Blueprint - God Creates Image Bearers

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 Jesus, may

you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow him today?

Before we jump into the message, I want to kind of acknowledge

something today. So Jesus said in Matthew 5 6 or

7 and remember exactly what was said.

Matthew Chapter 5 he said, blessed are the peacemakers.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

It's an important distinction because there are peacekeepers

and there are peacemakers and what Jesus didn't say.

His blessed are the peace Keepers, right?

The Peacekeeper changes the subject when it gets

uncomfortable so we can talk about something else, right?

You talk about something and he's oh let's have peace makers

instead. When we since division or

separation, or hurt, or pain, they weighed in cautiously

gently and they bring out truth and they do what they can to

bring people together. And Jesus said, blessed are the

peacemakers has, they'll be like God.

So in the church, our role in our responsibility is to be

peacemakers. That's what God is.

Like, that's what forgiveness is the way he makes peace between

us and him is through forgiveness.

Okay, so none of us come to God on our own merits.

And so that's a real quick. Want to take a look around and

you'll notice a couple things and the room aside from there,

not being any empty chairs, which reminds you should come to

our annual meeting this Tuesday at the video at the venue over

in freiheit Village, it's church.

It's a building that we're going to buy.

We're looking at it. We'd love for you to see it and

see what it's all about. Nonetheless, that's not we're

talking about today. There's a great opportunity for

the church to make peace in the world but we have to acknowledge

that in order to be peacemakers we have to walk into difficult.

Territory are you ready for that today?

Day. Today some of you are like, tell

me and then I'll let you know whether we're ready for today's

sanctity of Life, Sunday. Oh now there's that silence,

right? I want you real quick.

Look around the room and see if you can identify the evil

people. The people are here.

So as to thwart the will and direction of God, I don't see

you. That must have been first

service. They were all in here.

So our calling, as a church is to be peacemakers to enter into

territory where we are separating, where we are divided

in to make peace. And I think on this subject on

this topic, there's no greater opportunity for the church to be

peacemakers in our world. So what is sanctity of Life?

Say it's changed a little bit because last year because

Happened with Roe versus Wade this year.

And so what I want to know, despite the fact that we are in

this room, not good and evil people.

We are on different sides of this issue and so how does the

church be a peacemaking force on this issue?

What we do is we pray. Now, here's the thing.

We are Jason Powers. Here's what I believe.

Psalm 139 the psalmist says to God.

You knit me together in my mother's womb before Or one day

was formed. You knew all of them, all of the

days of my life were written before.

One of them existed, my belief is that God creates life and

Life Starts early. That's my belief and my

conviction and I know some of you in this room disagree with

me. So how do we make peace on this?

The first thing we have to do is we have to understand the

objections of those who disagree with us.

By and large the large percentage of people who

disagree, this idea, what do they care about?

They care about the life of the woman.

They care about the life of the child in this world Watson at

with and go. And here's what I can say.

I care about that too. You know what I care about when

I think about women and abortion.

I care about all of those women since 1973, who for whatever

reason have had an abortion and want to deal with it.

And have felt like the church is not a safe place for that

lesson. I say as a pastor of a church

church we have to repent for that.

The fact that the most broken people in society seem to be

drawn like a magnet to Jesus, but not to the church as a

problem, it is a problem. So, I advocate for the life of

women and I want you to know, I want you to hear me clearly on

this, the statistics outside of the church, say something like 1

in 3 1 and 4. Women have been through this, we

are foolish. If we think those numbers don't

come into this room. So here's what I want you to

say, here's what I want you to know if you are in this room and

your life has been touched by an abortion either yours or someone

else. This is a place where you don't

feel shame. You are welcome here.

You do not have to hide from me. You do not have to hide from

this congregation and the reason is because you don't have to

hide from Jesus. That is our stance on pro-life

now. Church we ready?

We got a lot of work to do. We had a lot of going on right

here because guess what, right? Like we had this big thing, we

celebrate. Hey, and the church, if you

celebrated this robe, you would, if you didn't celebrate Roe v--

Wade. That's Hawaii, right?

Because you're worried about all of these, terrible hard

difficult things right on for all these mothers, right?

Well here's the deal Church, guess?

What if you were pulling and praying and cheering for Roe v--

Wade to be overturned. Guess what you got it?

Guess what? Our job started that day because

guess what? We were in a foster crisis

before, now, what Church. This is our moment and we will

either gain and maintain credibility on this issue or we

will not. And so our prayer as a piece

making church, is that all life? The life of mothers, the life of

children, the life of unborn pregnancies, the life of women

who are caught and don't possibly see a way out.

Our prayer is number one. They would no hope number two

that they would find. And Jesus.

And number three, that this, the church would be a gathering

where they feel welcomed and loved and able to walk out even

the most difficult. But if there is a sense of shame

or hiddenness, that'll never happen because they'll just live

in secret, this is not that place, right?

Let's pray. Jesus.

We thank you that you created us here.

You, thank you, that you love us.

Thank you. That you have a purpose for our

life and Jesus we acknowledge that we need you.

And we had knowledge even in this room that we're divided and

we acknowledge that. Nobody on either side has a

position and believes that they are against God's desire.

So father, I pray that you would give us humility in that.

And I pray that we would choose to battle together over what we

agree on that life matters to you and I am Jesus.

I'm pro-life. Help me to have Grace and

compassion with people who are different from me as they seek

to follow. You may we talk about our our

ideas and our beliefs but may we gather together around you.

We thank you for this day to remind us that they're that in

difficult and uncomfortable situations we pray and we come

to you and we thank you. Jesus, I thank you that we have

this great opportunity to walk this out and I pray Jesus that

you would be glorified by the way that we treat each other the

way that we talk to each other, by the way, that we advocate for

your life. So we asked Jesus, all these

things in your name and for your glory.

Amen. When watch a quick video and

then we'll start. It's really okay to disagree.

It's hard. It's hard because we want our

disagreements to be right and wrong good and bad.

Right? If we want our disagreements to

be how we evaluate and how we how we judge people but I think

our disagreements are just an opportunity for us to go.

Lord, let us have Grace with ourselves and Each other as we

follow you. There's a powerful phrase that

I've learned that I don't use often enough, but I should it

says, I think I'm right, but I could be wrong.

It's pie thing I'm right, but I could be wrong.

And the more I live in that space and the more I live in

that and that tension the more it causes me to see you beyond

just the sum total of your ideas and your beliefs.

We just kind of started talking a little bit.

Last week, we're in a series called blueprint.

We started talking about started this series.

I looking at John chapter 3 and Jesus said to Nicodemus, and

John 3 · chapter mention

Nicodemus, had made it, right? He was like the kind of top of

the social food chain at the time in Jesus like, listen,

unless you're born again you cannot see the kingdom and

Nicodemus like what that doesn't make sense.

But the idea behind this whole John 3 and really we're going to

talk about Genesis 12 and 3 over the next couple of weeks.

The what he says this idea that there's no new life without New

Birth, which is confusing because we've already been born,

which really gives us a clue. Right.

Re means again And right. So, it's life again, born again,

right? And when you think about rewrite

like like, say a car, you want to restore a car, the idea

behind restoration of a car as you take a car that is and you

get it back to what it looked like when it was new and it's

fresh. And so maybe you do a paint job,

maybe you restore the interior, maybe you put a new engine in it

and there's all kinds of restoration.

Some of it is completely faithful only Factory original

parts on that. Some people say I'm going to

take a 1949 in a soup, it up. I'm going to make it all kinds

of new ways, but if we're talking about new life, that

Jesus comes to give us new life to be born again to be reborn in

him. It raises the question.

Well, what was the original supposed to be?

If I'm restoring a 1950s Corvette, I got to know what a

50s. Corvette originally looked.

Like so when we talk about rebirth, the question comes,

what did the original birth look like?

like, If we are created new in Christ Jesus, what did the

original creation look like that?

We're getting back to what are we going back to in that?

And that's what Genesis is, Genesis is an account of the

first things and I think especially particularly in

Genesis 1 2 and 3 we can find unique in the account of God's

creation. We can find a metaphor in a

picture of what it looks like us to find and to follow him but I

do. Have to say Genesis one, maybe,

one of the most difficult controversial, even divisive

texts, and all of scripture what's happening?

What does it say? What does it mean?

What's going on? Was it six literal days or is it

figurative days is the earth, 6,000 years.

Older is the earth, a billion years old.

Are you raised at 13 billion years old?

You want to know the answer? I don't know.

Do you know why? I don't know?

Because it doesn't say and some real God.

Yes it does. This is what we have to figure

out. So here's what we're going to do

today. We are going to take a rocket

ship and spend our time on to versus.

So the next week when we start unpacking day 1 Day, 2 Day, 3

Day. 4 day, 5, day 6, we've got a better sense of what's going

on. So how are we going to

understand Genesis chapter 1? The first thing.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Understand is Genesis chapter, 1 is an ancient near Eastern

creation, text. And all that means is that

Genesis 1 is a text about creation.

That was written in the near East during ancient times.

And here's the thing, you know, okay, so this is this is where I

get really nerdy. OK.

Because like I'm a nerd about the Bible but I'm really a nerd

about literature cake. That's my deal literary

criticism and all of that. And so what that means is that

Like, there are other ancient near Eastern creation texts that

we can look at and compare. And I just want to pause real

quick and just acknowledge you might right now be real nervous

about Pastor. Talking about Jenna's chili

would park rat. Let's see, I get it.

I understand. Hey I'm going to acknowledge

people get weird about this. Hey sometimes weird is just

weird right? Sometimes the Lord's going to

call us to do things that people can do that.

Funny, he's forgiveness, that doesn't make any sense.

But sometimes weird is just weird, and I think some of the

things that we've done with this, passage are just weird,

right? So let's look at some other

ancient near Eastern creation text.

And let's see what we can learn. And see, we have to find out

about Genesis chapter 1, if you go all the way back to kind of

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Babylonian times, right? And there's this creation myth

is called the uh Numa eilish, right?

And so what we want to do is we want to see kind of these these

Myth and see what elements kind of pop out.

So in this in nuuma, eyelashes ancient Babylonia thing, what we

have is the beginning of the story, what you'll find in a lot

of accounts is swirling Waters, right?

Like dark, primordial Waters and some manner of God rising out of

the waters. That's what we find Indian Uma

eilish, right? This God.

Marduk this Babylonian God, Marduk?

Who's always there. Always, like associated with the

elements, he comes out. And the first thing he does out

of the swirling Waters, you take the A spear throws it right

through the heart of this other God, interesting.

A lot of violence. A lot of kind of do that.

But what we find here is we're looking for similar is ready.

Creates comes out out of the waters.

And one of the first things in creation is marred.

It begins to separate this from that, that Chris has several

over here and you go over here and he's creating any

separating. We get to the Mesopotamian

creation, myth of how do you say it attra.

Hey, sis epic, right? And what's interesting about

that is the gods here. At Races, they take clay these

elements of earth and they form them together to create mankind

Out of the Dust of the earth if you will out of the dirt and

they form and they fashion if we go to interesting one for me, is

this myth, this Egyptian myth out of heliopolis, right?

And the reason it's interesting to me is because the Israelites

for 400 years were slaves, in Egypt, their entire worldview,

would have been shaped and formed mush by these Egyptian

myth, these Egyptian ethos, they were surrounded by them.

What's interesting about this Egyptian myth and again, a lot

of the same elements that come out, right.

You got Waters, you've got elements, you've got, you've

got, you know, all these kind of things registering on the

separation. What you have in the Egyptian

myth is this God, a tomb and what he does that's really

interesting. Is he creates himself with

presents a logical problems, right?

Creating of oneself, is difficult to create.

Sloshed, Problems but we're kind of not going to get an app.

But so through all of these myths you find these elements

right. Primordial Waters rising out and

you find separation creation by separation and calling it right.

Like this is that and that's it, creation of mankind from the

elements and then we come to the scripture, we come to the Bible

and it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the

Earth and the Earth was without form.

It was void and darkness was over the face of the deep.

And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the

waters. There's you see the similar

elements in this creation account in the Book of Genesis,

obviously, there are certainly some differences to and what I

would say is those differences are what significant the

differences are. What to me, gives veracity to

the story, but here's the question, right?

Does it cause difficulties to you to find out that there are

these common elements in? Extra Christian extra biblical

stories out there, and it makes you nervous, like, oh my gosh,

maybe we just borrowed this and it's not real mess.

Exercise saying, we all walk outside the door right here and

we go out and hear, Boom. And you look out and there was a

car accident in the police come, right?

And someone that was standing over the corner of the buildings

like that guy, come flying this way, it is going 100 miles an

hour and there is danger, personal reasons.

No, got turning left out and went what we can agree on there

was a car accident that Car got T-boned that car did the

t-boning and really, for some things that's enough.

So when we find stories from all over the world that have common

elements rather than making us doubt those what they do to me

as they caused me to believe them, there must be a nugget of

truth that keeps showing up and cultures all around the world,

regardless of background, regardless of their kind of,

ethos, and mysticism, whatever they all seem to have.

Flood myths. They all seem to have swirling

Waters and gods rising out of the waters and creation through

separation and all of that. And so the question, obviously

comes Pastor, are you saying that the Bible is just a myth

and that it's not literally true?

You want to know that. So where did Genesis come from?

I'm going to answer it directly and plainly everything that

you're wanting Genesis is not an eyewitness account, that's

really important, okay? And we know it's not an

eyewitness account because before the creation of mankind,

we know what we know it happened, right?

So where did Genesis come from? The people of Israel, God comes

to Abraham says, I'm gonna make a blessing of you and all the

people in the world are gonna be blessed through you.

A neighbor has a son called Isaac and the promise goes from

God to Isaac, and from Isaac son, to Jacob.

And God tells Jacob, I'm gonna make a nation out of you, the

promise continues. And so Jacob has 12 sons and

they become the nation of Israel and for 400 years to talk about

this there in Egypt being formed and being shaped by the Egyptian

ethos and by Egyptian religion and by Egyptian culture.

And then God comes to a guy named Moses and says, Moses go.

Get my people. And so the people of Israel

trapped in Egypt for 400 years, they hear a man comes to them.

And says, I am Moses and the god of your father's, the god of

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has sent me to get you, okay?

So, now, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This is the god who is calling out and he goes and God wins and

beats the Pharaoh and all these people come out.

And so now, the question of the people of Israel in the

wilderness far away from Egypt, far away.

Pharaoh far away from that whole thing.

The question on the Israelites mind is who is this, God, the

god, of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob.

Who are we, who is he, and how is he different?

The story of Genesis 1 is a story told to an ancient people

in the wilderness. The point was not to fix their

cosmology. God, we're going to come next

week, right? We're going to read on day two,

right? It's going to say and he

separated the waters above from the waters below.

Glow. And you look at me like there's

not really Waters, right? And so the idea behind the

waters above is firmament, which means she'll so Genesis, one

talks about, there's a shell around the earth, right?

And some of you are like, no, we have rocket ships and airplanes

and weather balloons and we know there's not a shell.

Okay. So now I want you to imagine

that God comes down to an ancient.

Prehistoric people who have just spent 400 years in slavery in a

pagan, you know, barely prehistoric.

How do you They come out Homestead and God's not gonna

sit down to them and go. Okay, let's talk about light

years. They're like, 200 miles is the

other side of the universe to them.

What do you talk about light years, right?

Like, okay, like to talk about quantum physics right?

Know, God doesn't change, he doesn't say there's not really

any primordial waters, you know what God says?

Hey, you know how you think it all comes out of those

primordial Waters. Listen, if you were to go back

to the primordial waters, you know what you'd find.

God was there. And God was doing it and God was

making it. See that thing that you believe

about the creation, you think raw did it, and then Marduk got

it and then all these other people did it, what he's saying

is, yeah, I know you got the basic flow override.

Everything came from Seminary happen but really it was our God

who did that. So let me be very clear for you.

Or you ready, I believe that there is nothing in this

universe that you have seen. Seen touched tasted or heard

about that. Did not immediately proceeded

from the mind and the will of God.

Let me say it differently. God created everything.

I believe that about been clear, God created everything.

And I believe that the story of Genesis 1 is not the account of

the material creation of the world.

I believe something different is happening in Genesis chapter 1

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

and again something like yeah but it's not literal right.

Here's I want you to know reading the Bible literally

means acknowledging, the genre of the text, I have to read the

poems of Wordsworth differently than I read A Brief History of

Time by Stephen Hawking, which I read differently from a history,

the history of Lewis and Clark, right?

Here's an example, say we go to Psalm R19 and Psalm chapter 19

Psalms 19 · chapter mention

begins in Psalm 19 verse. One writer says the heavens

declare the glory of God, for talk about the skies and the

stars and the space, right? This and listen.

What verse for the heavens, right?

Their voice goes out through all the Earth and their words to the

ends of the world. Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever literally heard the sky speaking words to you?

If you walked out on your way to work today and it came up and

said, Sean. You'd freak out.

Listen in them in the heavens, he has set a tent for the sun is

there really? If you were to chase the Horizon

for enough, would you find a tent where the sun slips into

each night? It had to be a big tent

heatproof fireproof for sure or is Psalm 19 trying to poetically

convey. Something that is significant

and Especial far beyond where the sun goes at night time.

Psalm 19 is a poem to be read as poetry.

With imagery and with metaphor and we don't have a problem with

that, we read that and we look at it and we know, let me read

you Isaiah 6:1 in the year that King Uzziah died.

Isaiah 6:1

I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and

the train of his robe filled the temple.

Now this is different than Psalm 19, right?

You know how it's different because it has a date in the

year that King Uzziah died. I can go back and find the year

647 BC and the King Uzziah died. And so, what this does is it

places us in a time and in a space This is not written like

mythology. Well, they didn't have Harry

Potter as a literary genre, right where you play Smith and

time space, right? This isn't given an account as

time and space and it looks different.

It reads different. We have to read history

differently than we read poetry differently than we read

letters. So it's important that we know

what's going on in here. So Genesis 1 and I'm gonna

unpack way more. This next week is a literary

genre that we called elevated Pros.

Lots of poetry. Lots of repetition.

Lots of metaphor and simile, you getting nervous yet.

God created everything God made you.

Another thing happens, if you look at, if you brought your

Bible, if you didn't, you can look on your phone, right?

So I read this sign right here means that this Bible is the

English Standard Version translation, okay?

Your Bible may say, NIV New International Version or New

American Standard or the ryrie study Bible or or whatever New

Living Translation, whatever all the things.

The Bible wasn't written in English, by hours in Hebrew and

Greek and Aramaic and along this.

And what that means is that the Bible that you read today and

the Bible that I read today has been translated and translation

is an act of interpretation. Every time we come to a Greek or

Hebrew word, a person, or a group of people have to decide

what that word means and what it means in context and sometimes

those Those people come to different conclusions.

Sometimes those people see something, or they read a Nuance

into a word, that means something.

So what does that mean? When we deal with something as

significant and important as the text, as the scripture, what it

means is I believe I'm right and I could be wrong which is the

word humility. We approach the scripture humbly

with Grace because again I look around and I just go you may

interpret this passage of scripture differently than I do.

But that doesn't mean you're evil.

Let me tell you a few things that we don't have to fight

about, but they just mean we're doing different things.

Right there are a few theological Hills that I will

die on, okay? You can find those things in

Creed's. If you go look up the Apostles

Creed, the Nicene Creed. A Phoenician create.

There's all these Creed's right. These are important.

These are General Orthodoxy. Here's what I believe and I'll

fight you over like not really fight you because I'm not a

fighter, but everybody I believe in God, the Father Almighty

creator of Heaven and Earth and in his only begotten, son,

Jesus, who was tempted, suffered under Pontius.

Pilate, crucified, dead and resurrected.

He's coming again. We don't I'll have to agree on

those things, but those are the Christian things outside a

spiritual gifts, maybe the clothes Cannon, maybe six

literal days, maybe a billion years.

Maybe Jesus Christ loves me and died for me.

Yes, 100% 1000%. Yes, those are the things that

we can fight and we can downright.

The Bible is too important not to be taken.

Literally. And I think, unfortunately, the

problem is we hear that And so, what that means is we get this

wooden literal reading that doesn't leave any space for

humility, for greater context for realizing, they were reading

a text that is thousand years old and not thousands of years

old and not from our context. So what's the story?

What's the thing behind it? What do we do with all this?

What is the story that we say here's the story of Genesis

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1? Are you ready?

Genesis 1 is is a good God's blueprint for life and a desire

Universe lead outside of they want to talk about it.

Real couple things Genesis chapter 1, that's we're going to

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

be this week and next week it is a good God because what I

believe Genesis 12 and 3 reveal is the absolute astounding.

Overflowing overwhelming, eternity shaping goodness of our

God. I think it is evident in

creation and I think we're going to see it.

Hopefully starting today. Hopefully definitely sing it

next week. It is God's blueprint listen!

We find Genesis chapter 1, we find a tree in the middle of a

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

garden to trees. In the middle of a garden fast

forward to the end of the story to Revelation, 21 and 22.

You know what we find trees and Gardens multiplied.

Spread out, filling the whole earth.

The Bible is one story with a beginning.

And the beginning of the story is in the beginning, God created

the heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was formless and void

and darkness over the waters and the spirit of God hovered,

right? So I lost my train of thought,

so that's the story, right? That's, that's, that's our goal.

It's a good God. It's his blueprint.

That's what you say. When we look at the end of the

story, it looks a lot like the beginning of the story which

means that we're now in the middle.

We can reference back and go. Okay, that's where it's getting.

I gotta get dare I gotta get that gotta have that right for,

what else did it say? For a designer Universe.

You know what's crazy to me all of the qualities that make life

habitable on this Earth. Also make observation possible,

wouldn't it be terrible if the conditions for life on Earth

meant that there had to be a solid dense layer of clouds?

Covering the whole earth and we couldn't see anything else.

Are we grateful that the kind of atmosphere that we breathe is

clear and open so we can look into the Kuiper belt and look

Beyond, isn't that great? It's almost like God wants to be

discovered. It's almost like God wants to be

found out. So next week, we're going to get

real specific but I want to stay General this week for just a

minute. Okay?

Because this is the deal. Genesis one is probably my

favorite. It may be my favorite.

Chapter in the whole scripture because it's Ritz poetry and I

like literature and I like to do all that but it's rich and it's

full of Hope and it's full of very practical, hope for your

life and for mine. So let's look at the story and

let see where it leads us the story and I'm going to work

backwards through Genesis chapter 1 and 2.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

So it begins with good creation begins in chaos.

The problem with it is we hate chaos, we acknowledge Castle.

What we try to do is we try to I to stuff it or we try to cover

it, we try to put up, we try to order it but deep chaos.

Well, it goes deep. Right.

Listen when it says the spirit of God was hovering over the

face of the waters and if we go back to the first part of to we

find that there was Darkness around the water.

So in the beginning God created and what we're told is that the

Earth was empty and it was confused and there was Darkness

but the spirit of God was there and this is From other account

epics, right? Like the new Milas finds these

Gods kind of like, coming out of the water, like, born in chaos,

right? Like rising out of this.

All right, at no point. Do we find these turbulent

Waters, creating or issuing forth our God, from the

beginning? Our God is hovering over the

waters. Now, hovering is one of those

words. What is hover mean, right?

Like, we live in a day of hovering parents, right?

Don't wear that Mom, I'm 27 years old.

Let me wear the shirt. I want to wear, right?

Write all of the things that were that were, you know, we're

working on and we're covering. Oh, right?

Well, When we read that out of cash, I let me get to the book

of Deuteronomy Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy.

It's the end of the Torah. It's into the first five books

Jenna, Deuteronomy chapter 32, okay?

Deuteronomy 32 · chapter mention

Because here's the deal that it says, right in the in the

ancient near Eastern creation myths, we find these Gods rising

out of the water here. It says, there's hovering over

the water, but what does that mean?

Well, let me give you a description where those words

and again, a lot of this is linguistic, right?

Goes back to the Hebrew. What is the Hebrew mean?

How is it used? So here's how those Hebrews

words are translated. Okay?

Deuteronomy chapter 32 starting in verse 10.

Deuteronomy 32 · chapter mention

He found and he's talking about Israel about the people.

He's personifying this nation okay?

He found him in a desert land and in the howling waste of

wilderness. Do you sense the chaotic

similarities, right? Swirling Waters dark, formless

and void. He found Israel in a desert land

and Howling ways of wildness. He encircled him, he cared for

him. He kept him as the apple of the

eye it. Now listen here's where that

idea of hovering over Waters, come from verse 11, like an

eagle that stirs up. Its nest that flutters over its

young spreading out its wings, catching them.

Bearing them on. Its pinions the Lord alone

guided him. No foreign God was with him.

So now we go back to this creation of Israel.

And what does it says, hovering over the waters isn't hovering

to go, you're wearing the wrong shirt to hover over the Waters

is a picture of a mother bird tending to her chicks covering

them. Keeping them warm, bringing them

safe, they can hear her heartbeat.

She can feed them all of those things.

The spirit of God, hovering over the waters is a picture of grace

of love of compassion of presence of God's goodness, in

our space. The primordial waters are scary

and our God is present and hovering and watching and what

that means is that God redeems, what that means is that the

chaos in your life, the spirit of God is hovering so where's

your chaos? If you have a relational chaos,

is your relationship with your kids, or with your spouse, or

with your parents, or with your co-workers?

Is it breaking down? Is it chaotic?

You don't know where it's going. You don't know where it's

coming. What I would say to you is

that's always where God's good creation begins.

That's also the problem church. When we pretend that we have it

together more than we do when we make our acceptance to God based

on our behavior before others. The problem is we hide our

Brokenness, we hard our confusion, we hide our pain, and

our hurt. And the problem with that then

is how do we talk about Grace? If we don't talk about

Brokenness, how do we talk about forgiveness?

If we don't talk about our sin, how do we talk about God being

good? If our whole story is that we

are good. What I want to say for you is

that very spot in your life where you're struggling or your

wrestling where you feel lost and out of control.

You feel hopeless and scared and Afraid.

What? Genesis 1 tells me is there is a

spirit of God, the Holy Spirit hovering over that place

Desiring to me. So what happens when the Holy

Spirit hovers over the place, good creation begins in chaos

and IT addresses, the problem of confusion and emptiness.

We're going to have some fun with with Hebrew here in a

second. But first I want to read Genesis

1. The first part of verse 2, it

says the Earth was without form. Form and void, and darkness was

over the face of the deep that word without form and void.

It's two words in Hebrew. Those two words I want you to

say them with me, right? We don't do this often but these

are fun words. Sato who good word?

Righto who say wha boo hoo, hoo hoo, woo hoo.

You can say with any inflection that you life, it rolls off the

tongue, right? Tohu and bohu are the two words

that are translated here Without form and void.

Okay, so this is that this is a question in Creation in Genesis

1 God created everything in Genesis 2, everything is without

form and void some translations say without substance, right?

Like that's the whole idea that interpretation is translation.

So if we're going to find out well how what do we do with

this, what does it mean, what we want to do is we want to find

where those Hebrew words show up in scripture.

The problem is, I don't have a Hebrew new text to Testament,

but I do you have the internet and I can go to a Bible site

called Blue Letter Bible dot-org and they'll have all of these

Greek and Hebrew translations and you can look them up and

they'll tell you what it is. But here's what's more

important. They'll tell you where else in

scripture, you can find that word and what it does it shows

how its translated it lets you know what that word means.

So, as fun as tohu Wabo, who is to say, if we wanted to make any

sense, we have to say it in English, right?

So, Let's go, another place, where tohu Wabo, who is its, you

can't stop saying it. Once you say it verse 34 and I'm

gonna read a passage of scripture just so you can get

the, the flow, right? You can sense, what's going on

here and I'll cue you in on tohu.

And bohu ready? Isaiah 34 starting in verse 8,

this is a prophecy for the Lord, has a day of Vengeance.

A year of recompense for the cause of Zion, Zion means

Israel. And what's he saying?

Here is we were at a place where got were people God's people?

Israel have been oppressed and what we find is God's getting

involved. So the question now is, what

does God do when he gets involved?

Okay, verse 9 and the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch

that star. So I want you to imagine you go

down to land of Park tomorrow and you know, where the streams

of the the Comal River, it comes, there's that place,

right? Don't you go tomorrow?

And instead of the streams of the Comal River coming out of

that place, it's par thick black tar and it's just going to keep

coming and it's going to fill all the river.

That would be gross, right? It would certainly change the

economy around here, wouldn't it?

It would Bad thing, let me ask you this question.

Very important would the Comal River turning into tar?

Would it cause all Life as we know it to cease existing?

Would we all vanish? Would we like d like

dematerialize or we just have like a hard time and we had to

figure it out right? Okay good.

You think it through this well night and day it shall be

quenched it's smoke. Shall go up forever from

generation to generation and shall I waste None Shall Pass

through it. It forever and ever, he's

talking about their enemies. And he say, it's gonna be

terrible, but the hawk and the porcupine, Pine shall possess

it. And the ow, and the Raven shall

dwell. It, he shall stretch the line of

confusion tohu. He shall stretch the line of

tohu over it, and the Plumb line of emptiness, wobbu, confusion

and emptiness. If the Comal River turned to

Tar, it wouldn't cause life to cease to exist immediately, but

it would sure cause confusion, and it would cause life and that

River to be empty, wouldn't it? So the picture of creation is

not nothingness. It is Not a materialism.

It is materialism without purpose.

It is material without form. It is material without.

What now does that mean that God didn't create everything.

Does that mean that I just said that it didn't exacerbate the

problems. No, I said, God created

everything. There is nothing that exists

that doesn't exist and Genesis chapter 1 is a different story.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

We're going to find that story next week.

You should come next week. We're going to talk about that.

I mean good, right? So here's a question are here.

The thing, right? God gets involved in places of

confusion and emptiness. What does that mean for your

life? Are you confused about your

purpose parents? I have teenagers so hard time

with parents of teenagers, your teenagers ever confused about

things about identity about sexuality about relationships.

I want you to know where there is confusion the spirit of God

hovers over Waters. If you try to beat and

discipline your kids into compliance, you may get a

compliant kid but you won't find a kid.

That's not confused. Get your kids to Jesus, talk to

him about the truth, talk to him about love, and grace, and

design, and purpose, and show him the scriptures.

Show him Genesis chapter 1, but when you find confusion and

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

emptiness, listen, you can't fill their emptiness.

Do you know why? Because you're empty, too.

I mean, you got stuff. You got more stuff than your

kids, because kids don't really have much, but it's up to us to

give it to him, right? But what I'm just saying is you

have your own emptiness that you need the Lord to hover over, you

have your own confusion that you need the Lord.

To clarify and that doesn't mean I don't point my friend Scott

and go Scott, you're confused about God's purpose and plan for

your finances, but I do that as a person with my own confusion

about finances in life and purposes in d.c. the humility.

That that brings when we realized, right?

That's why we say our confession every week.

We're badly broken. We need that because if we're

not broken the very best that God's love will ever be for us

is an idea because until I know that God loves me where I'm at,

it doesn't feel like love or it won't feel like but like love so

God is searching and he's confused.

And so here, what I want to say if you're here today and maybe

somebody drugged you here and you're not sure you're not even

sure you're like, oh my God, I can't believe in a six day

creation. I can't believe all that right?

Whatever. Great.

Here's why I want to ask whatever you feel like let's

resolve that later. Let's talk about that later.

Do you believe that there can be a solution for your confusion?

Because what I have is, Someone saying they can deal with it.

Here's what I'm saying. I got a guy.

If your car breaks, I got a guy, his name's Billy, I'll give you

the phone numbers. Great fixes all kinds of stuff,

right? Do you have a confusion problem?

I've got a guy now, if you want Billy to fix your car, you're

going to have to drive it to him.

You're going to have to leave it there.

You're probably have to give him some money.

You're going to have to answer some questions.

You're gonna have to do some stuff, it's not going to be

easy, but when you get it back, it's going to be fixed.

What if God came to you today and just said, hey man, I can

fix that confusion, I can fix that emptiness but I need you to

do is I need you to give me your ideas about sex.

X, I need you to give me your idea about security and I need

you to realize that your job is not your security that your job

is not your identity. But I am and I need you to let

go of all that I need you to give that to me because unless

you give me your life, you're just going to run around

confused and someday you're going to come to the end and you

can go, is this what it was for? So I could die and Hospital.

That's not that's not what God created life for, but he has to

enter into that space. So he comes to confusion and he

comes to emptiness and he addresses these problems, this

is the problem with our creation but he does this when God begins

speaking and this really, this is it, this is the Pinnacle.

Man, I'd just gotten married not today like long time ago, and I

came home one day, and my father-in-law was at my house

and he was fixing my fence, and I almost passed out, man.

I walked in an allen as like, what is your dad doing, bro?

I can take care of my own household.

I know, I know what he's doing. It was like, Anna friend.

The guys are knowing, right? The guys know what happens,

right? And I was like, man, get your

dad, fix it but stopping is a sit-down.

I'm foul fix. I'll take Care of my wife, I'll

take care my family right that God could get involved like

that. He could just come around and

start doing some. But you know what he does, he

does Jason I'm walking around. I'm lonely.

And I'm sad. I'm mad at my kids.

I'm mad at the co-worker. I'm mad at somebody.

I'm not get him in that way. You know what?

Jesus comes me. And I just like Whispers in my

ear and in my heart and just gives me this thing and goes

Jayson, they don't get to Define you, I had to find you and I

love you. Or when I lay on bed at night, I

just want to cry because I'm so ashamed.

At that thing I did again, I can't believe I said that's my

wife. And my kids.

I can't believe I did that thing again, and I hear Jesus

Whispering my life is Jason. This whole thing is about

forgiveness, man. This isn't About you earning it.

See, creation begins, when God speaks our God is personal, do

you know how, you know, what's on my mind?

Because you can't get me to shut up because it just keeps coming

out, right? Do you know how you can know

what's on God's mind because he speaks.

And you know what? He says, listen, In the

beginning was the word and the Word was with God.

And the Word was God. He was with, he was in the

beginning with God and how he's talking about the word is this

like personification, right? It's Jesus.

He was in the beginning with God and all things were made through

him. And without him was not anything

made that was made in him was life, and life was the light of

men. See what happens when God starts

speaking into your life, you start coming alive.

But you know what, he's a gentleman.

And there's sometimes I wish he wasn't.

I wish you'd just like kick the door and I'm like force himself

on me, so then I can go. Oh yeah, this is so much better,

but it's not he comes. And he says, will you give me

your live and just go know? He was.

Okay, I'll wait. And then when you have a moment

and you get confused and you get in, you get a loan and you come

and you're like, all right, I'll try and he goes, great says, I

want you to give me that relationship.

Oh my God, I'll be so alone. I'll be a so afraid I'm gonna

hand. You know what God says, listen,

are you listening? Because you think that our

relationship that you give up, you can't go on without it and

you know what God says is I'll be there.

You won't be empty. I'll be with you but God you're

not like them is like I know I'm Eternal and I know you and I

knit you together in your mother's womb and before one day

was formed for you. I knew it and I created and I am

for you and I'm on your side and I'm better.

But God willing to say, yeah. I want you to know, I don't know

where you're from. I don't know where you came, I

don't know. There's a lot of you that I

don't know in here. I don't know where you came

from, but I believe with every fiber of my being, I'll stake my

job, my life on this. You are here today because God

is calling your name and he wants to create something in

you. That is so rich, and full and

beautiful and fragrant and abundant and blooming.

We have say, yes. We have to let him hover over

our water. Now, next week, we're going to

talk specifically about how that goes and how that looks.

So you should come back next week and we can talk about that

but real quick, right next, we're gonna talk about the days

of creation, but until then, here's a couple things.

I'm just going to hammer these real quick, right?

First of all, confess your confusion and emptiness to God

and ask him for new life. This is if you're in here in

this, Jesus thing is new to you. Maybe you heard that God was mad

at you or that God wanted to make your life boring or doing

whatever. What I want to tell you, are you

listening, please listen to me just a few minutes.

I promise we'll be done in. The second God wants to give you

life and he wants to give you the kind of life that looks like

Jesus. And you know, what's remarkable

about the life that Jesus lived? No matter what they did to him,

they couldn't crush him. They didn't stop doing things to

him. He just finally one.

And what we're told is that he sits at the right hand of God,

the Father, reigning and ruling today, and that is real.

And that is eternal and that's what he has for your life but it

begins with Confession. I'm confused and I'm empty and

repentance that says, I want your way and guess what?

You don't know what his way is yet.

But it's trust and it's fake. We invite him into tohu Wabo who

of Jason. If that's you today don't leave

without that and it is this simple.

God, forgive me lead me into life as you have it, if you do

that, it says that he will. If you did that right now, I

want to do this, send me a text message, I won't Buzz or

anything like that. You'll be fine.

Text the word, follower to the number 9400.

I'm not going to show up your house.

I'm not going to do anything weird, right?

I just want you to go on the record or someone just say, hey,

I asked God to hover over my Waters.

Today, I ask God to bring peace to my chaos today.

The second thing I want you to do is I want you to write your

creation story. I want you to write about the

confinement. You write your confusion.

Where was the confusion your life?

Where did you find the spirit of God, hovering over your Waters?

And when did it come? Like, here's the thing that's

important, right? We live in the 21st century,

want to make our creation story all about us.

I just picked up my bootstraps and I did that know, you didn't?

No, you didn't. The story of creation is the

story of God. Getting involved in places where

mankind couldn't get to your creation.

Story is the story of God. It's the story of John 1:1 in

John 1:1

the beginning of you was the word and the word brought life

and Grace and peace. So write your story.

Where was their confusion? Where did you find God?

And what difference did he make? Where do you find your peace?

Where do you find your fullness? And if you Find your story.

If you write your story and you find that you can't identify

those, that's okay. To start asking Jesus to fill

the emptiness to fill the space, last speak to confusion, and

emptiness. In Jesus name, when you talk to

your neighbors and you hear their life is confused taught

them, it's great to talk to them about church, but talking about

Jesus. Talking about your story and I

got all, I'm not a theologian. Good, they don't want a

theologian. Do read theologians they don't

care about theologians they want to know that it works.

They want to know your story. They want to know where you find

Jesus. They want to know where you find

God. They want to know what God is,

creating all around us and as his church, that's our story.

So next week, we're going to mention that next week.

Going to talk about the specific days.

I wasn't sure if I said that enough, you should come back.

It's going to be good. It's going to be neat, but

listen, here's the deal, if you believe the story of Genesis, 1

means that there was absolute nothing.

And then God said, and suddenly from a material nothingness into

full right. Guess what?

Yeah, I think I'm right. You may be right.

I could be wrong. We'll find out someday.

We're not going to divide over that, because here's what I know

whether he did, it six days or a million years, that all came

from God. And without him, without him,

there is still only confusion and darkness.

And Chaos. That's what he came to remedy.

So Jesus, we invite you into our lives to remedy those things in

US. I do pray for anybody in here.

That doesn't know you yet. Maybe they're maybe they came

today because of the confusion, maybe they came today because of

the emptiness and they're looking and they're searching.

And if that's you and here, will you just pray that father,

forgive me? Jesus, fill my life.

If you do that, he said he'll put his spirit in you to lead

you and guide you and redeem you and restore, you and Lead You In

to New Life. And Jesus.

I pray that you would show us all the area.

We don't just have one story of chaos and emptiness, we have a

million of them. I pray that you would show that.

I pray that you would give us the ability to put words to it

and I pray, father, that your church would be active in

aggressively addressing the darkness and the sins, and this

world is sins of racism. The sins of Poverty.

This sins of all of them. Forgive us set us free.

Let us be alive in you. Jesus, we ask 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, Masters, 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.