Rules of engagement:

1. Honor the Lord (Jn. 13:35; Col. 4:6)

2. Commit to learning together (listen to understand, not respond)

3. Be respectful of one another

4. Believe the best in one another, not the worst

Sermon Notes

I. ___ did we get here? (Genesis 1-3)

A. We ________ God (Genesis 1)

1. God the ________ (v. 1a)

2. God’s ______ order (v. 1b-31)

B. Sin brought death and ________ (Gen. 3)

1. ________ set up (v. 1-5)

2. Humans fell into ___ (v. 6)

3. _______ took over (v. 7-8)

II. How must we _______? (Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 2:11-12)

A. Do not be conformed, be ___________

1. Recognize we are ______

2. Live __________ than the world

3. Do ____ works to glorify God

B. Live as missionaries, not _______

C. Take a _____ (Eph. 6:14)

Going Deeper

1. God is the Creator (read Psalm 33:6). God is praised for being the Creator (read Revelation 4:11). What does God the Creator say about Himself in Isaiah 45:18-19? Jesus was present at creation (John 1:1). Read Colossians 1:16. What do we learn about Jesus? In what ways (even small ways) have you rejected God as Creator?

2. Read Genesis 1:6-25. How does God establish order from disorder? Why is this important? Do you see beauty in God’s sacred order? How?

3. Read Genesis 3:1-5. How does Satan cast doubt on God’s word and goodness?

4. What does the woman do in v. 6? Notice the man was with her and was silent! Both partake of the forbidden fruit. Read Proverbs 14:12. How do you see this playing out in the Garden of Eden?

5. In what ways do you notice disordered emotions in your life? What about disordered thinking? How has this brokenness contributed to where we are in 2023?

6. Rod Dreher echoes Solzhenitsyn and makes an addition, “Because men have forgotten God, they have also forgotten man; that’s why all this has happened.” How have you seen men forgetting man in our culture?

7. Sociologist Philip Reiff says, “Reticence, secrecy, concealment of self have been transformed into social problems; once they were aspects of civility, when the great Western formulary summed up in the credal phrase, ‘Know thyself’ encouraged obedience to communal purposes rather than suspicion of them.”How have you seen “reticence, secrecy and concealment of self” turned into social problems? What is Reiff talking about

8. *Social imaginary=how people view the world, how they imagine it to be, how they act intuitively to it. This is mostly unconscious.

9. Carl Trueman describes the psychological man as: “a type characterized not so much by finding identity in outward directed activities but rather in the inward quest for personal psychological happiness.”How do you see the psychological man in our culture today? How do you see it in yourself?

10. Expressive individualism: “each of us finds our meaning by giving expression to our own feelings and desires…this kind of self exists…as a culture of authenticity.”How do you see expressive individualism in our culture today? How do you see it in yourself?

11. Molly Worthen says, “People don’t think, believe or reckon. They ‘feel like.’ Listen for this phrase and you’ll hear it everywhere, inside and outside politics. This reflex to hedge every statement as a feeling or a hunch is most common among millennials. But I hear it almost as often among Generation Xers and my own colleagues in academia. As in so many things, the young are early carriers of a broad cultural contagion.”

12. Rebecca Pippert says, “Whatever controls us is really our god…The one who seeks power is controlled by power. The one who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our life.”How have you seen this in your own life?

13. Read 1 Peter 2:11-12. In what ways do you need to recognize you are an exile? In what ways will you live differently than the world this week? What good works do you need to do this week?

14. Carl Trueman discusses three different worlds. Christians belong to the second world and need to reach the third world as “missionaries.”First world is belief in gods (mythology), tied to a higher authority and thus, has a sacred order to which men are accountable.Second world is belief in God, the Bible, the Church, also tied to higher authority and God’s sacred order to which men are accountable.Third world is belief in self. Not tied to any higher authority.

15. How will you take a stand this week? Be specific.