Era 1

Beginnings, Episode 3 Show Notes

Genesis

2:4-25 – This marks the beginning of humanity NIV

When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil. 6 Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. 7 Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. 8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. 9 The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden, he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden, and then dividing into four branches. 11 The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found. 12 The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. 13 The second branch, called the Gihon, flowed around the entire land of Cush. 14 The third branch, called the Tigris, flowed east of the land of Asshur. The fourth branch is called the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 16 But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden — 17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. 23 “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” 24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

I. The Point of Purpose

a. God has a purpose for every one of us. What is God’s will for your life?

II.  The Point of Free Will

a.  We have many choices, daily… do you ask God for direction before making those choices?

III.  Three Questions

1. What is the scripture saying?

2.  What does the scripture mean?

3.  How can I apply what I’ve learned today to my life?

00;00;03;19 - 00;00;27;23

Voiceover

You are listening to the Bible breakthrough with Pastor David Engman and

Scott Brekke. In this study, we will break down the Bible from B.C. to A.D. chronologically while offering historical context and real-life application for today. This series is brought to you by the Breakthrough Media Network.

00;00;27;23 - 00;00;54;03

Pastor Dave

Hi, my name is Pastor Dave Engman, and this is Scott Brekke. And today in studio, we have a special guest. We have Pastor Paul. And Pastor Paul is the founder of Wild Hearts Adventures, which is a program of Breakthrough Ministries, and he is the director of that program. Pastor, would you take 30 seconds just to describe Wild Hearts.

00;00;54;17 - 00;01;43;24

Pastor Paul

Sure. Love to! Wild Hearts Adventures is a program that where we want to give people the opportunity to experience God's love and connection with him in the wilderness, and we reach out to those who are struggling. We focus a lot on recovery, couples who are struggling, father and mother, child relationships. And we just think it's an awesome opportunity for people to get away and to have that chance to connect with each other and with God and to have that time of, you know, being able to think and to maybe focus on some things in their life that they would love to see change in.

00;01;44;04 - 00;01;51;01

Pastor Dave

Nice. And I know for a fact that you've got 17 trips planned this year. How many of those are to Colorado?

00;01;51;22 - 00;01;53;00

Pastor Paul

Oh, six right now.

00;01;53;08 - 00;02;17;04

Pastor Dave

Okay. So, six opportunities to go and spend about a week climbing mountains in Colorado. Pastor Paul's is one my dearest friends. It's Paul Lanhart. You can find a link to Wild Hearts Adventures on the Breakthrough website and go there to sign up to find out more about whether or not God's calling you to get involved in that ministry.

00;02;17;28 - 00;02;33;08

Pastor Dave

So, what we want to do now is we just want to welcome you to the Bible Breakthrough, and we want to thank you, our audience for joining us today. Ultimately, our goal is to lead you into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Jesus.

00;02;34;05 - 00;02;55;25

Scott Brekke

And please look for the bonus video to this episode as we discuss various topics that come up because of the scripture we cover today and also the show notes will be linked in the description of this video. In the last episode, we read through Genesis 1:24 through 2:4, and wrapped up our discussion about the account of creation.

00;02;56;20 - 00;03;21;24

Pastor Dave

The scripture that we're going to cover today is Genesis two, starting at verse four through 25. This marks the beginning of humanity with man and woman in the garden. Now there's three questions that I encourage you to be asking yourself as you listen. What is the text saying? What does it mean? And how can I apply what I'm learning to my life?

00;03;22;14 - 00;03;41;17

Scott Brekke

And before we're going to read the Bible here, let's start off with prayer. So, Lord, I thank you so much again for being able to do this. Lord, I pray that you would just illuminate as we read. Lord, that's a word that stands out to me. Lord just “illuminate” to us what you are trying to speak to us and Lord.

00;03;41;27 - 00;03;45;14

Scott Brekke

So, Father, please do that in Jesus name. Amen.

00;03;45;25 - 00;03;55;25

Pastor Dave

Amen. All right, so let's open the Bible and let's read the passage out of Genesis chapter two. Starting at verse four. Scott, would you be willing to do that? Yep.

00;03;57;24 - 00;04;19;00

Scott Brekke

So, when the Lord God made the heavens and the Earth, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth for the Lord, God had not yet sent rain to water the Earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil. Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust to the ground.

00;04;19;00 - 00;04;40;03

Scott Brekke

He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils. And the man became a living person. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east. And there he placed the man He had made. The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground, trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden

00;04;40;03 - 00;05;07;08

Scott Brekke

He placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden, and then dividing into four branches. The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed from the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found. The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there.

00;05;07;19 - 00;05;36;00

Scott Brekke

The second branch, called the Gihon, flowed around the entire land of Cush. The third branch, called the Tigris, flowed east of the land of Asshur. The fourth branch is called the Euphrates. The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, you may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden - except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

00;05;36;15 - 00;05;57;07

Scott Brekke

If you eat its fruit, you will surely die Then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him. So, the Lord God form from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one.

00;05;57;28 - 00;06;19;25

Scott Brekke

He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky and all the wild animals. But still there was no help or just right for him. So, the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. “At last,” he exclaimed.

00;06;20;06 - 00;06;38;15

Scott Brekke

“This one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! She will be called woman, because she was taken from man.” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now, the man and his wife were both naked, but felt no shame.

00;06;39;17 - 00;07;06;23

Pastor Dave

Wonderful job. Thanks for reading that. So, there's a lot there. What? What would you say? Well, let me just start out with giving you an idea of what I took away from that. There were four points. The first point was the point of purpose. You know, God placed the man in the garden. Right. And it was his place to rest and to work.

00;07;06;23 - 00;07;44;09

Pastor Dave

God shows us that we have purpose through the work that that he gives us, and that God will help us succeed. For example, in verse 15 man's job, as we looked, was to tend and to watch over the garden. God put man in the garden. He placed them there. We talked a little bit about this, this morning, Scott. Paul was not a part of that discussion, but the idea was that God created this garden and then he put the man that he created in the garden, the man had already been created.

00;07;45;01 - 00;08;11;24

Pastor Dave

The garden was created next. And then God put the man in the garden and then gave man a job to do and that job was to tend the garden and to watch over the garden The other point I'll make is regarding verse 19, in that verse, God brought the animals to the man, and he had the man name the animals.

00;08;12;15 - 00;08;34;06

Pastor Dave

So, as it pertains to just the discussion around this, God placing the man in the garden gave man purpose when God gave him a job to do. So, you know, any discussion topics around that? Any ideas or thoughts that you have that come out of that first key takeaway?

00;08;35;21 - 00;09;07;05

Scott Brekke

Well, I mean, we see that just like everything else God makes, there's a reason for it. There's a purpose for it. So, I'm thinking, okay, he's creating a man. He does that. He's created me in his image. There must be a purpose for my life. So, yeah, there's purpose for everything that God creates, including every single person. So maybe if there is someone struggling out there with purpose, there's a purpose and a plan for your life that God has.

00;09;07;21 - 00;09;08;15

Scott Brekke

So right.

00;09;10;18 - 00;09;11;21

Pastor Dave

Any thoughts from you, Pastor?

00;09;11;21 - 00;09;45;28

Pastor Paul

Yeah. I would add that along with what Scott shared there, along with that… it was beautiful. I mean, the Garden of Eden was beautiful. Everything God created was beautiful. We know that. And God's plan for us was to have purpose as was just stated. And that's a beautiful thing. And I think that's sometimes what we struggle with as God's intent was for those tasks or things that he gave us to do was meant to be a beautiful thing.

00;09;46;09 - 00;09;47;12

Pastor Dave

Yeah, I agree.

00;09;47;12 - 00;10;15;05

Scott Brekke

So really quick going at that. So, what would you say? Like, what if your tasks, like, started to, like, be like a burden? And like, you're like, oh, my gosh, I have so many tasks or the things I'm doing, they feel like a burden, more than like, it doesn't feel like a good thing, you know? So my question is, is, you know, just say there's a person out there that's really struggling with like, is this really my purpose?

00;10;15;05 - 00;10;32;20

Scott Brekke

Or my plan that God has in my life? You know? So, what would be something that would clearly direct someone that would say this is maybe not where you're supposed to be, and God has a different purpose for your life. So…

00;10;33;18 - 00;10;58;26

Pastor Dave

Well, let me let me interject on that thought just for a second. You know, as we read through this passage that we read here today, we can clearly see in a moment, we'll talk more about it, but we can clearly see that the man had a desire for a helper. Okay. And it's my contention that God puts desire within us.

00;10;59;15 - 00;11;31;01

Pastor Dave

God puts the desires of our heart in our heart. And God activates that desire. And we then start to want more and more the desire of our heart. So, to the point that you're bringing up as a question. If, for example, you wake up in the morning and the alarm goes off and your first thought is, I can't stand doing whatever it is I'm doing, like I hate my job, for example.

00;11;31;03 - 00;12;02;28

Pastor Dave

Right? Right. Yeah. That might be a good indicator as to whether or not you're operating in God's will for your life, because his will for your life would be to have you do something that you thoroughly enjoy. I joke about from time to time, but since we launched Breakthrough Ministries over 13 years ago, actually, even before that, when I entered into ministry, you know, kind of full time in my life, I recognized that, you know, since then I haven't worked a day in my life per se.

00;12;03;12 - 00;12;15;08

Pastor Dave

Like, I am so excited to come and do life the way that we're doing life. So, I don't know if that's a leading question or closed-ended, or open-ended question, but that's kind of my take on it.

00;12;16;02 - 00;12;43;07

Scott Brekke

Well, so when you were saying that it just reminded me of or maybe a shout out to Danny Borchers, one of our board members is he says, we actually… we get to do this, you know, and I do… I, I before coming on to the ministry, I had a regular job doing bathroom remodeling and it was good and fine and I think the Lord used it, but I felt like there was more. I felt like, like God created me for something greater than just resurfacing bathtubs.

00;12;43;17 - 00;13;00;09

Scott Brekke

And he used me in that… especially the last seven years, like, God kind of taught me how to evangelize and tell people about Him kind of where I went. But I still have that thing. I like that question or, man, there's got to be more than just bathtubs, right?

00;13;00;18 - 00;13;24;29

Pastor Dave

So, all right. So, one of the other key takeaways that we get from this is this idea about free will. You know, God established free will by warning man not to eat from a certain tree that he put in the middle of the garden. And that tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And told the man, if you do, he lays out the consequences if you eat from that, you

00;13;25;13 - 00;13;55;09

Pastor Dave

will be sure to die. So, as it pertains to free will, you know, in the fact that ultimately man, the man and the woman violated that rule, by eating from that tree. We call… We call that the fall of man when they chose to basically disobey God. And then we see all the consequences as a result of such.

00;13;56;07 - 00;14;20;14

Pastor Dave

But I think it was important because you can't be completely free. It's a two-sided coin. God says, I'm giving you free will. I want you to have the ability to choose. You can't have that ability without having the flip side of that coin, which is something that he's warned you not to do. So, it gives us an opportunity to make a choice.

00;14;21;05 - 00;14;41;10

Pastor Dave

And we get many, many decisions every day when operating in free will. But the question really that comes to my mind is how often are we bringing that back to the Lord and asking the Lord, Lord, what would you have me do here? And then are we listening? And if we are, then, are we obeying?

00;14;41;24 - 00;14;43;02

Pastor Dave

Anything to add to that?

00;14;44;02 - 00;14;57;18

Pastor Paul

Again, I. I just think it's a beautiful thing. I know I'm maybe overusing that word, but the idea that God would create us with the ability to, to choose.

00;14;58;01 - 00;14;58;09

Scott Brekke

Yeah.

00;14;59;14 - 00;15;32;14

Pastor Paul

It's huge. I think, I think it's often overlooked, especially in the early section of the Bible, where people look at the creation and what God… all that God created. And sometimes we forget that. Yeah. His original plan was that we could choose and, of course, his desire that we would follow him. And as you talk later on, that we kind of stepped outside of that plan and God's desire for us but I think we really need to grab hold of that.

00;15;33;16 - 00;15;35;23

Pastor Paul

Right off the bat, we were given that choice.

00;15;36;03 - 00;15;40;09

Pastor Dave

Yeah. And it didn't take long for us to make the wrong choice.

00;15;41;16 - 00;15;58;25

Scott Brekke

And one thing I was going to bring up was it's interesting to me that in all of creation, he gives us, and I could be corrected on this, but he gives “us” the choice of free will. Right? Not the other, not the animals, not anything. So, it's specifically different that he gives us who was created in his image.

00;15;59;04 - 00;16;22;08

Scott Brekke

We have free will, not the animals and all the other things. So, we're like, so I don't know, I just see us being set apart from God. And one of the things that he does that sets us apart is giving us that free will. I'm so thankful that he does. You know, I mean, who wants to have like you know, we've talked about robots before and just push this button and there it goes and does its thing.

00;16;22;22 - 00;16;35;10

Scott Brekke

I'm just so grateful that he lets us have that choice. And of course, we know that, yeah, we've all sinned and chose… chosen that which leads to death. But so.

00;16;35;26 - 00;17;16;24

Pastor Dave

Yeah, so we are we have a few other takeaways and we're going to dive into those in our, our bonus video One of the things that we do every episode is talk about application because as we throw around from time to time, actually we throw around every episode and the idea is what good is knowledge, if we don't apply it? Application is, is what causes… it's like a key that you can put in a door that when you open that door, you step through into transformation.

00;17;17;20 - 00;17;50;26

Pastor Dave

And the reality is we've all been raised up in the sin-filled world. And as we've talked, our saving faith is found only in Jesus. And you can't really truly understand the depth of wisdom that comes from the Bible without it without that saving faith in Jesus. So, what application principles would you say you could see in just the first two takeaways, “Purpose” and “Free will” that we've talked about today?

00;17;51;19 - 00;18;28;03

Pastor Paul

I would take away that what it allows me to do on a daily basis is to stop and think about… number one, first take away that God does have a plan, he does have a purpose for me. But inside of that plan, he gives me a choice. So, as I'm going through my day, whether it be a small thing or maybe I'm going through a big struggle, I need to stop and ask God and focus on what does He want for me?

00;18;28;13 - 00;18;37;22

Pastor Paul

What is his desire? And what we just read, His desire was for us to follow him and to be obedient. And am I doing that right now?

00;18;38;18 - 00;19;00;19

Scott Brekke

That's really good. I like that. I'll go on. I'll kind of dive in at the end of what you said. So, with God's warning, I think you hit it on the head that we have so many choices. I mean, just think of right when you wake up, from the moment you wake up to the moment that you go to sleep, think of how many choices you have all through your day.

00;19;00;28 - 00;19;15;08

Scott Brekke

And I think one thing for me that I for sure I'm going to take away is how many of those choices do I bring to the Lord? How many of those choices that I say, Lord, do you want me to do this? Or, you know, Lord, I'm thinking about doing this. Like, what is it that you want me to do?

00;19;15;15 - 00;19;32;02

Scott Brekke

And he will. I think if you bring it to him, he'll clearly tell you just like he does in this. He's clearly giving you instruction on what to do and what not to do. Right? So, he's almost laying out the choice right there for you. So, he's giving you what, what to do. So that's the one takeaway for me.

00;19;32;11 - 00;20;03;04

Pastor Dave

So, I would then say that listening to both of you and your explanation of application here regarding purpose is, first of all, just recognizing. So that might be a takeaway application principle, just “recognize” that God created you for a purpose. And right now, I'm speaking to our audience. God created you for a purpose. And it's his will that you seek him.

00;20;04;08 - 00;20;37;03

Pastor Dave

And then also pay attention to the desires of your heart. You know, the man had a desire in this scripture reading. He had a desire for a helper. And God activated that desire at the right time and then made the woman. And when that happened, what did what did the man say? At last! At last! Exclamation point, the next he knew.

00;20;37;12 - 00;21;24;13

Pastor Dave

And so, I'm just saying, bring your situation to the Lord, whatever it is. If you have a job, you don't particularly like or don't feel as though you're in the right place, then bring it before the Lord and He'll direct your path. God says to us in His Word, make your plans, but know this, I will determine your steps. Again, we did talk about the fact that we're going to have a bonus video to this episode, and really what I want for you is to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit before you even listen to that bonus video to our listening audience.

00;21;25;17 - 00;21;52;10

Pastor Dave

Obedience. Remember, obedience is really the key that unlocks the door to transformation, and you can only know the will of the Father as it pertains to individual… to you individually, if you bring that to him individually, it's very… it's a very private conversation. You get to have with the creator of the world, your father in heaven. And again, what good is knowledge if we don't apply it?

00;21;53;01 - 00;22;16;23

Pastor Dave

So how about you? Can you, based on what we read today, what can you apply to your life? Look, if you are like any of us, if you struggle with any of the topics that are being brought forth in the in the scriptures that we're reading, we want you to know again, you're not alone. A lot of people struggle.

00;22;16;23 - 00;22;22;12

Pastor Dave

We all do struggle and wrestle with some of this. And it's okay, just hang in there and keep coming back.

00;22;22;21 - 00;22;46;05

Scott Brekke

Yeah. Just again, a reminder to check out the bonus video where we will be diving deeper into some of the main points from this episode. And we're going to be including in that bonus material, we're going to be talking about companionship and also marriage. Coming from three married guys ourselves, I think that should be a pretty interesting topic. So, look for that after this episode.

00;22;46;22 - 00;22;51;26

Pastor Dave

Amen. Thank you, Scott, for being a part of this. And Pastor Paul, thank you so much for joining us today.

00;22;54;23 - 00;23;18;26

Pastor Dave

We want to thank you for listening. And we also want you to know that we are looking forward to our next meeting together in episode four as we continue our study of the first era, Beginnings. The Greatest Story Ever Told that and more is awaiting you on this journey. Thank you and God bless.

00;23;24;08 - 00;23;46;27

Voiceover

Thank you for tuning in to the Bible Breakthrough with Pastor David Engman and Scott Brekke. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and will join us again for more of the Bible from B.C. to A.D. We are a volunteer driven ministry and rely on you to help us get the word out to the world. Please, like this podcast on Facebook.

00;23;47;08 - 00;24;00;27

Voiceover

Share it to your page and continue to listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere you find your favorite podcasts. This has been a broadcast of the Breakthrough Media Network.