Genesis: The God of Ruwach

And we're spending a couple of months working our way through Genesis 1 through 3.

So in the beginning of Genesis 1, the text says that in the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

This was before anything was created.

And so from the very beginning, God's spirit was over all that the world would be.

Now that word here for spirit is rua.

And rua is this very interesting, great word because God's rua was there, which could also be said God's breath was there.

Now on average, you take 16 breaths per minute.

So that means per hour you take 960 breaths.

That means today you will take 23,000 breaths.

That means this year you will take 8.4 million breaths.

It means if you live to be 80, you will take 670 million breaths.

Now, we should breathe from our stomachs, but when we're distressed, like I am during a sermon, we breathe from our chests.

So most of us breathe from our chests most of the time.

And that's interesting because we get most of our energy, about 90% of our energy comes from our breath.

So it's by no surprise that God's spirit is known as breath.

So Genesis 1, the spirit breath is over all that the world will come to be.

And then in Genesis 2, verse 7, we get this: that then the Lord, God, formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath, the rua of life.

Genesis 2:7

So Lord there is spelled capital, if you've noticed that.

Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

And we capitalize it in your Bible because it's special.

The Hebrew here is Y H V H.

And so some people pronounce that Yahweh, some people pronounce that Yahweh, and then there's some people, some traditions, that don't pronounce it at all.

They would say it's too wholly to pronounce, and then some other traditions would even say that you can't pronounce it, that it's unpronounceable.

Because it's actually not really a name, but it's breath.

It's the closest we can get to spelling breath.

So is it possible that God breathes life into you and that every breath you will take, all 26,000 today or so, 23,000 today, is you speaking his name.

That you and I can't even speak God's name.

But we breathe it.

So Genesis 2, God reached down, and from the dust of the ground, he formed man.

Now the word here for ground is Adama.

Okay?

And then he takes the first man and the word for here, for man is Adam.

We pronounce it Adam.

And so basically, man is named dirt.

From the materials of earth were formed.

Now, we're made alive by God breathing into us.

By Rua.

We were made alive.

So by God's spirit in us is what makes dirt guy alive.

So point number one is this you are small, but you are extraordinary.

And this is really great.

This is incredible because if you just believe you're dirt guy, if you just believe that, if you just believe you're small, then eventually you could become quite depressed.

If you just believe you're small in the world, which is true, and if you just believe you're small before God, which is true, but that's all you believe, that can be quite depressing.

But you have this rua in you, you have the Spirit of God that's been breathed in you, created in the image of God, and so you're extraordinary.

Now, if you just believed you were extraordinary, you could end up quite arrogant.

But these two things together are incredible for us.

This is such a great place for us of freedom and joy, that you are dirt, but you are rua.

And then suddenly in the text, amongst all this incredible creation and proclaiming that things are good all through Genesis 1, like we've talked about, God created this and it is good, and God created this and it is good, and God created this and it is good, and that rhythm is building, it is good, it is good, it is good, and then he creates man, and it's the climax of creation.

And then he looks at Adam, he looks at the dirt guy there, and he says, This is not good.

The first thing to not be good in the world was not the Dorito's cheesy, crunchy taco at Taco Bell.

It was not.

That's the worst thing to ever have been created.

But the first thing to not be good was for us to not be alone.

Now, the saddest thing is to be alone eating the Doritos cheesy, crunchy taco, sitting at Taco Bell all by yourself.

That's just the saddest.

If you've ever been there, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

That's the saddest.

Point number two is this community was God's heart for us since the beginning.

Right?

God existed within community.

We've talked about that, the Trinity, the paracaresis, the dance of love.

And then for us, he looks at Adam who's there before he's in perfection, is before sin.

He looks at Adam and he says, not good.

We're not at the fullest potential here, we're not quite there yet.

So verse 18, I will make him a helper for him.

Now maybe you've heard this, that the helper is like an assistant to Adam.

Like, he couldn't quite get the work done.

He needed to delegate some work down the organizational chart to a lesser being, to a, you know, like a helper.

But the problem with this is that the text says nothing about Adam not being able to get work done.

He seems to have the work under complete control.

This seems to be about something else.

And then our clue into what this could possibly be about is the word helper.

That is used a number of times throughout the Old Testament, and most often it is used in reference to God.

Like the psalmist wrote, we wait in hope of the Lord, for he is our help.

So track with me.

The same word helper is used for God.

So clearly, this woman is not a lesser being.

This is about community.

It's not a second human being existing in a lesser value to the first.

This is a world of difference if you've been taught in any way that one gender carries holding power over another.

John Ortberg is a writer, he's a pastor in the Presbyterian church world.

He says this about this text.

Women, let there be no doubt about your worth in God's eyes.

You were made in God's image.

You were made to rule, not to rule over men, not to be ruled by men, but to rule and work side by side to develop to its fullest potential this magnificent creation God asks us to steward for him.

So the story goes on in verse 21.

God caused the man to go into a deep sleep, right?

This is how the woman comes to be formed.

Because out of the side of Adam, out of the side, God forms a woman.

Now, for many of us familiar with the story, we just read right over that.

We think that's no big deal.

But why this way?

I mean, why would God create woman this way?

But let me give you an example.

In Greek mythology, Athena, she was formed from out of the, out of the, she was the goddess of wisdom, and then she sprang from the forehead of Zeus, the seed of the brain.

So this writing style communicates something.

How somebody came to be formed meant something.

And so here you have Eve coming from Adam's side, which communicates women are men's companions and partners in this world.

And this is true communally, this is true socially, and this is true in marriage.

And this gives us point number three.

The position of woman is beside the man, and thus the position of man is beside the woman.

So God brings this new being to Adam, and with ecstatic elation, Adam says in verse 23, this, like he's been waiting, he's been waiting.

It's almost like he didn't even know.

This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

He's been seeing all these other animals and naming them and naming them and naming them, but none, none have have fit with him.

She shall be called woman.

Isha.

That's the woman, that's the name for woman.

She shall be called Isha because she was taken out of Ish.

She was taken out of man.

Now we read right over that.

I've read over that a million times, and I've missed that the word for man just switched.

It went from Adam dirt to the name Ish.

So Adam looks at woman and says, Isha, which means she's so fine.

No, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that.

She may have been.

He was thinking that.

He was thinking that.

We're going to get to that next week.

It meant woman, wife, female.

And then he says, Oh, I'm not just a dom.

I'm ish.

I am man, I am husband, I am champion, I am servant.

See, only upon seeing her can he name himself.

He can't name himself before he sees her.

And she wouldn't have been able to name herself without seeing him.

He understands himself in reaction to seeing her, I'm ish.

But he didn't know it until they were side by side.

So this gets us to point number four.

God gives us each other that we might understand ourselves.

And yet, in that the scene here, long sentence, and yet the scene here is one of no shame and no division.

I'll reread that.

Point number four.

God gives us each other that we might understand ourselves, and yet the scene here is one of no shame and no division.

It's a powerful thing to be named.

You ever gone to a restaurant?

I mean, you know the moment, right?

Like you had a super nice restaurant.

Like it's the restaurant you go to once a year.

It's the anniversary restaurant, or it's just the restaurant you go to with your friends, and you have saved up for it, and you're there, and I mean you got your nicest clothes on.

I mean, maybe you even clean the car and you valet the car, and you walk in, you know, you are you're it and you're you're feeling it.

This is a great night, big restaurant looking good.

And you walk in and you say, you know, Masterson table for, you know, I got a table reserved at 7:30, and she says, you know, no problem.

And it's not a restaurant where they hand you a little blinky thing.

It's not a blinky thing restaurant.

She's just like, yeah, no problem.

Just wait over there at the bar and she'll come get you.

That's the kind of restaurant it is.

There's a big difference between blinky, little vibrating thing, and you're with like a crowd of people, versus like, you can wait at the bar.

I will be over to get you when your table's ready, and you're over there and you're dressed good, you valeted your car.

They didn't park it on the curb because your car's not that nice.

That's fine.

You're still a part of the valet, right?

Just being a part of the system feels good.

We all know what we're talking about.

Just a part of that process feels good.

So you're in there, you're waiting at the bar, having a good time, and she walks up, she says, Mr.

Masterson, your table is ready.

You have been chosen and named out of this group of people.

Now everybody's going to eventually be named out of this group of people, but you feel very important, and you walk into the restaurant with your head so high, walking to your table.

You've been named, you've been chosen as you're walking, you see some friends over to the side.

And so you stop to say hi to them, and you walk over to them, and you say, and you say, Hey, how are you?

And they say, Oh, isn't this a great restaurant?

And you say, Yes, yes, it is.

And you're thinking, it is because I've saved up and I've only come here once a year.

And then, and then they look at you and they say, Yes, we come here every week.

And you don't hear anything else.

We come here every week, and all you think is we go to Chick-fil-A every week.

I got a free fry on Thursday, and that was a big moment of my week.

And you're eating lobster rolls every week.

Great.

You walk to your table, but it's a different thing.

It's a different walk the rest of the way, right?

I mean, that Mr.

Masterson that got called out, you're walking into that dining room thinking so it's a different walk.

You've been renamed all of a sudden by comparison and shame and division and fear.

We know the feeling.

And none of that exists in Genesis 2.

This naming is before sin, it's before shame, it's before comparison, it's before all the all the destruction that can occur within relationships.

See, here in the heart of God, these people, these two people are accepting names and identity with no shame and no fear.

Remember, they're standing there naked.

Just in a garden.

I'm glad my neighbor doesn't do this, right?

In a garden, naked, no shame, no fear.

Who they are in the core of their beings is named and rooted in nothing of shame or fear or comparison.

Can you imagine that sort of naming of yourself?

No shame and no division exist.

I remember clearly when all three of my girls were born.

Fortunately for Christy, it was not all at the same time.

Three different times.

And I'm standing there, and there's a bunch of people in the room, right?

A bunch of people, and you don't know them, and they're a part of this very intimate process here, and they're all in there.

And when this happens, this baby shows up into the world.

The baby has to do one thing, and everybody is waiting for it.

The baby has to receive air.

And my mom sat on one side of her and I sat on the other side of her, and we both held her hand for several hours while her breathing just slowed and labored.

And then finally, the one last long exhale.

Yahweh.

The last time she breathed the name of God out of that worn-out body.

And then so you go take from nursing to the nursing home.

Six hundred and seventy million breaths from God, of God, for God.

Six hundred and seventy million Yahvees into the world.

And none of that is possible.

None of that is possible because you are so great on your own.

Because we've always been recipients of breath, of identity, of being named.

This has always been our story.

This is the story of our beings and the story of our redemption.

In God's grace, we have life.

In God's grace, we have redemption.

See, remember, the Christ was there in the beginning.

The word being spoken, the creative energy of God coming into the world, and then thousands of years later, after a full Old Testament storyline for us to read of people trying to obey God enough to be redeemed, enough to feel like they are right with God and right with themselves, and all of that never being enough.

When there's enough history of that for all of us to get it, the Christ incarnates into this world through this person we know as Jesus the Christ.

And he lives and he teaches and he loves, and most importantly, he dies on a cross to take all that we are not, all the ways we try to breathe, all sorts of stuff other than God into the world, all the ways we try to name ourselves that are out of shame and fear.

And he takes all of that upon himself and he puts on us his righteousness so we know forever we are right with God.

We are righteous.

We are his righteous, beloved children.

We're recipients.

We've always been recipients.

We're recipients of life, recipients of breath, recipients of redemption.

You are made whole and righteous not by what you do or what you feel.

It's never been that way.

You are breathing and you are redeemed by God's movement toward you.

My brothers and sisters, you are wonderfully fragile as dirt, but you are as extraordinary as the very breath of God.

May you rest deeply in Jesus who died for you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that just as we did not cause something for ourselves to be born into this world or for our lungs to work, we do not cause our redemption.

And we cannot cause our righteousness before you, and we cannot cause ourselves to feel at peace in this world.

May we breathe deeply of your goodness and your grace in the way that you want to name us.

That in Jesus you name us as your righteous, beloved children.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.