Blueprint - God Creates Works

Welcome To The River. City Church podcast and a

message by our lead. Pastor Jason Powers our prayer

is that this message would Inspire and encourage you, build

your faith. And point you to the

life-changing love of Jesus, may you enjoy the goodness of God as

you follow him today. Hi everybody.

We just abruptly. Yeah.

Hey, I'm glad that you're here here real quick.

Going to talk about Natalie said, depression.

Whenever I know some people people that I love people that

know, Oh, Jesus, that fear. Jesus, that love Jesus.

That are following Jesus. They're gonna die and go to

heaven. And they would say something

that if you are depressed, you just need to believe more.

You just need to have more, he's need to understand more.

I just want to say on the account of, you know, based on

what I see in scripture like the entire book of second

Corinthians and all of that, right?

Like, I love my friends are probably going to heaven.

They are dead wrong about that, right?

So what does it look like to practice, faith in the midst of

depression, and anxiety, and fear, and undone on that, I

think it looks like that you don't have to get on a stage to

do that, right? But you go to somebody and you

go I'm not doing okay today, I'm not.

Okay today again, go read second Corinthians.

If you think, if you have trouble with depression and

faith in this Paul, the Apostle Paul writes we despaired even

unto the point of death, the way we would call that today is

suicidal. But you know what, here's what

we do, when we find that place we go I don't have to believe

that that's It's the Ultimate Reality.

I feel it. It feels weird, it feels dark.

I feel depressed. I feel scared and put the name

on it. I feel depressed depressed.

Just means push down, right? I feel depressed, I'm sad, I'm

sorry, I'm scared, I'm alone. I'm anxious.

But what she did was, she went to the word and she said, enter

his gates with Thanksgiving. So then what song does she sing?

Gratitude, that's a model. What you just saw is among the

model and Christianity, isn't That all together until you're

not depressed. The model is this is the day

that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it

even when I'm depressed and it doesn't mean that you don't feel

anything. It doesn't mean that you're not

sad anymore, doesn't mean you put on a smile and you shine and

you grin through it it means you go to the Lord and you go you

know what, I bring you today. Lord Sadness and Sorrow, and

grief and depression and I'm going to get out of my bed and

I'm going to put my feet on the floor because you're here today.

Even if I don't feel you or see you right now.

Now, you know what that takes. Faith and so I'm like Lord just

take it from me and he's like, no.

And I'm like, Lord your mean he's like no, you're stronger

than you think, get up and walk through it hard but I'm weak.

Yes, you are. You're terribly with your weaker

than you can ever imagine? The Lord says, I'm not.

So you should fill your head with scripture.

You should fill your heart with scripture.

You should fill your circle with the people of God.

Who will tell you, I'm with you and your depression, but it does

not get the last word in your life.

The problem is we feel feed and fill our lives with Other

messages with were messages. Say it's scary in your dangerous

and you're alone, and you're lost.

And you're afraid. And we believe it, and then we

reinforce them. We fill our head.

And then we walk out and go. Where's God?

He's right there, right? In the middle of.

Okay, good. I want you to know that that it

is okay to not have it all together because when you say, I

don't have it all together. You are saying I am part of the

human race and there's good news in that.

You know what, the good news is the only thing Jesus came to

redeem restore as the creation as The Stomping.

In ground of humanity, which is created in His image.

We're going to talk about today and that's good news because he

loves you and he wants to redeem you.

When saw that what week is this 3 is the third week about two

weeks ago at the beginning of the series you looked at

Nicodemus and Nicodemus was the guy who had gotten to the top.

The way that you're supposed to, he was born into the family, and

he went to a system, and he obeyed the system, and the

system was Judaism and he followed the rules, and he

follow the law and he did all the things and he About this

guy, Jesus, and he went to Jesus and he said, hey, Jesus, we know

you're from God. And so, there was this

separation, this distinction, he's like, Jesus, tell me about

yourself. And what Jesus said was there's

no new life without rebirth. And that's what Nicodemus was

like, what are you talking about rebirth?

And we saw this metaphor that Jesus used, right?

He used you can't be born unless you're born of the Flesh and of

the spirit of water and of the spirit.

So we have to have this physical life, but we saw that this

physical life that were born into from The moment that were

born, it begins to shape us, it begins to form us.

It begins to squeeze us to turn us and what it tells us is you

are what you do and you've bought into that, right?

When you feel pressure about work, when you feel like your

identity is who you are and what you do or you have a

relationship that leaves you or that goes away.

And you begin to wonder? Who am I now?

And my family. My father's facing retirement

and I Know It retirement. Well, he's not facing it

anymore. He's like in it now but the

retirement brings the question. After all these years of

working, who am I now? What fills my day?

What am I about? And what Jesus told Nicodemus,

is this path that you're on. It will get you a different

direction. But if you want to see the

kingdom of God, you have to be reborn.

And what that means is, we have to go back to the beginning.

And we have to learn how to walk in the Kingdom, where God's Rule

and Reign is supreme. And so, what we did is we've

been looking at, we started last week, we went all the way back

to the beginning. Inning in Genesis 1, to try to

get a picture of what that looks like, because we want to know

what's Jesus calling us back to. And we saw last week that he

took us back and it said, and it was empty and it was formless

and void. And there is confusion and there

is emptiness over the face of the Earth.

And we said, you know, if we're going to talk about like

biblical creation, we said God created everything.

That's so important because we're going to actually talk

about days of the week today and the way that we can kind of talk

about it. I just want to make it

absolutely Sure, God is Sovereign, he created

everything. He created all things, he is the

one in the universe that has full and final say, that's why I

don't put stock. That's why I don't put a lot of

faith. If I don't put any faith in

astrology because I believe that God created the Stars, so

whether you're a Libra or a Capricorn, I don't care.

You're a child of the Living. God, we should ask him first.

I think really kind of the Enneagram is is helpful.

It's useful in a lot of people put inside of that.

But at the the end of the day I want to ultimately finally and

fully go to the Lord of The God Who created me and say, what is

it that you have put in me and this brings us kind of to the

setting of our story. We said, when we read Genesis

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1, it wasn't written as like an eyewitness account.

The story came to Moses who is with the people of Israel in the

wilderness. So real quick, the picture was

God, created all the stuff and he created every said, every I'm

going to make you a nation and Abram became Isaac and Isaac had

Jacob and 12. And I went to For 400 years and

they became a nation, maybe over a million people, but then God

said, now that your nation, I want you to come into the

Wilderness so he pulled them out of Egypt.

He separated them by plagues and he brought them out into the

Wilderness and he began to say I am the god who created you.

I am the god who called you out of Egypt, I am the god, who

created you and formed you for this.

This is where you have come from.

So what Genesis chapter 1 is God's revelation to Moses.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Has as Moses is telling the people of Israel who they are.

You're not Egyptian Martin formed by Egyptian culture,

Martin formed by Egyptian gods, you are marked by the god of

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so he tells the story of

what we know as the Book of Genesis.

Originally, it was an oral tradition, he tells the story of

Genesis, so that the people of Israel would know.

That's whose God, we are That's who he is.

So it's very important when we read Genesis 1.

It's so important that we not read Genesis 1 as a science

textbook, the point of Genesis 1 is not for God to fix a

pre-scientific cultures cosmology.

God is not talking about the expansion of the universe

because back then they saw a plant and thought it was a god.

Right. They're not trying to show them,

he's not trying to talk about astral Au or light-years or

quarks or string theory, none of that he's trying to show

creation as the place where God gets involved with humankind.

The same is now. So the question is if that's

what Genesis was for for the ancient Israelite, right?

To show them this God who created them and show them this

God who leads them out of slavery.

That leads them out of Image and leads them into Freedom.

Genesis serves the same role for us today.

It answers the question or two addresses.

The issue. Who is this?

God this is important. See we, if we skip over or if we

Breeze past Genesis chapter one, the only thing that is impacted

directly for us is, are you ready our faith.

Because what if we believe that all of this is just some

mechanical force than we believe that we are at best caught up in

it. That's not encouraging.

How do you pray to a personal and impersonal Force?

How are you comforted by an impersonal Force?

Now, I understand if you're outside of the church, if you're

outside of this, you just say, well, that's not the point to be

to be comforted by an impersonal Force.

But what I would say is, wouldn't it be neat?

If you could have both sovereignty and a comforting

personal force and presence in your life.

So we get to this place. Now, as we look kind of in, we

looked at two verses last week and I promise we're going to do

more than that this week, right? But we saw this.

What we saw last week is that Genesis 1 is a good God's

blueprint for life in a designer Cosmos.

And here's this idea that I just want to like dangle in front of

your face and just want to dangle over head.

And listen we probably won't fully implement this in our

lives today because it's deep and it's got strings and fingers

that go all the way back into the very recesses of our being

and and our ideas and who we are.

Right. But the idea is when God created

it all your life and life in general was not supposed to be

chaotic. Now, I have almost three

teenagers, so there's a level of chaos, right?

That? I was not, I'm not even sure the

Lord in his right? Like what we're reaching.

Genesis 1 levels of chaos, right?

At this point right now. And I'm not necessarily talking

about that. But I'm talking about

interpersonal chaos. I'm talking about the cast of

who am. I am talking about the cast of

what does this mean? All this stuff that I look

around this world that I've been involved in.

What does this mean? What does it look like?

Is it really supposed to be? Just grinding my way through 60

or 70, or 90, or 100 years, and then death, and then maybe I'll

get to sit on a cloud and play a harp as that's what it is.

Well, what we saw last week was we just set the stage for that.

God creates order in chaos. It's a blueprint for life, for

what life is supposed to lie look like in his world today,

what we're going to look at is how God deals with chaos, what

God does in queso. Here's the thing.

For you. And I want to just set the

stage, right. Last week as we were talking, I

ask you to just kind of identify where in your life as a place of

chaos. Where in your life is a place

where things seem out of sorts out of order where you don't

have an answer for. It seems too big seems to

threaten you. It seems to cover you up because

the question now is, what is God do in that if his ideas that he

wants to bring order out of the chaos?

What does it look like in your chaos, is that available to you?

Or does it only have to do with Cosmic?

Gases is God, right? The cosmic watchmaker, right?

Thomas Jefferson's, Cosmic watchmaker, who whines the thing

up? And he sets it down and he steps

back and lets it go. Or does God involved in this

world that he created? Well, let's see.

Here's the point. I want to make today.

Okay, so here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna kind of give you the point so that you can see and

you can know where we're going to go, and then we're going to

step back and we're going to talk about Bible study today.

So a couple things are going to happen.

Number one, you're going to get what you're going to get a

perspective interview on Genesis chapter 1, I think makes it

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Makes sense. That makes God fit into your

life and into the cosmos and creation, but you're also going

to get a paradigm in a process that will allow you to go to the

word to go to the word on your own and draw out of that, right?

Because listen real quick. I hope this will be coming any

of you ever come to the Bible and you read the Bible and you

open it up and you look at it and you come to it and after 10

minutes or so of reading you look at and you go well I don't

have any idea. What?

That was talking about you ever have that?

Anybody have that say it's okay. Raise your hand High.

What's here's the Raging and I want you to feel comfortable.

Comfortable. Right?

Good, good. That's okay.

I have my hand up and I seriously, and, I mean it.

But what I don't want you to do is get discouraged or stuck or

lost in that place, right? Okay, so here we go.

If you have your Bible, if you have this, take it out, that

would be good. I hope you do.

This is a great, lets me write on it and gets all that if not

get your phone or get your iPad, or if you have a scroll, or if

you use smoke signals or pigeons or whatever it is, however, it

is that you get the scripture, get your scripture because the

Idea the picture that we're going to get out today is the

Genesis creation account reveals the God, who brings order to

every chaos. And so, what I mean, is what in

your life as cast as your relationship with your kids or

your relationship with your parents chaotic is your

relationship at work? Chaotic is your finances chaotic

is your self-image. Chaotic is your sense of joy and

peace and fun in this world. And what I would say is even

what Natalie shared about depression about, Waking up and

being being sometimes Moody and up and down that is chaotic any

time where you wake up and you don't know what's going on

around that's cast. So think about what that looks

like in your life. How does that make you feel?

How does that impact? That sense of chaos?

That sense of out-of-control, how does that impact your job?

Your family, your friends everywhere you go.

Okay because what I want to say is Genesis 1 is going to show us

that it's going to show us how God deals with that.

But what's important for us right now is we have to ask the

Question, how do we read this story?

Well, how do we come to Genesis chapter 1 and get out of it?

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

What was intended to put in there?

Because listen this is very important.

Genesis 1 was not written to us. Moses was never there going.

I wonder what Jason is gonna think about 40,000 years from

now nothing. Nothing like that.

Now it's good for us, it's useful for us and we're going to

pick that apart but in order to get that we have to learn how to

and remember how to read it. Well, right, so there's a cup of

the best way to study. The only way to study really is

to ask questions to ask a good questions of the scripture.

I so what we want to know in the scriptures, what is this

scripture show us about God? That's always first.

The first character that we see in scripture is who God right in

the beginning. God, the book is about him, it's

not about me now. I'm in it, not me personally

humankind like it's not, but it is about God.

So, the first question that we ask is we come scriptures.

What does it say about God? What does it say about Mankind?

What does the scripture say about life?

What is this? Scripture say about Sin and so

there's three questions that can he can ask.

First question is, what does It's a when you come to the

Bible, the first thing that you have to do that, you have to

read as you have to, what does it say?

John 3:16. I'm not going to put it up

John 3:16

there. What does it say for God?

So loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever

believes in him. Should not perish but have

everlasting life. So you step back and you okay,

what does it say now did you know that summarizing is Bible

study? Remember last week where we

said, translation is interpretation now, your

translation of the Bible is not an authoritative T''v right?

It is not you can't take and you do.

Well this is what this means to me.

That's not authoritative but we can step back and go.

What's the Bible trying to say? Because if we take now John 3:16

John 3:16

what we can just say is God loves everyone.

For God. So loved the world.

God loves everyone. God gave his son so that

everyone could be saved. That's what Genesis are.

That's what John 3:16 Says the so what does it say as the first

John 3:16

one, most, people want to skip this most people because this is

where this is where a lot of commentary comes in.

I want to know what the culture, what's going on at the time, who

was it, written to, who was it? Written about, where do they say

this? This happens all, you know, all

the time. You read.

If you read a poem from England, from London England in 1750.

It's going to sound very different than a poem written in

the United States in 1750. Right?

What does it say? What is the language that they

use, right? The second question that we

asked. What does it say?

The second question is, what does it mean?

Now we start putting interpreters, and you ask the

question? What did it mean to the first

group that heard it? What does it mean to be?

Now what does it mean for the areas of my life for my

relationships? What?

Does it mean for my children? What does it mean for my job?

What does it mean for my feelings?

Right? What does it say?

What does it mean? And finally, what do I do you

remember? Jesus said, repent because the

kingdom is here. The information that we find out

about the kingdom, the information that we find about

what God's doing here on Earth is meant to change us.

It's been to change our Behavior, not arbitrarily.

This is so important. It's not meant to just change

our, our Behavior arbitrarily, it's meant to change.

Our behavior in line with and in light of this truth.

And reality that God's kingdom is here.

God's present is available. He is here he is for us, he is

redeeming all things and that's the truth that changes

everything. Because of that truth, I can do

things differently, I can be changed and I can be different.

So we're going to ask those three questions today, good.

Are you ready? You're going to be biblical

Scholars before you even knew it, okay?

so when we decide what's it say the first thing that we have to

determine is genre now You could go home, you could go to Blue

Letter, Bible dot-org, they have like a commentary section and

you could read all of the commentaries about Genesis

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 and you could do all of this and you would find and

you would be smarter for it for having done it.

And I think you should and I hope you do we have about 30

minutes left so I'm not going to make you do that today here,

right? What?

I'm going to go ahead and do is, I'm just going to kind of tip

the scales for you. I'm gonna give you a little bit

of insight and you can go home and unpack this a little bit

more. So, the first question that we

have to ask when figuring out what it This is what genre is it

because you remember last week, we talked about poems, poems,

and history, and letters are not the same, you don't read them

the same, right? So what do we say about Genesis

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1? Well, there's a lot of

repetition in it, there's some symbolism in it, right?

But the thing about Genesis chapter 1 is, it's not really

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

pure poetry. Some people who try to kind of

try to take advantage of Genesis chapter 1 and make it, you know,

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

kind of either dismiss it or minimize or whatever.

They say, oh well it's just The poem, it's supposed to be read

as a poem, it is only a poem. Well, the reality is that it's

not really written, purely like a poem.

There's no big metaphors in it, right?

Like we saw last week, it doesn't say that there's a tent

in the sky where the sun goes. There's no like Grand him Nick

language, right? Like when we read, you know,

that the him Nick language, Amazing Grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a Wretch like Me, Right?

Like, the point in poetry, and poems.

And and Elvis is to convey something really big.

Really small sense and really small small space and that's

what's going on here, but it's not written like a poem.

The language is straightforward. The language says, it says, God

said, God did he made? And it was so there's no sense

of, and once upon a time in a land far, far away, and they

were dragons and gods, and all that.

There's this very clear sense, that, that God did something

direct. So it's not a pure poem which

would allow us to make metaphor of everything, right?

Right, but on the other hand, here's the difficulty.

On the other hand, it's not straight Pros either, it's not

pure narrative. There are no facts later on in

Genesis chapter 6, God tells Moses, Our God tells Noah how to

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

build an ark and he says you got to build it.

This high this size, this wide this way, so many qubits, so

many qubits, this kind of pitch, this kind of wood, you got to do

that. This doesn't have that.

It's got this repetition of language, there is this

repetition of structure. So it doesn't look like a

storybook. It's Not necessarily a poem but

it's also not necessarily an article found in National

Geographic magazine, what Genesis chapter 1 is falls under

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

literary critics and historians have said, Jenna Genesis chapter

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

1 is a genre called elevated prose.

Okay, so it is Pros language, prosaic language, but it's

lifted, its got repetition, it's got structure.

It's got its got imagery specifically.

This is chapter one is a prologue.

Now you've read a prologue before you go read a book and

you look at it, it's like, hey, this is setting the stage.

This was kind of what was going on forth.

This is how we got to their right and it shows God

separating. So really later down the road as

we see the all this Bears out, but for right now Genesis

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 is this beginning, its setting the stage.

So what does that mean? For what we do, what it means

is, we need to as we go to Genesis 1 and if this makes you

nervous, I understand. I get it right the here.

Genesis 1. What we do.

It means we are allowed to come to Genesis one.

With all the ambiguity that the text Will Allow and here's what

that means, right? If we try to force onto this

text, that it was a Six-Day 24-hour In this passage literal

creation, from nothing X nelio into all things, I can look at

that and say maybe because it talks about days, that certainly

doesn't make my God. God smaller, right?

The fact that he had, that's good.

I can handle that. I can buy that, right?

But there's also just enough poet poeta, sysm In this passage

to make me see. It may be a literary device, may

be a rhetorical device, maybe Day means something else.

So let me tell you something. Now that I think that, I believe

how I interpret this, and here's what I want to say there are

people. I've read enough books by

enough, men and women, with letters, after their name on

this subject that I believe my My interpretation is well,

within the bounds of Orthodoxy, it sold their of a lot of Bill

had it. But listen, if you disagree with

me, that's okay too. Part of the beauty of the church

is within this bounds of what within the bounds of God is good

and God is Sovereign over all we can have room to fetch.

So here's what I say, here's what I believe real quick.

I believe that in the beginning, there was nothing.

I mean, there is nothing except God the trinitarian.

God, the father is eternally begotten, son.

And the spirit of God, that was hovering over pre creation

Waters. And then I believe that God

created everything. I believed that he created every

molecule. Every atom, there is nothing in

history that exists that did not exist.

And I believe that Genesis 1 is a as an account of six literal

24 hour days. Here's what I also believe, I do

not believe that Genesis chapter one is the account and the story

of the literal truth creation. X nelio, here's what I believe

it. It's like it's nearly all means

out of nothing. Right?

Here's what I believe, I believe that God created the heavens and

the earth, and the same way that who killed our house.

Bella Vista homes built our house, and there was a day that

I went to the bank. And I signed a check, a large

check, and they said, this is now your house.

And on that day, it was just a house.

And it's at their, it had an address, it had water,

everything was plumbed and ready to go into that house.

But, you know, we didn't, we didn't want a house.

We wanted, what a home so, when did eight, A home at some point

later and did it happen in one day?

Yeah, did my back still hurts from it when it happened in one

day but it did right. My house began becoming a home

on the day that we moved into it.

So I believe that Genesis 1 is the account of six literal 24

hour days of creation where God did something special and unique

with all of the things that he had created before.

Do you want to see what those things are?

Do you want to see what God did in the confusion?

Asian and the chaos and The Emptiness.

Because what I believe is there's a reason that God wants

us to know what he did. And I believe that there's a

reason that he said it out the way that he did.

Because you remember what we saw last week?

How God is speaking into confusion and into emptiness?

And so what I want to say is what God wants you to find in

Genesis chapter 1 is hope for the confusion and emptiness in

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

your life. He wants you to see what he's

capable of. He wants you to see what he's

doing. He wants you to see what all of

history is pointing to. So are you ready?

I'm Gonna Fly and I'm gonna get you.

I say that I'm not. We're just going to go over and

it's going to be fun. Let's see what we have, right?

If you're here for the first time you like I was good at

nope, we're going to get it. Here we go.

Genesis chapter, 1 starting in verse 1, in the beginning, God

created the heavens and the Earth and the Earth was without

form and it was void and darkness was over the face of

the deep. Remember we saw without form and

void tohu Wabo. Who remember at that empty

confused right? The creation it doesn't say that

nothing existed what it said is everything was confused and

everything was empty, the creation that God had it didn't

have purpose, it didn't have meaning, it wasn't well-ordered

and It wasn't fulfilling right verse 3 and God said, let there

be light and there was light and God saw that the light was good

and listen and God separated, there's a big word that's going

to show up over and over and over and over and over again.

God said, and there was and what it said, he separated the light

from the darkness and God called the light day and the Darkness

he called night, and there was evening, and there was morning

the first day now. So some of the things we have

the first day, right. How did what?

Sharda besides the alarm clock aside from the rooster, it's the

sun coming up, right? And again, we can point this out

and know. What does this mean?

I don't know what it means. All I know is there's light and

there's dark. And there is as of yet.

No son. So we have day and we have

night, we have evening and we have the morning the first day

and it's rolling over, right? So what do we have second?

Right, we go down to verse. We make sure I got all this

right, yeah, right. So first day he creates light

and what does he say? Say it is what he separates.

There's light and there's Darkness, right?

And we just say, oh well God was the light, right?

But God is the alkanes. He is all like everything is

like in him. There is no shifting, there's no

changing. There's, there's no Shadow for

there to be light at the time, that means God was creative to

separate the light from the darkness, was this creation of

daytime. And what its creation really was

it was time before this, we that we have no sense that there was

this move. Now we know it was going on but

when God says there's going to be evening Gonna be morning and

it's going to be regular and is going to be consistent.

What that means is we can start counting on this, we can start

marking our time by this. So now we go down to verse 6.

And God said, do you hear that again?

And God said, and what he say? Let there be an expanse in the

midst of the waters and let it separate.

There's that idea. Again, let it separate the

waters from the waters. This is what we talked a little

bit about last night, right? Waters above Waters below.

Okay, so real quick, what happen we put Water above and Waters

below. What do you have in here?

The Bible calls it an expanse, you know what?

We call it Sky, God. Created the sky on Day 2.

Do you know why the sky is important?

Because if you don't have a sky, you don't have weather.

And if you don't have whether you don't have agriculture.

So now, let's talk about this water above, right?

This shell of sky, right? This hard candy crust that's

around the Earth, right. Well, what would a hard candy

crust around the whole earth? Do you know what it would do?

It would keep the waters back, the waters above, right?

So you hope there's some holes in that firmament, right?

So, a little bit of the water can get through, right?

But what it says is that God created the firmament from.

And what that means, is that God controls.

When it rains, God controls when the sun's Sun comes out.

God controls when the seasons come, and when the gods Seasons

own and you know what that means?

If God does it the Of Abraham, Isaac.

And Jacob does that, you know who doesn't do.

It bail raw. All those Egyptian gods who went

before God said I create and listen remember his job wasn't

to fix their cosmology. His job wasn't to go.

Actually there's a water cycle, right?

Evaporation condensation precipitation right?

All he's not trying to do that. He's just like, hey all the

order in the world that you see that makes sense.

The rain in the coming. God says, I did that.

That I did that not, not anyone out over there.

I did that. Now, we go down to verse 8 and

God called the expanse heaven. You thought heaven was with God

on a harp plant, right? Right?

That someday it is that heaven right?

In the presence of God, right? But when Jesus said repent,

because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, the original creation,

he created the heavens, he created the space, he created

the air, he created the atmosphere in the ideas and when

Jesus says, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, he's talking

about that. The Kingdom of Heaven is all

around you God's activity in the world, just like in Garden in

the garden when Jesus came. God's activity in his rule in

his Reign and his authority is available here.

Now and the space above the water below the water in the sky

where we are. And then he goes on verse 9 and

God said, do you see the repetition?

And God said and it was and it was good day to is actually the

only day that doesn't talk about that doesn't say that it was

good. Let's see what day 3 verse. 9

God said let the waters under the heavens be gathered together

into one place and let dry land appear.

And it was so, do you know? I dry land is important because

you've got time. You've got agriculture, you've

got whether you got Seasons, you got precipitation.

Well, what good is it to have rain?

If you don't have any land to plant your crops Rain on the

ocean, doesn't do very good for agriculture.

So God said, we should have a place for you to plant.

Your crops verse 11 and God said, let the Earth Sprout,

vegetation plants, yielding seed, and fruit bearing and

trees bearing fruit in which is their seed each according to its

kind on the earth and it was so, so he creates sea and land

plants. So all through day one, we say

God speaking and separating and creating.

So here's what days one through three look like and creation.

We This on a t-chart, right? First light and dark.

He separated the light from the dark.

The second he separated the waters above, and below and

segregate. He separated the sees that he's

separating creates dry lands and he creates the plants on the

field. So we see day one through three

and I do you remember at the beginning, the condition of the

earth, the earth was formless. And so, for the first three

days, God begins to put form to the Earth.

He forms time. He forms, whether he forms

agriculture, he He forms farming.

And how does he do it by separating?

That is, that is not. This is, this is not, this

grows. This doesn't grow.

This is water. This is land.

This is sky. This is C.

So days, one through three is all about God, creating this

problem of formless mess and so what we have though what he said

is it was formless. It was confused and it was

empty. So we go.

Now today's 4 verse 14, Teen and God said.

So again we come to this, God said, let there be lights in the

expanse of the Heavens to separate the day from the night.

Okay? So now we're talking about sun

and moon and stars. He explains it and let them be

for signs and for seasons, and for days, and for years, and let

the lights in the expanse of the heavens, give light upon the

Earth, and it was so, and so here's what we have, right?

We have this fullness right now, we have the sky, we have time,

we have agriculture, we have land.

But you know what? We have all these people who

walk around go window. I When do I put, how do I know

when I'm playing? Can I put beans in the ground

and in Winter? I'm not a farmer.

So I don't know the answer that question, but that's the

question that they're asking, right?

And so what God does is says, hey, you got to know when to put

your crops in the ground. You got to know when to pull

them out. You got to know when it's time

to, for your animals to have babies.

And when it's time for them, not to have babies.

So when he did, he says, I'll show you how to Mark time, so he

puts seasons and how do you tell Seasons?

He fills them with sun and moon, and stars.

And planets and constellations. So we can go.

Now, it's about to be cold. We better hunt for the winter.

We better hunker down. You see?

He's creating us and he's showing us how to live life in

this world, the sun and the stars, and the moon go to verse

20, you see, I'm blown through this, go back and read it for

yourself, meditate unpack, this verse 20.

God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures

and let birds fly above the Earth and across the expanse of

the heaven, right? So he created added space, the

heavens the sky and what did he fill it with life.

Now, I want to step back and I want to just real quick, make

sure that we understand what's going on.

What kind of Life did God create one bird like a giant Albatross

and like you can eat it and it's good like you can send messages

with it and it like all it's pretty to let what know a bunch

of different birds. Create like, I love birds that

some birds are terrible. There have been to Bucky's about

Sunset and you see the starlings with the thing, right?

It freaks me out, man. I don't know why they do that.

I didn't teach him how to make the shapes and the signs and all

the thing and I just drive by and I walk out and it freaks me

out a little bit. But I go that's kind of cool.

And I think about all the abundance and the variety of the

opulence of our God in this world that he created and I just

know that he didn't have to do that.

I just know that he did. So he created the sky inning,

filled it and then we come to verse 26 and this is where it

really gets good. And then God said, let us make

man. Now the word, their man is the

word. Adam Wright mankind.

Let us make mankind. God said, let us make man in our

image and after our likeness, And let them have dominion over

the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over

the livestock and over all the Earth and over every creeping

thing that creeps on the year. Now what I want to say is this

is a unique in creation. God never speaks like this over

any other aspect of creation. He doesn't watch philosophical

about the creation of the birds. He doesn't want acts

philosophical about the creation of the plants.

What I want to say real quick, this is real important because

what we have here, is this sense of dominion, right?

Of the people to have dominion over creation.

But what's very important if we're going to understand and

get this Humans are different than animals.

We are valued differently than animals.

God did not create human kind and animal.

Kind different. Now, does that mean that we

don't respect? Does that mean that the entire

creation is here for us to just use and do with as we please?

Absolutely not. We're going to see that but

listen, God values human life differently than all other forms

of life. Is created in His image.

It is created uniquely by him and for him.

Okay. So here we go.

Over the livestock over all the Earth and over every creeping

thing that creeps on the earth, verse 27.

So God created man in his own image in the image of God.

He created him male and female, he created them unique but

different and God blessed them. And God said to them, be

fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth, and subdue it, and

have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of

the heaven and over every living thing that moves on The Earth

we're going to talk about Dominion next week when we look

specifically at Mankind and God's creation.

And what that means for us, what that means for you, and for me.

But what that means. Right now, what I want to stand

on right now is on day six. Remember day, three God created

the land ride, he separated. And on day six, he fills it.

He fills it with livestock with animals and after all of

creation, after all the big plants in the little plants and

the fish, and the birds and the season the animals and livestock

after all of that, he creates And and he says have dominion.

He says you are in a unique position and a unique spot in

this creation, you're different than everything else.

Adam and we're going to unpack that.

And let me just tell you this real quick.

If you think your job is the thing that you are going to

escape upon death, finally, and fully.

So you can finally have the life that God intended for you.

What I want to say is work is pre curse.

God wants to redeem your vocation.

He wants to regime your job, he wants to redeem the goodness, he

runs to redeem what your created for, but right now I just want

to show us days 4 through 6, right?

So we have in creating light and dark and then he creates the

Agents of the light and the Darkness who creates the waters

above and the waters below and then he fills them, he creates

the Seas and the dry land and a plants and then he fills them.

And then we go to verse 2, chapter 2 and starting in verse

1. Thus the heavens and the Earth

were finished and all the host of them and on the seventh day,

God finished his work that he had done.

Done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work

that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day

and made it holy because on it. God rested from all his work

that he had done in creation. Now that's really confused.

But what I want to say about this and we're going to unpack

this a lot next week, you just have to listen to me and trust

me and believe me on this. Remember we said last week that

Genesis chapter one is an ancient near Eastern creation

text. If you went to any, if you ask

your ancient near Eastern friends, right, your people who

were from then, right? They read Genesis chapter 2,

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

they would step back and what they would look at and they

would go, that's a temple text. Okay, what we find in Genesis 2.

And again, we're going to unpack this all next week.

You got to come back next week. This is what I'm doing.

Baiting the hook. Right.

Genesis chapter 2, Star verses 1 through 3 is a temple text.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Here's the idea that we're gonna unpack next week.

God created Earth to be inhabited by him and Humanity

together forever, We were supposed to be there with him

and what does God do in his creation?

He reigns over it. He rules over it day seven, we

find this. What, as we find on day seven,

he completes he rests, He blesses.

God, presides over his Creation in creation.

That's different. Not on a palace far away but in

the midst of his creation. So real quick, we're already

over. Here's what I want to know.

Like what does this mean? What does Genesis 1 mean listen?

Are you? Ready.

It means everything. It means everything.

Everything changes for this all week.

I was so excited. This may be my favorite passage

in all the scripture because it has so much potential for your

life, for your Darkness, for the confusion, for your fear, for

all of the things, right? And I'm only going to talk about

three real quick. First thing, God always creates

an abundance of good. Always, always, always.

And you step back and you just go, doesn't look like it to me.

World seems pretty garbage to me a lot of anger and fighting it.

Vision separates, right? Here's what's so important to

see this abundance that you see God?

Creating it's pre-fall. When Jesus is talking to

Nicodemus about being reborn. Do you know what he has to be

reborn out of the world that we're currently in into what

Genesis 1 and 2, where there's everything abundant your rights

in destroys. So when God says, Hey I want you

to, I want you to like have limits and boundaries on on your

sexuality. It's not just unbridled for your

pleasure. I want you to boundaries on your

on your pursuit of money. I want you to have boundaries on

all of these things it's because he knows how to give us a good

luck. If it's because he knows what

abundance is. The problem is and we're going

to unpack all of this in two weeks.

The problem is, we think we know better, what makes for us.

So here's what Jesus says, here's the practical application

of that. Matthew chapter 6, starting in

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

verse 33. Therefore, don't be anxious, any

of you anxious. Any of you, afraid?

And if you depressed, Any of you insecure?

What I want to say is, Jesus begins by saying.

Don't be anxious. Now, listen, he doesn't say that

to condemn, you, he says that to invite you and listen why?

Because the question is why, why would we not be anxious?

He says, don't be anxious about anything saying, well, we eat or

what will we drink? Or what we wear?

Those are the basic things about life.

Don't worry about what's going. Don't worry about what goes on

on the outside. Right?

Well, why because the Gentiles seek after these things, so

important, because we're Gentiles and you're designing

way, what do you say? Saying man, listen, here's the

thing. Do you know what defines

Gentiles and this Russ Gentiles don't know.

God Gentiles, don't know what you're about to read.

Gentiles haven't heard the creation story where this loving

God filling and expanding and overflowing everything, right?

But you're a Christian you have access to the kingdom.

You know Genesis 1 don't be anxious because God knows what

you need. Oh my goodness, it says that

right there. Father knows that you need them

all, but seek first, the kingdom and his righteousness and all

these things will be added to you.

Therefore don't be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be

anxious for its own for itself. Sufficient for the day is its

own troubles. Listen, don't worry.

Are you going to run out of money?

No, you're not. Because the kingdom of God is

abundant now, are you can always be able to live in the house

that you live in now. No, maybe you shouldn't live in

the house you live in. Now, you ever worry about your

house. What if you sold it and lived in

a smaller house and you used all the money?

You have extra instead of like heating it and cleaning it and

Furnishing all that. What if you use the money that

you got from your new smaller house to give to people who are

hurting and eating, because Jesus loves them, because Jesus

has given that sin, God creates an abundance of good.

So the question is, do we believe that God has created an

abundance of good for us to consume, or for the world to

experience his abundance and his goodness that didn't create one

kind of tree? He created all of the trees so

that you would No, so that you would experience so that you

could see it. Second thing, separation is an

act of creation. In order for God to create who

you are supposed to be, he has to separate you from all the

things that you are not. Here's the problem.

We hold Kicking and Screaming to everything that we've found our

way into. Have you ever seen the video of

that? Little boy holding the fish and

the fish is screaming and he says I want to take it home

daddy and his dad's like you can't take the fish was already

dead and the kids just like holding on and cling to it

because he can't, he can't imagine what's coming after

that, right? And in order for us to get that

little kid to the Into the homes of the good thing is we got to

separate him from his dead fish and we're just like cling and

all these dead fish. No, no.

I want sex without consequence. It doesn't exist.

It's not a real thing. So he'll separate us from that

and we just feel like he's hurting us.

We just feel like he's taking away from us which leads to the

last thing when God creates Space.

By separating us when God creates space he fills it.

I just look at this. Look at This this chart.

There we go. I put that in there at the

temple chart. Yeah, here it is right on day,

one, God created time, and he filled it so that we could know

where it is. We can know how it's translating

on day two, he created, precipitation, and weather.

And then on day five, he filled it on day three.

He created habitat. And on day six, he created de

mini created. He created people to care for

it. Intend to it, and expand, and

fill the Earth. And on day 7, he sat in it and

he presided over it so that we could know in this.

This order and then the structure and then this system,

everything continues to run as it was intended, all we have to

do is not screw it up. If I could do a Morgan, Freeman

voice right now, I would say my best Morgan Freeman voice.

They screwed it up. But that's coming in a couple

weeks for now. What I want you to leave with,

is there is no space in creation, that God does not

fill. When you have heard that nature

abhors a vacuum, you can trust that, that means god.

So that means that, that space in you, that emptiness, that

fear, that doubt, that discouragement, that hope that

broken promise that wound, that space is where God wants to

fill. And maybe God has to create

space in you right now, maybe you're in that space of

Separation, where it feels like God is taking from you, your

friends, your money, your hope your future, maybe it feels

right now, like you are an enemy of God.

And what I would say is you may not be on day 1 2 or 3?

Yeah, he may just be separating you.

Maybe your he may be just separating, right taking all

these things. But I promise you, if you will

give him what he asks for, he will fill you with things that

you can't imagine. Forever.

So Jesus. When we read in John chapter 1,

John 1 · chapter mention

that you are the word. It reminds us in Genesis 1, that

you are the one that creates light and dark places.

So I pray that you would enter in our hearts and create light.

I pray that you would create space for things to grow.

Thank you would fill us with a sense of the time and the

season, so that we can honor you with our lives.

Most of all father, I pray that our lives in this world.

We would walk through our days As if it were your temple to

bring glory and honor to you and may we take our place within

that. I pray for anybody today.

Who's depressed. Who is afraid?

Who was alone? Whose life is just chaotic, and

I pray that they would find you in this and maybe they

understand. Now, there's things to be

separated from, it's not that we have to go do all these things,

father, but we simply listen for your voice and follow and Trust

You. Jesus.

We love you. And we thank you.

And we ask all of these things in your name, and For Your

Glory. Amen, thank you for joining us

today. River City Church is all about

experiencing and expressing God's love in our lives and

community. And we hope that you've been

able to experience that today as grateful.

As I am, that you've spent this time, listening in this morning,

this podcast is no substitute for full participation in a

local church. I love it when River City people

listen to other pastors, but it is those who show up week after

week Faithfully, giving their support and time and resources

that make all of this possible. If we can help you get Connected

to a local church. Pray for you or support you in

any way. Click the link in the

description and let us know if you'd like to financially

support the ministry of River City.

Click the give link on our website in the description.

Don't forget to subscribe, and don't forget to share this with

your friends. Thanks so much for listening.

May the Lord bless, and keep you in all Grace and peace.

Connected to a local church. Pray for you or support you in

any way. Click the link in the

description and let us know if you'd like to financially

support the ministry of River City.

Click the give link on our website in the description.

Don't forget to subscribe, and don't forget to share this with

your friends. Thanks so much for listening.

May the Lord bless, and keep you in all Grace and peace.