In order for us to understand our text this morning, we have to spend a moment reviewing something that was a huge part of the religious life of God’s Old Testament saints.  And that thing is Yom Kippur, also known as The Day of Atonement.  In particular, we need to review what the High Priest did on that day.  Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) was the one day of the year when the high priest, and ONLY the high priest, entered into the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple. 

I want you to imagine that you are looking into your closet at all your clothes hanging there.  Can you picture it?  Okay, find me something you would wear to work.  Find something?  Now pick out something you would wear for dinner out with friends at a nice restaurant.  Got it?  All right.  Now, grab what you would wear to a wedding.  Find something nice?  All right.  Last one.  Pick out what you want to be buried in.

What is the biggest sacrifice you have ever made for someone?  Have you given up your seat so someone else can sit down?  Have you given up sleep to tend to a sick child?  Have you given money to help someone in need?  Have you given up a bite of your dessert to your spouse? Have you given one of your kidneys so someone else can live?

There is something jolting about the opening words of our text, “It is not good for the man to be alone. (v. 18)  It is jolting because it is the first time we have heard that something wasn’t good.  Up to this point in Genesis, we have only heard the word “good.”.  Six times in Genesis 1 we are told that God saw what he had made and it was good (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25).  And once we are told things were very good (1:31).  That word “good” is like a drumbeat in the story of creation, beating out a steady cadence. 

The pulpit should never become a place for politics.  But given the fact that we are nearing a national election in our country and one cannot use any type of media right now without seeing some candidate’s ad, please permit a simple observation.  Long ago I was taught that elected officials are called “public servants.”  Servants.  Those who aspire to high office should want to be servants who serve the citizens.  Here’s the observation.  As I see and hear political ads, I don’t often see what I might call aspirations for service.