Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Genesis 2:4-7 (NIV)
Adam and Eve
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Yesterday, our sermon focused on the impossible task of being born again without the life-giving power of God. In this passage we see that this power has always been God’s! Adam was created from the “dust” of the earth. We recently heard this famous passage on Ash Wednesday when the words “You are dust and to dust you shall return” was spoken directly to each of us. But even with those daunting words being spoken to us there is hope. God created us from dust! God delights to be in relationship with people like Adam and ourselves. What area of your life feels like it is going back into the “dust”? A relationship? Physical health? A job or career? Some things God may not bring back to “life” in this earthly life because all things return to dust. But God is the life-giver and is already beginning His work of new, eternal life in us now.