The Scandal of Reality as an Abundant Banquet (Genesis 1:6-13)

Good, good. If you got a Bible, go ahead and

get open to the book of Genesis. My name is Cole, I'm the lead

pastor. Here we are in week three-week

three of our long sermon series on the book of Genesis that we

are going to try to finish before our kids graduate from

college. But we'll see what the Lord's

got for us. This is only the 3rd sermon.

So if you've been a part of our church for a long time, you know

that the first couple introductory sermons in a new

series, they're usually pretty intellectually demanding.

I usually try to do a lot of historical context, a lot of

work like that, because I'm trying to provide big

scaffolding that's going to carry the rest of this series.

And so one of my main focuses in these first 3 sermons has really

been training us to rethink what the book of Genesis is.

I think a lot of us were either taught or we intuited growing up

that the book of Genesis is it's like this modern scientific

textbook. And it's not.

And that's not the author's original intention.

The author's original intention was not to to write a modern

scientific textbook. It was to write a theological

revelation or to say it a little bit differently.

It exists to teach us about the nature, the character in the

heart of God. And so if you need like an

example of, OK, how should I read the book of Genesis?

Because it's got a lot of different genres, right?

It's a long, sprawling book, and it includes things like history,

historical writings, poetry, elevated prose, even law, tons

of different genres. And so if you're not going to

treat it like a modern scientific textbook, how should

you treat it? And what I would encourage you

to do is to see it as a love letter from God.

Like for instance, if if Chloe wrote me a love letter, my wife,

if if my wife wrote me a love letter and I treated it like a

scientific textbook book, I would lose the intention that

she was writing towards and I probably missed the point.

So like if I if I open up that letter and I see the first thing

that Chloe writes is, Cole, I love you to the moon and back,

which she would never write that she does, but she's just too

poetic in her writing style. She would never use modern

cliches. But supposing she did write a

sentence, Cole, I love you to the moon and back.

That's what is that. That's a revelation of her

heart. What do I lose if I treat that

like a scientific claim? I lose everything if I read it

that way. I look at it and I say,

actually, if you study Chloe's life closely, we have no records

of Chloe actually traveling to the moon or back.

In fact, I'm not convinced anybody's traveled to the moon.

I've seen the footage and I'm unconvinced.

So this audacious idea of this Iowan woman claiming to travel

to the moon and back, powered not by fuel but love it, makes

the extraordinary claims of this letter unconvincing and

untrustworthy. No, you would loot.

You lose that, you lose the intention.

It's true. You lose the intention if you

read it that way. Her authorial intent was not to

make a scientific claim. It was to reveal her heart to

me. That's the way that the book of

Genesis operates. And so we're this morning, we're

in verses 6 through 13 of chapter 1, and we're going to

look at 2 creation days, not one, but 22 creation days,

verses 6 through 13. And we'll look at these verses

not primarily as something to argue over, but primarily as a

revelation of God's heart. Yes, true.

Yes, inerrant. Yes, inspired, Yes,

authoritative, but primarily a true text that reveals to us an

image of God as a gardener, God as an extravagant host in this

earth and our experience of it, and our reality primarily as an

abundant banquet of good gifts. I guess my question for you,

before we look at the text is, is that the world that you live

in? Do you see the world that way?

And if you don't, why not? So if you're able, let's go

ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word verses 6 through

13. They don't get a lot.

They don't get a lot of attention.

Creation days two and three, they don't get a lot of

attention. We tend to read them really

quickly and not really think about them.

And I'm going to encourage you to think that there's actually a

lot about the depth of God's character in these verses.

And so in verse 6, God's created the heavens and the earth.

He's created light and darkness. And then we go to the second day

of creation and God said, let there be an expanse in the midst

of the waters and let it separate, separate.

It's like a cleaving knife. Separate the waters from the

waters. And so God made the expanse or

the skies or the heavens. God made the expanse, and he

separated the waters that were under the expanse from the

waters that were above the expanse.

And it was so. And God called the expanse

heaven. And there was evening, and there

was morning the second day. And then God said, let the

waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place,

and let the dry land appear. And it was so God called, He's

authoritative, He's the, he's a namer, He's king over these

things. God called the dry land earth

and the waters that were gathered together he called

seas. And God saw that it was good.

And here's where it gets really good.

And God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, vegetation,

plants yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is

their seed, according each according to its own kind on the

earth. And it was so, and the earth did

it. The earth brought forth

vegetation, plants yielding seeds according to their own

kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each

according to its kind. And God looks at all this and he

saw that it was good. And there was evening and there

was morning the third day. Heavenly Father, as we, as we

think through this text, your word, I pray that we would just

open up our hearts. We always have a choice to make

whenever we sit in those pews. And listen to the preaching of

your word unpacked. We have a choice to make.

We can either let our hearts remain closed off and we can

space out and we can stare at our feet and we can leave this

building the exact same way that we walked into it, unchanged and

not transformed. Or we can open up our hearts and

offer them to you and we can listen to the preaching of God's

Word with one ear to the pulpit, but one ear to the heavens and

just wrestle, wrestle with it. God, is that true?

Do I really believe that? Do I?

Why don't I believe that? Do I have any evidence for

believing that that's true? If I believed it, what would it

look like in my life? God, why is this so comforting

to me? Why does this rub me the wrong

way? There is so much to grapple with

every time the Word of God has preached that it's almost

exhausting to think about. But I pray that we would open

our hearts. I received an amazing letter

this morning from an awesome church member and she said every

time I listen to you preach, it keeps me on the edge of my seat

like a good story. And so, Lord, I pray that you

would put us all on the edge of our seats and that we would be

willing to be changed and transformed by the preaching of

Your Word. Yeah.

So it's in the magnificent name of Jesus that all God's people

prayed. Amen.

You guys can have a seat a lot here.

The entire process that goes into humans eating food for the

sake of nourishment, from the soil to the farm to the table,

is so utterly complex that sometimes I've wondered why?

Why didn't God just create human beings with like, rechargeable

batteries? You know, am I the only weirdo

who's ever thought of that way? Like the entire system of

getting food on our tables, the digestive system that God's got

to create within us and sustain us, the soil, the atmosphere,

it's just so much. Why didn't God just make us with

rechargeable batteries? We'll look at verse 6.

And God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the

waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.

And God made the expanse, and He separated the waters that were

under the expanse from the waters that were above the

expanse. And it was so.

And God called the expanse heaven.

And there was evening and there was morning the second day.

What God is going to continue to do in verse 6 here is God's

going to continue with his creation is he's going to

separate things out and provide them for functionality so that

they serve specific roles. Because right now, as it is in

verse 6, it's uninhabitable, can't be habitated, and God

doesn't want it to remain uninhabitable.

What God wants is to make it into a place of abundance.

Let me hear your voices. Abundance, abundance.

What does the earth, especially in the historical world, but

even today, what does the primary ingredient that the

earth needs in order to become a place of abundance?

Water, water. That's what verse 6 is about.

It's about the waters and God creating the sky or the expanse

to rightly order the waters. Verse 6 and expanse in the midst

of all these waters, separating the waters from the waters, the

waters above from the waters underneath here.

Let's let's pause right here. I I don't think, I don't think

that what God is saying is that there's literally a giant ocean

above the stars. I don't think Moses, the author

of Genesis, is trying to make the claim that God lives in a

bubble of water up there. Some scholars do argue that

there was a giant bubble of water above the earth before the

flood and when the flood came that got drained out.

Maybe. I don't know.

I don't tend in that direction. It's great if you believe that.

I just don't think that's the point.

If that's what you believe, great.

It's just not the point of the text to give a textbook

illustration of the atmosphere. Of course it's not.

So what is the point of the text?

What does it mean that God separated the waters and then

placed an expanse underneath the waters above above the waters

below? Well, what Moses is doing is

he's using the common language of his day that would make sense

to the average observer. If you were the average observer

in Moses's day, you would notice that we need water and one place

ain't going to cut it. We need water from two places.

We need the right amount of water on our surface waters,

right? They depended upon river

systems, an Agricultural Society, for the stability of

their food. But we also need it in the

atmospheric waters above, rain, snow, clouds.

And So what they too shows us is that God is king of the waters,

king of the waters above, king of the waters below.

And without it, the world would be a bone dry place of scarcity.

Bone dry. But that's not the guy that we

serve. We serve a God of abundance and

beginning to think about God as God, as abundant and extravagant

and a good gift giver. This is a theological

revelation, a revolution in the day that Genesis was written.

I'll tell you why. I'm going to keep picking on

Babylon, and the reason why I'm picking on Babylon is twofold #1

they were neighbors to the people of God and #2 they were

the most influential society in that time.

And so Babylon's opinions about God formed the popular cultural

theology of their day. What the Babylonians believed

tended to be what the rest of the world believed, and what the

Babylonians believed was that. Check this out.

You can read this in the Inuma Unleash if you want.

They believe that the gods created human beings so that

humans would do the labor that the gods did not want to do.

The the Babylonian gods were needy.

And this is where the concept of human sacrifices comes from and

agricultural sacrifices. It comes from this Babylonian

conception of hey, the gods are needy and they're hungry.

And so if we don't give them what they want to eat, they're

going to be mad at us and they're going to strike us with

lightning bolts. So take your first born, take

the agriculture, sacrifice it so we can feed these gods so that

they won't strike us dead with lightning bolts.

So most people in the ancient world believed that the earth

was a place of scarcity, that the gods were needy, and that

they existed as cosmic slaves to these needy gods.

Genesis is saying these verses 6 through 13.

Genesis is saying no, no, God's not like that.

That's not why we exist. Life is not like that.

So what does God create after the expanse between the waters?

Watch this verses 9 through 10 here.

And God said, let the waters. Oops.

And God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered

together into one place and let the dry land appear.

And it was so. And God called the dry land

earth. And the waters that were

gathered together he called seas, and he saw that it was

good. Now we tend to read these types

of verses and go, yeah, sounds right.

Where's John 316? Right.

That tends to be the way that we read this.

I don't nobody's got Genesis one nine through 10 tattooed on

their shoulder blade, right? Anybody have a mug with those

verses on it? So let's get to John 316, right?

Well, hold on a second. Slow down here.

John 316 is in these verses. But we have to read it and ask

important questions like what kind of God does this?

God is ordering the earth, giving it functionality so that

it can produce something important.

God could have created the land as barren.

You know what I mean? Like if it's clearly not beyond

his reach, he creates everything under nothing.

If God wanted to, he could have created the earth as concrete

pavement, lifeless, unable to multiply, a flat surface that's

unable to grow. But that's not the kind of God

that we serve, because this text is working towards a massive

conclusion. It's working towards convincing

you that God is generous and that life is abundant.

This has always been a big deal to Christians.

John Calvin, particularly 500 years ago, he wanted to get his

church to see God as generous. This is the way that his

biographer describes his theology.

He wanted to get his church to see God as generous to the point

of scandal, scandalous generosity.

Calvin loved to describe God as a host who prepared the earth as

a table set for his people. Luther was the same way.

One of Martin Luther's biographer said that Luther

described God, quote as generous almost to the point of

embarrassment. Listen to this, he said.

Luther's God is a reckless giver who cannot stop giving.

Or in Luther's own words, quote, God gives himself wholly to us

with all of his treasures on the earth as one who lays everything

on the table and says, take it. Isn't that a great image of God

lays himself and everything on the table?

And he says to his kids, take it.

He's generous. And so when Genesis reveals God

as organizing the waters and creating a land that's receptive

to it, what the text is saying is don't picture God as some

divine grump with his stingy hands closed.

Do you view God that way? Cranky hands closed, Stingy

Genesis is trying to reorient your thinking until you see God

as God of abundance, right, Because this is it gets better

in verse 11. And God said, let the earth

sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees

bearing fruit in which is in their seed, each according to

its own kind. And it was so.

And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed

according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in their

seed, each according to its own kind.

And God saw that it was good. And this was the evening, and

this was the morning of the third day.

The earth brings forth two things #1 vegetation, verse 11,

number two, fruit also verse 11. And what do both of these things

do? They both multiply.

Verse 12 describes both of them. Quote as yielding seed according

to their own kind. That's repeated twice.

Why the emphasis on multiplication?

Why the emphasis on reproduction?

Abundance, abundance, my God, He could have created you to plug

yourself into an outlet for sustenance.

It's clearly not beyond the means of a God who creates

everything out of nothing. He could have created you with

like Ausb port in your side. Boop, you plug it in and you're

good. If you did that, you know what

you wouldn't get? Nerd clusters.

Oh my gosh, have you had them? We wouldn't there.

We wouldn't have nerd cluster. I had last week I had a smash

burger from the shells. Has anybody had those?

All of those things are sprawling forth from the

imagination of the God who creates a world of abundance

where we don't plug ourselves in abundance.

God's world in Genesis is 1 of endless creativity, seeds that

go into the ground and bear more vegetation and fruits.

Abundance is the metaphysical pattern that's built into every

square inch of the cosmos. It's abundance is the logic of

all of creations. Right?

Just get to trees. Trees, bro.

Trees are ridiculous. Have you ever thought about

trees, dude? Dude, on average it takes about

10,000 seeds to plant one tree. Why?

Why the abundance? Well, because some do make

trees, but some are for the squirrels and some are for the

bugs. And some of those acorns are

just to decorate the landscape. Nature's logic is not careful.

We might run out of trees. Nature's logic is let's have an

acorn party, let's decorate the whole thing in acorn for the

sake of the beauty of the forest abundance.

Where did the trees learn that from God?

The trees learn that from God. Don't even get me started about

the sun. The sun.

A straight up comedy. You ever thought about the sun?

The sun, listen to this, converts over 4 million tons of

matter into energy every second. And do you know what it does

with that light? The sun sprays it everywhere.

It sprays the light in every direction.

And most of it, 99.99% of it never even hits Earth.

So most of the sun's light is never seen by the human eye.

It's extravagant. Scarcity is not the logic of

creation. Abundances.

This abundance is baked into you.

If the universe was ruled by scarcity, you'd have one kidney,

not 2. You'd have one eye, not 2.

You would have far fewer brain cells because you use so few of

them. But they're so, so abundant.

Sprays it everywhere. It's just abundance everywhere

you look at it, right? I mean, take your hand, put it

on your heart for just a moment. I want you to feel each

heartbeat like that one, that one, that one, and that one.

Everyone, do you feel it? Here's the extraordinary thing

is that Genesis 1/6 through 13 is even written within our own

biology. Every heartbeat like that one,

that was a heartbeat that didn't need to happen.

Feel another one that didn't need to happen.

Every heartbeat what it is, Every heartbeat is like a seed

that dies a momentary death and it yields another heartbeat.

It sprouts into another heartbeat that dies, then

sprouts into another one. That's the pattern of the trees

and the vegetation. This generous heartbeat, this

cycle that populates God's world with explosive magnanimity.

It's too much. It's abundant, right?

I remember 1 theologian said at every moment of your life God is

doing 10,000 things, and at most, if you're very spiritually

aware, you may be aware of two or three of those things.

Every heartbeat is a gift from God that he deserves glory for

and we're aware of, I don't know, maybe the five or ten that

you felt there in that 10 second slide.

It's just a he's such a generous host.

Like what kind of host is God stingy?

No, he's like last the cur. The curves aren't here this

morning, right. Good.

I'm going to pick on him. Actually, I'm I'm going to

encourage them. The Stevens actually a pretty

great guy. I would never say that to his

face. So we show up for this pastor

and wives party last Saturday at the curse house.

And I walk in and the curse have this beautiful house, a lot of

open space. And like right in the middle of

this big spacious living room, they've got one of those kitchen

islands. You know what I'm talking about

the the floating kitchen island in the middle.

And so like you walk in and immediately you see Steven, he's

got this big knife in his hand. He's got this slab of steak

cooked perfectly rare to medium rare and he's he's like cutting

it out into these thin slices and like throwing it on people's

plates. It's too much.

Like it's too good. I couldn't even sit down.

Like before I even sat down, Lauren Kerr came up to me and

just, I didn't even ask. She just put some mixed drink

into my hands before I even sit down, right?

I look at my hands and it's like this amazing old fashioned with

this really fancy bourbon and like, it's got this, Oh dude,

it's got it's got this like cherry.

What kind of cherry goes into it like Manicura No Maracchino.

It's got this maracchino cherry and it's like, it's like,

there's like this. Did I get it wrong again?

It's got this cherry and like it's like on this metal sphere

and the ice, I would just put ice cubes in it.

Not Lauren. It's like this big sphere,

singular ball of ice and I'm looking at this thing and I'm

just like, I'm unworthy to drink this old fashioned.

It's just so much. And every day when you wake up,

God is he's doing that for you. That's like, that's a small

glimpse, a small glimpse of what Genesis is trying to get you to

see God as God is. This is the kind of God he is.

He's he's the host of a scandalous banquet of on stop

good things and we get to be his honored guests.

We're not cosmic slaves to needy gods.

We're honored guests to generous God.

It's so scandalous. Why scandal?

Keep on using that word, scandal.

Why would it be such a scandal to bestow all these great things

upon people like you and me? Well, in part it's because

nobody else saw the gods that way.

This was a radically new way of viewing God.

But mostly it's a scandal because of who we are.

Like, I know you're a special star and your mommy's a little

cowboy, and you are, but at the end of the day, like

theologically, we're dirt balls. We're just dirt balls.

It's literally true. I'm not trying to spoil it, but

when we get to the creation of humanity, how does God create

us? It's simultaneously honoring and

humbling. God literally scoops up a

handful of what dirt, little ball of dirt, and he breathes

his spirit into us. And it's just crazy to think

about because all of this abundance, it's not for God.

God has everything he needs within himself.

It's for dirt balls, dirt balls like you and dirt balls like me.

Imperfect, messed up people. And he's just, he's bestowing

all this extravagance upon us. And that's primarily what life

is. We're these little clay

creatures with short life spans on this earth.

And for us, life is just one continuous daily feasting at an

abundant banquet of all God's good gifts.

And yes, that needs to be nuanced.

It needs to be nuanced a little bit.

Yes, the Christian life also includes fighting against sins

and warning against the flesh and daily repentance.

Those are all important aspects and parts of our spirituality.

But listen closely to me. Are you with me?

Listen closely. All of those things, fighting

against sin, waging against war, against Satan, combating our own

flesh, they're all incredibly important aspects of our faith

without which we don't have a relationship with God.

But all of those things, none of those things are done as ends in

in of themselves, right? We don't fight sin for the sake

of fighting sin. We don't repent for the sake of

repentance. All of those things are a means

towards an end, and the end that those are all intended to go

towards is all of that is a means of just clearing the table

off of the bad stuff so that we can feast on all of the good

stuff that God puts on our table and enjoy more fully God and His

good gifts. Again, it's just amazing that us

little dirt balls are given a seat at the King of Creations

table and then the best mixed drinks are put into our hands

and steaks cooked medium rare are thrown onto our plate.

And sometimes we're even unaware of it.

Like it's just, it's just so like, have you ever at the

beginning of a day marveled? Maybe you don't marvel anymore,

maybe it's been a long time, but have you ever at the beginning

of the day just marveled as the sun rose in the sky again and

said, Oh my gosh, there it is again.

Another extravagant day where God has chosen to make this

sunrise and shine upon this fallen earth so that we would

see His glorious generosity. It's just amazing.

God is. He is this host who just loves

to provide and loves to spoil. And this is exactly what we see

when we take our Bibles and we turn towards the New Testament,

right when we see Jesus, he's the same God doing these same

things. Jesus is not a different God

than the God of Genesis. It's not like the Old Testament

God is angry and then Jesus springs upon us in the New

Testament. It's like, all right, sorry

about what Dad said. I'm the cool one.

No, no, no, same God. So when Jesus comes on the

scene, what we see is actually Jesus continuing this exact work

of planting trees and vegetation and gardening.

Have you ever noticed right after Jesus's resurrection, have

you ever noticed why Mary can't see Mary's in the garden and she

sees Jesus and she can't see him?

Have you ever noticed that? Why can't she see Jesus?

What does she mistake? A Mass watch?

This is amazing, right? So we look at Genesis

immediately we see God gardening, and then we look at

Jesus right after his resurrection.

Mary's in the cemetery, in the garden.

She turns around, she thinks Jesus is dead, and she sees

Jesus standing, but she does not know that it was Jesus.

So Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping?

Who are you seeking? Supposing him to be the

gardener, She mistakes him for the gardener.

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir,

if you've carried him away, tell me where you've laid him and I

will take him away. He's dead.

Why can't Mary see Jesus? What mistake does Mary make?

She mistakes Jesus as the gardener.

Question. Why would Mary mistake Jesus as

the gardener? Answer Because that's what Jesus

was doing after his resurrection.

He's the gardener. He was gardening.

Why? Because of Genesis 1, He's the

God of Genesis 1. He immediately after his

resurrection, begins to do what God immediately did in Genesis

1. Immediately after his

resurrection, he begins to what? Plant vegetation that yields

more vegetation according to their kind.

Planting fruit trees that are going to bear more fruit.

He's a gardener. When?

When Jesus blesses you with himself, what do you bear fruit?

Why? Because he's a gardener and

you're his garden, and he's doing what God did in Genesis 1.

It's extraordinary. Jesus bestows his scandalous

generosity on dirt balls. These sinners saved by grace.

It's like, it's like, good Lord, man, holy cow.

It's just so much like as if the earth and its fruits and its

delights and nerd clusters are already more than we deserve.

He goes the extra yard and Jesus gives us his very own self.

That's the gospel. Jesus doesn't just give us each

heartbeat and each meal and each breath.

He does, but He dies on a cross to take away our sins, cover us

in His righteousness, and give us himself abundance.

He's so abundant. And this is exactly why one of

Jesus favorite metaphors for himself is food.

This is why Jesus wants. He presents himself to us as a

meal, right? And John one of a million places

and Johnny says, eat my flesh and drink my blood.

He's a meal. Why?

Because he doesn't want to be viewed by you as nothing more

than a box to check off on a religious test.

Wrong, dead wrong. Right.

He he wants. He wants to be delighted in as a

banquet. That's what he wants.

He wants to be treasured by you. He wants you to stuff your face

with his riches. He wants to be the mixed drink

in your hand. He wants to be the steak cooked

medium rare on your plate. He wants you to feast like a

glutton on him. Right.

The right posture before God is not OK.

You exist. I'm going to get on with my

life. The right posture before God is

God. I want all of you.

I want all your righteousness. I want all your holiness, I want

all your joy, I want all your spirit, I want all of you.

God is not to be related to as simply a box you check off a

test wrong. It's exactly what James is

getting at when he's like, oh, you believe in God, good.

Even the devil does. The devil can complete that

test, right? What?

What can't the devil do? The devil can't delight and

rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You can't treasure Jesus. He's not a box on a test, right?

Marry people. I'll tell you how foolish it is

to view your relationship with God as nothing more than filling

in the right answer. OK?

That's the spiritual equivalent of filling out your marriage

license and thinking that that makes you a great husband or

wife. I put the right answers on the

the certificate that we filed with the state.

So I did it married wrong. Wrong to think that because all

you did was fill out the blanks with the correct information.

To think that you've gotten all you can out of your marriage

because you filed it with the state and spelled your name

correctly as criminal. No, no, marriage isn't just.

It's not just a license, though You start there.

What is marriage? Marriage, it's for romance and

dancing and partnership and friendship and date nights and

for somebody to watch the office with and pleasure and enjoyment.

That's what Jesus is getting at when He calls himself bread and

wine. I said earlier, I've said a

couple times that God could have created us with the USB port to

plug in for our daily sustenance.

He did it. Why not?

He created you with taste buds. That's a lot of work.

A digestive system. That's a lot of work.

He parted the waters to nourish the land with the waters above

and the waters below. That's a lot of work.

Created the earth to produce vegetation and fruits of food,

which requires labor. All that work.

Why? Because the experience of eating

is one of the closest metaphors to what life with God is

supposed to feel like. It's supposed to feel like that,

right? You can't.

You can't honestly believe that Jesus is real and that he loves

you and that he's taken away all of your kilt and covered you

with this very own righteousness and then find him boring.

Can't do it. So if that's not what it's like,

what is it like right when you believe that Jesus is real and

that he loves you and that he died on a cross for you, and

then he takes away your sin? It feels like the spiritual

equivalent of feasting or slobbering or drooling his food.

He's he's more food than food. He's the real food.

He's the real meal. And he's created this meticulous

universe around you where he promises to provide you with all

you need because he wants you to know that you live in a world

with thousands of daily gifts from his hand that constantly

point you to how much God loves to spoil you.

Is that? Is that the world that you live

in? Yes, I know sin is real and that

introduces scarcity and people fight over resources and you

have to, you have to work in order to put food on the plate.

All of that is true. But Jesus still sees, even after

all that, he still sees the earth as his Father's house,

right? His big thing.

He's like, hey guys, look at the sparrows.

Did you see that Sparrow eating over there?

That's God providing for that Sparrow.

If he provides that little bird right there, how much more is he

going to provide for you? Jesus still sees life and

reality as this scandalous banquet of extravagant

generosity where we're just buried in gifts.

Right now you're just buried in gifts.

Maybe you don't see it, maybe you're blind to it, but you are

like a magic Wow. New emphasis for an important

point. Unlocked.

Imagine a basement, no windows, that's filled with the world's

greatest artwork. You know, I don't know who.

I don't know who your guy is. Picasso or whoever it is.

Alex, do you have a favorite artist?

Neither do I, but there's good ones out there.

This is why you shouldn't go off script.

Imagine. Imagine this basement.

It's just covered in the most beautiful paintings in the

entire world. But there's no windows.

You walk down and the lights are turned off.

Are you impressed by the artwork?

No. You can't see it.

Do you marvel at the art? No, you can't see it.

Does that mean that the art is not objectively there?

No. No.

No. No, it is objectively in the

room. Why can't you see it?

Because the lights are turned off.

What should you do? Turn on the lights?

Some of us, we just need to ask God to turn the lights on.

Like we're in this room filled with these extraordinary gifts

and we're just blind towards it. Like I I lost my 6 year old

daughter at Christmas this year. And the reason why I lost her is

because she's built like a little gymnast, a stick figure.

And the other reason is because in Chloe's house during

Christmas, the entire place was absolutely filled with presents.

The most beautiful place on earth.

You walk in and there's just all of these presents, like, just

like piles of presents and stacks of presents.

And so there was like, literally one time we're opening presents

and I look around. I'm like, where's Della?

I lost her. She was hiding behind the

presents, right? Luckily, Chloe got a picture.

I'm not a big picture guy during sermons, but she snapped the

picture. This is what it looked like for

my daughter at Christmas. She had to poke her head out.

Look at those eyes buried in presents.

Here's my question for you. What do you see when you look at

that picture? That's right.

If you're a Christian, do you see yourself in that picture?

Does that look like one day out of the year to you?

Or does that look like the daily Christian life to you?

Do you see the world this way? You should see yourself from

that. That is the Christian life.

If you would have eyes to see life truly, if you would ask God

to turn the lights on right now, if you had eyes to see it truly,

then you would see that this is in fact your life.

If you are hidden in Christ every day, you are buried in

presence on a daily basis. There's too many to list.

We wouldn't have time for lunch if I listed them all.

For starters, the forgiveness of sins, the gift of Christ's

righteousness, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the promise of

the resurrection, the love of the Father, the friendship of

the Son, the gift of the church, your daily meals, vegetables,

fruit, every breath you take, every heartbeat that you feel,

all extraordinary extravagant gifts from a loving host.

Is this how you see your life? Do you see the scandal of

reality as an abundant banquet? Or do you really just believe

that life is a war of scarcity that's ruled by a stingy God?

And if you see it that way, what would God have to do to change

your mind so that you can see life as a banquet?

What would you have to do? Because I guarantee you,

whatever answer you can come up with, He's already done for you.

Heavenly Father, I pray that you would turn the lights on for us,

that we would see the goodness of daily life with you, and that

we would just see it all as a good gift from the hand of God.

Increase our gratitude, increase our Thanksgiving, and do this

all for the glory of Jesus Christ.

It's in His name that all God's people prayed.

Amen.