to do, which I'm sure there is and you will be, but because you value work to agree because of God that is different and healthier than the people that don't know Him. What if this was your view of work? What if you work from a place where you work on the orders of the Creator that made you and you do so skillfully and joyfully for a heavenly reward, not an earthly one? Prefall, humanity understood this as they received one of their first orders to work and manage creation. So, humanity's placing creation is to work and manage creation. Secondly, humanity's placing creation is to obey the commands of God. Look at verse 16 and 17, the man who continues in the Lord God commanded the man. You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for on that day. You eat from it. You will certainly die for humanity wants to obey the commands of God. I know I say the word obey and obedience, right, this can have a negative connotation in our culture. Right now, it's a bad word in our day. Why? It sounds restrictive, but we need to know that the commands of God are worthy to be obeyed, amen? Because we can trust that God has our best at heart. This is why. You can look back at all God is created, we just talked about it in these first two chapters. You have to do a lot of gymnastics in your mind to get to a place where you're thinking like a God like this would do something that would be detrimental to the creation that he loves. If you look at all these, he's already done. Just in the first couple of chapters of your Bible, it would be insane to be like, I can't trust this too. I can't trust him, we can trust God and the thing that God wanted a man to obey was that there was something he created that was off limits, namely the tree of knowledge and good of evil. So a question has to pop in your mind, maybe has a question before, like, why would God put a tree like this in this perfect, beautiful garden? Why would God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? And here's the reason, y'all, it's because he wanted to give man a choice. And here's why man needed a choice because without choice, there is no freedom. No choice, no freedom. You can't live in a real world with real freedom without having the freedom to make the wrong choice and have the potential to sin. Without free will, a person cannot choose to freely love and God cannot go against that because God believes that the highest virtue with the highest value in the world is love. So he wants a creation that loves him, not that is enchained to him. So in reality, this tree sitting in the middle of the garden was arguably the kindest thing that God did in the creation narrative. He made all this beauty, a perfect world, and then he set it up in such a way in which he did it to create robots who just bowed to every beck and call, who were just chained to him in his voice, but no, he wanted to create real humans with real heartbeats, with real flesh that had to choose to worship him. Trust me, y'all, you want it like this. You want it like that. Think about it in your own relationships. Do you want people to like you and want to be around you because they have to? Or do you want to be around you because they want to? I don't know about you, but I'd rather be a person where my relationships are genuine. I imagine you would too. I don't want people around because they are afraid of what I do if they weren't, or because they're so conditioned to think I need their presence, I want genuine relationships, where time is spent with me and love, because they want to do it, not because they have to do it. I'm a girl, man. I have a wife and four kids who I love and who love me dearly, and if I could listen, I would spend every waking moment I have with them, and I think they would do the same with me. Most days, I go home, I get home from work, and I have to fight my kids to keep them from climbing all over me. I get home from work, okay? But it would break my heart if they only wanted a relationship with me because they felt like they had to. I want them to have a relationship with me because they want to and your Heavenly Father, God who created all creation. This is what He wants from you to, and that's why there's this tree of the knowledge of good and evil right here in the middle of this perfect garden, and putting this tree in the garden was actually kind. Even in His kindness, He made this easiest possible not to take from it, but I don't know what else He could have done. He basically put like a big flashing red sun thing and said, "Hey, don't eat from this tree for your own good." And He gave, He even gave instructions, He says, "Because if you do, I'm telling you upfront, that's the, that's the coming. My dude made it as easy as possible to avoid the thing, to help them be obedience to obey the commanding told them not to do." So when it comes to the reasons to be obedient to God, Genesis 2 is Exhibit 8. Man and woman in the beginning should have obeyed God. We should be people who obeyed God too. And this is part of what humanity is placed as in creation, and so humanity is placed in creation, is to work and manage it. Secondly, humanity is placed in creation, so obey the commands of God, and lastly, they are to find relationships with one another, look at the rest of the text. In verse 18, the narrative continues, and the Lord God said, "It is not good for the fuckers to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to Him, and the Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky and brought each to the man to see what He would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name, what authority that man has. And the man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky and to every wild animal but for the man, no helper was found corresponding to Him. And so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. And God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place, and the Lord God made the rib. He had taken from the man into a one man and brought her to the man. And the man said, "Here's his response. This one, at last, is born on my bone, a flesh of my flesh. This one will be called one man. He even has the name of her, for she was taken from man. And this is why man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh, both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame." Are you going to be honest, this is a little bit wild of a read, okay? God goes to, and he's like, "Yo, here's the animals, name all the animals, all this kind of stuff. I wonder how many animals man got through before he was just like, "God, are you serious? No helper from any of the animals." And God went, "All right, had enough, go to sleep. Time to make a helper. Here's one man." I can love this part of the creation there because it talks about how good so many things are, but the thing that God says is not good in his perfect creation is that man was alone. And so God answered out to the loneliness of man, was to revive from him a helper. There was none suitable for him, and so he creates one man to be a helper for man. Amen, fellow is in the room. Amen. If you don't say that, I'm going to say it for you. Amen. Like God puts man to sleep probably because he would mess it up if he was awake and he takes a rib from him, and God made woman from the rib of man. And this is significant in the text because what this means is that God made woman from the side of man. He doesn't make her from the head of man. He doesn't make her from the feet of man, so to be below him or the head of man to be above him, but to the side of man to be beside him. She is co-equal in this creation narrative, to do the things that God has set them out to do. Like we live in a culture, we tend to be domineering, don't we? So many cultures in history, you can think about it. And what we've created is a culture where man has been to the top of the hierarchy, and man has been on the bottom of the hierarchy, and many of you in the room, you might be struggling with this reality. And some of you may even have questions and doubts. Maybe I'm giving you life to Christ, one of the things that's holding you back is because you think the Bible has outdated views on what it means for men and women to relate. That women are below men, that women to be subdued to men, that all women everywhere should bow down to all men everywhere, this isn't what's true. And you can see it from the creation narrative in Genesis chapter 2. Woman was created from the side of man as a dignified helper. And we'll talk about help for a little bit more in just a minute, but not only did God take woman from the river man from the side, but he made woman for man, which means God's designed for practice, intimate relationship is in the context of man and woman specifically, one man and one woman forever. So now they become one flesh. When they find one another, they come together, they get married, we would say, but the Bible says, "Hey, that becomes one flesh." And if the Bible is clear, that is for one man and one woman. That means that this is not for one man and one man, or one woman and one woman. And I know that's contradictory, and of course we live in today, and you will hear many narratives, especially in your college campuses about what this could mean for humanity, or maybe some of your families, your families might believe something different about what I just said, but men and women here, this were designed biblically to be together because they are the necessary, complicated repair that God created for one another at the beginning of creation. Man and woman to be a helper to men. And I love this word helper, and the Hebrew, this word, translates to Ezra Connecto. Ezra Connecto for helper, and what this means is that woman is a strong helper. As a helper, like the Bible goes so far, to talk about women's relationship to men, and not only just says this is a helper, this is an assistant to your life, but no, this is a co-equal capable partner, this is what the Bible wants us to see, a strong helper. This word, Ezra Connecto, is actually use of God all throughout the Old Testament, talk about how God relates to the people of Israel. The scripture says that God is Israel's easier, connecto. That's wild. The type of help that woman is to men is the same type of help that God is to his people, a strong help. As a ladies in the room, I hope you hear that because I know in a culture like today, like you tend to fight an uphill battle, and there's things for all you culture and history buffs, like you're probably just battling so many different things. I want you to know that God instills value in you, and He sees all the things that you capable of, and all of that, listen, you are an Ezra Connecto. You are a strong help in the world that God has created. When I talk to men for a minute, because this is a mean that men aren't strong, and don't hear that, and we live in a culture now where the attack on men is actually coming. You can hear it in so many different narratives, all this kind of stuff. Listen, men, you are strong too, and I want you to hear that just because the Bible says that women are strong does not take any of your strength away. We have to know that. You have to be more secure in your manhood than that. You have to get your dignity and value just like the women do from what God says. Here's what God says. You don't have to be shriveled up like that. No, you can understand it. Hey, women are strong, and yes, men are strong too. Genesis 2 tells us this. A culture which I tell you so many different things, but God's word matters more. So men and women were designed to find one another and be in relationship as they co-exist as complimentary pair as co-equals to co-rule creation according to God's good design. And so back to some of Genesis 2, Genesis 2 is setting the pace for the flourishing of the human race in this. is what the flourishing looks like, but there's a problem with all of this. There's a problem because we want to bump against God's design, don't we? The first man and women did it and we want to follow into their footsteps and what's true about that is because we are plagued by sin. We are plagued by a sin sickness that we think we know better than God. Are we thinking we know better than God? We can clearly see how God created the world, how God designed man and put man and women in relation to one another, how we should view work and what our destiny is supposed to be and we just want to buck up against all of it. We want to we want to define our lives and the one that we live in for ourselves. You know that this is the entire narrative of the Bible, right? That post this, that the entire Bible is about what it looks like for man and woman to get back into right relationship with God. You know after Genesis 3 next week, we're going to talk about that. There's a fault of man and what man is going to be trying to do for the rest of time, for the rest of humanity is going to be like, how do I get back this right and perfect relationship with God? How we had it back in the garden? How do we get it? And I know you're in the room right now, you're young, but also as you feel this kind of fraction of reality in your life, because you wake every day resting with the pains and the toils of your own life, whatever they might be, whatever demands that there are on you, whatever your relationships look like, whatever your home and your family life looks like, the relationship with your parents, your siblings, I don't know what it might be for you, but you feel this pain, you feel this fractured reality of your life. Listen, that is the effects of sin. And post Genesis 3, what God tells us about humanity is that our main aim is to figure out how do we get back to Eden, how do we get back to Genesis chapter 2. And we fail, and we fail, and we fail. But here's the good news, new testament, Jesus comes. And this is the gospel. Jesus comes and he is the embodiment of Eden. He is the perfect man. He displays the perfect life. He is the good and perfect creation embodied into one human being, and he walks around with human flesh on, and he demonstrates what God had always designed to be demonstrated forever. This is what Jesus does. And he was sacrificed, he was put on the cross, he was buried in a grave only to rise again wide so that Eden could be possible once more. So here's the hope for the room. To those of you who believe in and put your trust in him, the promises you don't have to suffer the effects of the sin sickness anymore. But your life might not change, immediately. Life might not change on this side of eternity, but the truth and the promise of the Scripture is that one day, one day, one day, all of this will cease. In one day, the pain and the heartache, the thoughts you have, the ill thoughts you have about yourself and the people around you and the world around you, all that kind of stuff, it will soon die. And those of you who have your faith in Jesus, you will step back into Eden. Life, as it was always meant to be life and perfection in the created order that God designed it to be. So my application for tonight, it's just one thing I want us in the room to trust God's design. Would you be a person who trusts God's design? And you're going to have so many things vying for your affection, vying for your mind, vying for your time, vying for the way that you view the world, all your world visits are going to have and be exposed to right now. And it's time in your life. You're in the most impressionable time in your entire life. And I love that you're right here in this room. Because what you're saying is that you want the Bible to be more impressed on your mind and having affected to your life more than anything else. And so my prayer is that the Holy Spirit, honor that. That the Holy Spirit actually see you here and honor your sacrifice and your service actually being a place like this to honor and glorify God more than you do anything else in this world. So my biggest prayer for you saw company here in the city of Milwaukee is that you would be people not just 18 to 22, but people who get to 30, who get to 40, who get to 50, the end of your life trusting in the good design of God. So what would it look like for you to take a step and trust God's good design tonight? Maybe you came in wrestling. Where are you wrestling with God where you can fill the gap with trust instead of suspicion? No, this is difficult because you need answers. You want answers. Trust me, you'll get some and some you won't. So my answer is that you fill that gap with trust. Would you read it? Would you accept it? And would you trust it as God says it? Even if you don't have all the answers, even if it's still unclear to you, how can you begin to operate in the known and unknown as if God knows better and trust that his ways are always good? This is the challenge of the Christian faith. This is the challenge of walking obedience to Jesus. This is the challenge of trusting in the way that he views relationships. We need to trust his good design and where we don't know, we say, "God, you know." And would you help my heart conform to what's true through your word? It's my prayer for this room. Would you pray with me that it be so father we love you? And we're grateful for tonight. I'm grateful for this room full of young people who are pursuing after you. Now, remember when I was in their seats? Now, I remember coming into a church, I had known nothing about our members trying out college ministries and all these different kind of things and I walked smooth out of there because I did not trust in your good design, the way I should have trusted in your good design. Yes, I called on you. Yes, I said I was a child of yours and yet the thing that was most true about me is I wanted to walk my own way, I wanted to go my own way and I prayed if there's someone in here like that tonight. I mean, if I could go back. God would I stay. God would I stay. And I would beg and plead with you to help me bend my will to you. My mind, my emotions, my desires, all to you. They say, "God, you are God." And I'm not. And I want to trust you. I want to walk in your way to the end of my life, God, would you help me get back to Eden? I want to see creation as Genesis 2 says it is. I want to streets and the roads and the paveways full of bedelli and I want it full of ionics. I want it full of emerald, all the different kind of things. Don't you want that to? So, Father, we love you. Will you help us get there? Will you help us trust in your good design? Would you carry us to the end? Father, we love you. We're grateful and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.