Genesis 2:4-17 NKJV  This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,  (5)  before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;  (6)  but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.  (7)  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.  (8)  The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.  (9)  And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  (10)  Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads.  (11)  The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.  (12)  And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there.  (13)  The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush.  (14)  The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.  (15)  Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.  (16)  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;  (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.

• You know church, many of you were saved in this church, some of you will be saved in this church, but many of you were saved WELL before this church ever existed.
  • I was saved in 2004 for example, and maybe you were saved even before that…
  • And I have noticed something…
    • Man I love to worship, and I love worship and praise songs… and I love new worship and praise songs…
    • BUT THE SONGS THAT I SANG WITH MY CHURCH WHEN I FIRST GOT SAVED… MAN THOSE SONGS HIT DIFFERENT.
      • Any of y’all ever notice that…
    • Maybe you got saved around 2015… then the song Way Maker probably holds a special place in your heart.
    • Maybe you were saved around 1977 and Oh Lord, You’re Beautiful by ol’ Keith Green just brings you back to the cross…
  • Whatever songs you sang in your church when you got saved, man, I am telling you there is power in those songs… and for me, as someone who got saved in 2004… one of the songs that we sang was by a band called, Third Day… y’all remember  Third Day? Man, they were pretty elite back in the early 2000’s… and they had this song, I listened to it as I wrote my sermon and it just brought me to tears… it is called “King of Glory”… here are some of the lyrics…

Who is this King of Glory

With strength and majesty?

And wisdom beyond measure

The gracious King of kings.

The Lord of Earth and Heaven

The Creator of all things

He is this King of Glory

He’s everything to me

• Man sometimes, just randomly… as I am living life… driving my car, or mowing the lawn, or doing whatever… sometimes it will just pop into my head
  • 🎵🎶Who is this King of Glory? He is everything to me!🎵🎶
  • But have you ever like wondered… He is everything to you…. That’s great… but who is He?
    • You know, some of y’all remember, Bishop Raymond Birch…
      • Dude does things differently, doesn’t He? He is full of the Holy Spirit, but He sure likes to throw curve balls…
      • And I remember ministering with him and he was praying for a brother in Christ and Bishop Burch asked this brother “Who are you?” The guy said “I am Billy” and Bish Burch said “No, Billy, WHO ARE YOU…”
        • And that really challenged Billy… and after some thinking Billy responded “I am Billy, a mighty man of God, a child of the King. I am part of the Royal priesthood, I exist to serve and please God. I use my skills  for His glory, I lead my family for His glory, I was created for and exist to serve God and nothing will stop me!”
    • Man it was a powerful and prophetic moment for Billy, as he was able to fully realize and confess who he was…
  • Now I wonder church… have you ever wondered “Who is God”…
    • Yes He is God… He is the King of Glory… but WHO IS THIS KING OF GLORY?

• Who is this King of Glory?
  • That is the question we are going to answer today… well “we” are not going to answer it… and I am not going to answer it… God is going to answer it, just like Billy had to answer for himself, so God can answer for Himself… Who is this King of Glory?

• Now, what does any of this have to do with Genesis 2:4-17?
  • I mean we read these verse and then I started going into old worship music and asking “who is God”… what does that have to do with the creation details in Genesis 2?
    • Phenomenal question, I am glad you asked it…Because, in these verses, God reveals who He is…
      • And maybe you have read these verses a hundred times like I have and just though, as I have, it’s just more details about the creation of man… it is just a more detailed account of the Sixth day of creation…
  • But there is more here… maybe you have heard the worldly phrase “The devil is in the details”… and I don’t even know what that means… but when it comes to the Bible, Y’all, when it comes to Holy Scripture, God is in the details.
  • When we slow down and we look at the details, we see God revealing Himself.
• I have heard it said, and I have probably even preached, that God did not have a name until the burning bush… but it is not true, God name Himself here in Genesis 2… here in Genesis two do we for the first time see God give Himself a full and proper name… YHWY Elohim, Jehova Elohim, the LORD God, the Perfect and Complete and sufficient God… the God who provides, the God, who Protects, the God who rules as Lord.

God is revealed in Genesis 2 as:

• YHWY Elohim
  • Jehovah Elohim
  • Adonai Elohim
    • And unlike in America, where names often don’t mean anything, like Billy learned about himself… to God, His names have meaning, and they reveal who He is.
• Let’s go into point one, and I will begin with this, God is YHWY Elohim… The Perfect, Complete, and Sufficient God.

Point One – God is YHWY Elohim, The Perfect, Complete, And Sufficient God

Genesis 2:4 NKJV  This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

• Notice, here, the name of God… it is the LORD God.
  • For the first time, God is given a name… up until this point, God is simply Elohim.
    • The word Elohim we talked about in depth in the first sermon from Genesis… it means “God” but it is a plural word used with singular verbs… making it uniquely singular and plural… because we know that God is Triune, the Father Son and Holy Spirit, existing as one God.
      • So just that word itself, Elohim, has so much power… but it is not a name, it is a word… a word that is also used to describe false gods elsewhere in the Bible.
    • So from Genesis one, we know this is God, who exists as three in one… but we don’t know who this God is… we just know He is God and He created all things.
  • But now in Genesis two, God introduces Himself… here in the NKJV translated as “The Lord God”.
• So let’s just take a moment and take a look at this name that is translated here as “Lord God”…
  • יהוה   אֱלֹהִים
  • YHWY  Elohim
• This is the formal name of God, the name God gave Himself to let us know who He is… and in the passage we read this morning this name of God was used SEVEN TIMES.
  • You se chapter one of Genesis was God telling us what happened…
    • Chapter two is God showing us that it was not just some wrote mathematical formula that created everything…
      • Because there are heritical teachings out there that say “Genesis 1 was just describing how the big bang happened… they didn’t have a good grasp of science, so they called it six days of creation… but really it is just showing that God started the big bang…
    • But in Genesis two God says “Let Me just show you how intricately involved I was… and when I say “I” I don’t mean big bangs and millions of years of evolution… I mean “I”, YHWY Elohim… the personal God who was personally involved in every aspect of creation.
• So who is this King of Glory? What does YHWY even mean?
  • YHWY means “The perfect, complete, all Sufficient God who always has been, always will be… who created everything and holds it perfectly together.
    • YHWY means complete and perfect sufficiency…
      • And as I mentioned early, Exodus is not where we see God’s name for the first time… but it is where we see God’s name explained for the first time… and we are told how to properly use it.
        • It comes from the events of Exodus chapter Three, where God is speaking to Moses from the burning bush. God is telling Moses to go and speak to His enslaved people in Egypt and to tell Pharaoh to let His people go…
        • Moses, talking to God, basically says “I know that you are God… but how am I going to explain this… who do I say sent me… I mean if I just say God they may think Ra, the sun God of the Egyptian sent me…
        • If I just say “God” they may think that Baal, the pagan god, sent me…
        • Who exactly am I supposed to say that you are… because I know you are not those false Gods… who are you…
      • Let’s look at these verses:

Exodus 3:13-14 NKJV  Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”  (14)  And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ “

• Now, in Hebrew “I am who I Am” is “Haw-Ya Asha Haw-Ya”.
  • Now ancient Jewish scholars recognized that this phrase is incredibly holy, it is God’s own given name… and so, in reverence to the name they felt that they should not write it out fully, because they felt it was too holy to be written out, so what they did was they took a derivative of Haw-Ya Asha Haw-Ya, and they took out all the vowels… and they were left with the letters Y-H-W-Y which is most commonly pronounced as YHWY.
• YHWY means “God is it”… the fact that GOD is… the fact that God exists… that is sufficient.
  • Because God is so complete… because God is so perfect… because God is so powerful… because God has done it all… because it is all in God’s hand… because all of those things are true… nothing else needs to be said other than “God is”… nothing else needs to be said but “Yeah, but God is…He is… and that is more than enough.
• And if you serve the Great I AM… if you serve YHWY ELOHIM… I AM GOD… then you truly have no reason to fear… you truly have no reason to worry.
  • The Hebrew slaves say to Moses “How is it possible that we will ever be free from this slavery… from this persecution… how is that possible, who are you to say that Moses? Who could possibly do this”
    • And Moses responded “YOUR GOD IS! YOUR GOD IS STRONG ENOUGH TO FREE YOU. YOUR GOD IS GOOD ENOUGH TO FREE YOU.”
    • YOUR GOD IS… YOUR GOD EXISTS… YOUR GOD IS THE GREAT I AM… AND IF YOU ONLY KNEW YOUR GOD THEN YOU WOULD KNOW THAT HIM EXISTING IS ENOUGH.
      • Because your God is complete and full and sufficient and powerful… He was, and He will be… AND HE IS.
        • GOD SAYS TELL THEM “I AM”
          • I Am Good.
          • I Am Holy.
          • I Am Powerful.
          • I Am Love.
          • I Am Might.
          • I Am Provision.
          • I Am Protection.
          • I Am Healing.
          • I Am Deliverance.
          • I Am Freedom.
          • I AM THAT I AM AND THAT IS ENOUGH.
• So church what problems are you facing this morning… what challenges? What Giants? What Pharaohs have been enslaving you?
  • Because Genesis has some encouragement for you. God is not just God Elohim… He is not just the creator of some big bang, putting some evolutionary process in motion and waiting to see how it turns out.
  • NO! God is YHWY ELOIM.
    • God is I AM.
      • Not just I WAS.
        • But God is I AM.
          • HE IS CHURCH.
• So for your depression… and you feel “how can I find hope?”
  • You can find hope because God is!
• From your addiction… how can you find freedom?
  • You can find freedom because God is!
• From your grief… how can you find healing?
  • Because GOD IS.
• From your sickness…
  • GOD IS.
• From your financial worries.
  • GOD IS.
• From the issues at work, or school, or in the family… they may seem like insurmountable issues…
  • BUT GOD IS.
• THE FACT THAT HE IS MEANS THAT NONE OF YOUR ENEMIES WILL FIND VICTORY…
• BUT SATAN ROARS “LOOK HOW POWERFUL I AM”
  • But dear saint, you ought to roar back, “BUT GOD IS”
    • You are strong Satan… BUT GOD IS STRONGER.
    • You are dark… BUT GOD IS BRIGHTER.
    • You are evil… BUT GOD IS HOLIER.
    • YOU THINK YOU ARE CLEVER… BUT GOD IS.
    • YOU THINK YOU CAN DESTROY ME… BUT GOD IS.
    • YOU THINK YOU CAN KEEP ME DOWN… BUT GOD IS.
    • YOU THINK YOU CAN IMPRISON ME… BUT GOD IS.
    • YOU GOT NOTHING ON ME SATAN… BECAUSE MY GOD IS!

Philippians 4:19-20 ESV  And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  (20)  To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.

• Who is this King of Glory? HE IS THE ALL SUFFICIENT, PERFECT, and COMPLETE “I AM”. GOD IS!
• Now that brings me to point two, God is Jehovah-Jireh, the God who Provides.

Point Two – God is Jehovah-Jireh, the God who Provides

Genesis 2:4-9a NKJV  This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,  (5)  before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;  (6)  but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.  (7)  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.  (8)  The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.  (9)  And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food…

• Now, there is something interesting about language…
  • I find language booth fascinating, and infuriating…
    • Sometimes I think to myself “English is the dumbest language on earth…”
      • I mean, think of the word DUMB… we don’t pronounce it dumB…
      • But who has ever heard of a silent “b”…
        • I mean I really DOUBT there are other words that have silent B’s…
          • If there are, I am sure NUMB to them…
            • You know I have been trying to think about words with a silent B but I am just plumb out of ideas…
  • Sorry, where those examples too SUBTLE?
• My point is Language is dumb… or excitingly etymological… either way… something dumb… or exciting… happened in English with the word YHWY because it did not used to be spelled with a Y… it used to be spelled with a J…
  • Because in most languages the letter J makes a soft sound…
    • Take the name Jesus… in Spanish it is pronounced He-zues
    • In Arabic it is Essa
    • In Hebrew it is Yeshua
    • In Latin it is Iesus.
    • In Greek it is Ee-soos
    • In Russian it is Issus
    • In Norwegian it is “Ye-zues”
      • So the letter J is pronounced “Hey, E, Ya, Ie, I, and Ye”… all soft sounds in other languages.
        • But for some reason in Modern English we pronounce J as Ja… not Ya or Ha… but Ja… so hard and distinct.
        • So instead of Yeshua, we say “Joshua” and instead of Yezues we say “Jesus”.
    • And then there is the Letter V… the letter V used to make a soft sound… today we pronounce v as “va” but it used to be pronounced as “wa”… some languages like Danish and Icelandic still pronounce V’s as “wa”.
  • Through all of that together with the letter H that used to make an “a” sound.. like the word “Honest”, “Hour, Heir, Honor”
• What does this have to do with the name of God? Well, YHWH used to be spelled like this:

YHWY used to be spelled JHVH

J = “Ya”
H = “Ah”
V = “Wa”

• Now if you read that word 700 years ago it would be pronounced “YHWY”… but if you read it today you read “Ja Ha Va Ha”… or, Jehovah.
  • Guys… Jehovah is just a mispronunciation of the name of God YHWY.
    • Now it has become a proper name for God, because that is how language works… I say “Jesus” I don’t say “Yezu” or “Yeshua”, because I speak English and English is dumb and we pronounce it Jesus. And that is fine.
      • As such I still sometimes praise God with the name Jehovah, because that is the English word… and it is not like God is up in heaven confused about who we are talking about.
• But the reason I share that with you is because maybe you have heard God be referred to as Jehovah-Jireh… and maybe you have been told that means “God who provides” but that is not exactly accurate, it is close, but God who provides would be “Elohim-Yireh”, no Jehova-Jireh is the transliteration of the Hebrew YHWH-Yira “I Am Provides”.
• You see God is the great I AM. He is all sufficient, He is complete, He is perfect. HE IS. AND HE PROVIDES.
  • God provided EVERYTHING man needed in the Garden of Edden.
    • He provided food, and beauty, and companionship.
    • He created fulfilling work, but not labor.
    • He created a family.
    • He created such a beautiful landscape for man to live in for eternity.
      • Rivers, and pools, trees, and clouds, sunrises, butterflies, grassy fields… it was all man’s mansion.
        • And man did not need shelter, because there was nothing to be sheltered from until sin entered into the picture.
        • The beautiful night sky was man’s roof… and the lush landscapes were his carpet.
          • Man had this beautiful garden, this beautiful earth… he was PERFECTLY PROVIDED FOR.
        • Because GOD IS the Provider.
        • GOD IS THE ALL SUFFICEIENT PROVIDER.
          • And when you understand that, you can understand this scripture from the New Testament:

Matthew 6:25-33 NKJV  “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  (26)  Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  (27)  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?  (28)  “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;  (29)  and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  (30)  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  (31)  “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  (32)  For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  (33)  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

• God IS… and God IS Your provider.
  • So to worry about things like what you will eat or wear or drink…
    • To worry about your bills… and the cares of this world…
      • To worry is to say “I am not sure God IS sufficient for me”.
      • I am not sure “God is” all that I need.
      • I am not sure “God is”.
        • What you are in turn saying is “I am not sure God is God”…
  • And I have no stones to through, because I have been there, I am just trying to put a face to what we have all felt before…
    • But if we really believe that GOD IS… that HE IS OUR ALL SUFFICIENT PROVIDER… then we would not worry about these things.
      • So we have to discipline ourselves… because our flesh is cursed and our hearts can be so wicked… we have to discipline ourselves and remind ourselves who God is… this is why things like Psalm 103 are so important.
        • When you feel the temptation to worry, just remind your soul all the things God has done for you in the past…
        • If He delivered you then… won’t he deliver you now?
        • If He provided for you then… won’t he provide now?
        • If He did it then, why would He stop now? GOD IS!
• Who is this King of Glory? Who created the Heavens and the Earth? HE IS THE ALL SUFFICENT PROVIDER WHO HAS BEEN PROVIDING FOR MANKIND SINCE THE SIXTH DAY! Thank You Jesus!

Point Three – God is Adonai Elohim, The LORD God.

Genesis 2:15-17 NKJV  Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.  (16)  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;  (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.”

• Now, we have been talking a lot about language… because understanding this truth that God IS everything we will ever need, everything the universe will ever need… is really a foundational part of the faith…
  • But we have one more unique peace of linguistic trivia… why does most translations translate YHWY into LORD, with LORD being written in all capital letters?
    • This goes back to that tradition in ancient Biblical times that it was not ok to write or speak the name of God.
      • Ancient Jews were so careful about following the third commandment, not to take God’s name in vain, that they would not write YHWY with vowels, and they would not even speak the name YHWY, instead, whenever they were reading aloud and they saw the word YHWY they would say Adonai… which means Lord.
      • Bible translators have kept with that tradition, plus it helps with legibility, because “I am God” doesn’t sound right in most sentences…
      • And so, the write LORD in all capitals when translating the word YHWY in most places.
• And it is an interesting tradition, and I was flabbergasted to see that in many modern translations that is kept up… mostly because I am just excited to see modern Bible translators keeping such reverence for the name of God… but also because I am sad that I think it loses some meaning to most non scholastic readers of scripture…
  • But at the same time, we know that God is LORD and it is a good reminder.
    • Because LORD means master, it means boss, it means king…
    • If someone is your Lord, they tell you what to do, and YOU DO IT.
    • God is not your spiritual advisor… He is  your LORD.
      • He is not just giving you good ideas, HE IS COMMANDING YOU how to live.
• Read this with me again…

Please bold and underline the word “commanded” Ignore my extra notes that are not highlighted, just put up the verse with commanded underlined and bolded)

Genesis 2:15-17 NKJV  Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.  (16)  And the LORD God (suggested? No… God advised? no… God implied… no… God hinted at… no… GOD COMMANDED!) commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;  (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.”

• GOD IS LORD… He doesn’t advise, He doesn’t suggest… HE COMMANDS.
  • And why does He command? Because He is a big meany head? NO… it is for our own good… because if we disobey, God says, we will die…
  • So what did we do… we disobeyed… and now we all have to die… thanks Adam and Eve…
    • Because Adam and Eve did not obey God as LORD…
    • But we have the opportunity, with the Help of Christ and the Holy Spirit, to follow God as Lord.
    • That is why in this church we say “Open  your Bible, Read it, AND DO WHAT IT SAYS.
      • So, I will keep this point short, but I implore you church… when God tells you to do something, don’t take it as advice or a suggestion to be weighed against other advice… Listen to God as Lord!
• WHO IS THIS KING OF GLORY? He is Lord, HE IS KING, HE IS MASTER, HE IS BOSS. GOD IS!

Luke 6:46 NKJV  “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?

Conclusion

Turn On Children’s Class Lamps

• You know as we go through Genesis I am noticing something really fun… we are reading the beginning, knowing the end… and when that happens you can see so much more…
  • For example… we know that YHWY ELOHIM in Genesis 2 is Jesus. Yes God the Father is there, and God the Holy Spirit. But Jesus is there and He is a BIG part of this…

John 1:1-3 NKJV  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  (2)  He was in the beginning with God.  (3)  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

• Now knowing that Jesus is YHWY ELOHIM just as much as God the Father is YHWY ELOHIM… well… that makes some things hit different doesn’t it.

John 4:25-26 NKJV  The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”  (26)  Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

John 6:35 NKJV  And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

Mark 14:61-62 NKJV  But He kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”  (62)  Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

John 13:13 NKJV  You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.

John 15:1 NKJV  “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

John 8:58 NKJV  Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

Who is this King of Glory, His name is Jesus

• Sing… Gospel Call mid Song…