From Chaos to Purpose | Genesis 1:1-2:3 | Pastor Gabriel Guzman

Well, good evening everyone. Welcome to the first Wednesday Night

of twenty twenty six. You guys have come out here

to get it set right, get started right. If you

could do me a favor really quick. If it's your

first time not here at Patria, but your first time

here to a Wednesday night Fresh Start service, can you

raise your hand just so we can get an idea

of what we're working with here. That's awesome. Hey, hopefully

you like us here tonight. We have fun. On Wednesday nights,

we go through the Word and we have a great time.

If you haven't met me before, my name is Gabriel.

I'm the Family Ministry's pastor here at Patriot Church, and

so maybe you've seen me in Fami over there in kids.

Thank you, Thank you. This is my inaugural pastoral sermon tonight.

So here we go. The anointing is here now, so

we'll see see how it changes. But tonight we're going

through through Genesis, which is a great study that we're

starting here. Last year we had a great study in

the Book of Joshua, and so if that that did

something to you when you if you were here with

us last year on Wednesday nights, that minister to you.

The Book of Genesis is going to double down on that.

And if you haven't been through a book study before,

we're gonna go through the whole book this year. So

chapters one through fifty. Genesis is a little bit of

a bigger book, but that's okay because we're all doing

it together. Amen. Hey, if you were able to get

your journal, we got some beautiful Genesis journals. We always

do a journal and we do a study through the Bible,

and so last year we did the Joshua Journals and

just you know, you're able to write in there and

highlight and all of those things, and it's just in

a solitary, you know, uniform volume. But this year we

have our own custom Patreo Genesis Journals. And so if

you were able to get one before service started, you

are blessed and highly favored and we we love you

for that. And I'm gonna give you some stuff tonight

for you to write down and put in there and

scribble it up and just make it just such a

resource to you. If you weren't able to get one,

we want to encourage you to go. After service they'll

still be available. But if you're thinking to yourself, Man,

I would love a journal, and but financially right now,

I just can't do it. There was a member who

generously donated five journals to give out tonight if somebody

just doesn't have the means to get a journal. And

so I got I got security with me. So don't

don't just don't just don't just rush it. But the

first five people that come up to the stage that

need a journal not financially able to get a journal,

this is this is gonna be forre. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

we don't worry. So he's not gonna jump you right now.

It's okay, here we go. Okay, we got it. Two, three,

oh there he is four and you were the faithful

last one right here, there we go. You guys can

share if you want, it's up to you. So those

those are the journals right there, We got our journals.

I'll give you some things to go through today. We

do have and I'm not gonna complain though, because there

are some sections we're gonna have to cover, like three

chapters in one session. But today we're just gonna be

going through the first chapter and the first three verses

of the second chapter. And that's the story of creation

that we're gonna be talking about tonight, and that's what

I have for us in store. But without further ado,

what we do here at Patrio is that we stand

for the reading of God's word. We want to honor

and respect God's word, just like we would any diplomat

or any politician if they walked in the room and

people stand up or salute or anything like that. We'll

show that same honor to God's word. And so we're

not going to read all thirty five verses right now

because I want to get you back in your seats

pretty soon. So we're just going to read the opening

two verses of Genesis together. So let's read this right

now and see what the Lord has in store for

us tonight. We'll read verse one. In the beginning, God

created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without

form and void, and darkness was over the face of

the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over

the face of the waters. Lord, we come before you

right now. We just thank you, Lord for bringing us

here tonight, for destining us to this moment. Lord, we

thank you that you have something for someone for every

single person in this room. A word for them. God,

nobody came to hear the words of a man, but

they came to hear words from You, Lord. And so

I pray that your spirit be present in this room,

and that your word go forth powerfully Tonight. God and Jesus,

namely pray Amen, Amen, you may be seated. You may

be seated. Now before we get into our chapter for tonight,

our chapter in three verses for tonight, I just didn't

want to say a word on Genesis in general as

we're preparing to go into this study tonight, because Genesis

is such an important book. And I don't know if

you've been saved for a while, or you've just been

saved for a couple minutes, or however long you've been,

you've been saved, but chances are you've already come across

the Book of Genesis, because it's the very first book

of the Bible. It's the first pages when you open

up a new Bible, that's the book that you're going

to come across. And so it's one of sixty six

books that are in the Bible. But it's not merely

just the first book of the Bible. It's one of

the foundational books of the Bible. Genesis is so important

to understanding the rest of the Bible, and there's so

many themes, and there's so much theology that finds its

roots here in Genesis. Every major doctrine finds its roots

here in this book. In Genesis, you'll learn more about

who God is, who humanity is, why the world is broken,

and how God saves. That's all present in this book,

and it begins to flesh out all of those things.

Genesis shouldn't be shouldn't just be read as the beginning

of something, but she'd be read as a story with

a destination. I have a quote from you from Martin

Luther who talks about Genesis. He says, this book is

the foundation of all Scripture, for without it, no one

can properly understand the rest. If you don't understand Genesis

and understand it correctly, chances are you don't understand the

rest of the Bible. But we're going to correct that today.

If you if you're not sure, maybe you've never read

Genesis before, maybe you've never studied Genesis before. That's what

these studies are for. And you know we're not going

to be able to go every single word in every

single verse because we only have thirty five minutes and

we value your time. But like Pastor Aaron always says,

you know, sermons are commercials for you to get in

the word for yourself. And so if you ever hear

something and you're like, oh, I wonder more about that,

or I wish I could go deeper into that, or

you hear somebody talking about a chapter and maybe we're

just able to reference a story. I want to encourage

you to, you know, go home or write when a

service is over, to go back and study that that week,

go back and read it through that week, because we

want to just encourage you and set you on fire

to get in the word for yourself. I just want

to talk about these two big themes that are found

throughout Genesis, and Genesis really nails down and that's God

and mankind, God and humanity. You learn in Genesis that

God is personal and not distant. You learn that he's

the creator and in control, that he's perfect and intentional,

and that he acts first. Genesis is a book that

talks about how God didn't just create the world and

leave it on its own, and he went and stayed

away from it, but he created the world and stayed

with the world. And he's a God that pursues his creation,

and he's a God that's personal, and he's a God

that acts. First. He's not passive in his creation, but

he is active in his creation, and he is actively

pursuing his creation. And that doesn't just stop with this

first book. But it is true today that God is

pursuing you today. And you'll learn a lot about yourself

when you read Genesis for humanity, and we'll see a

lot of that in these first three chapters even but

humanity was created with a purpose and with dignity. Humanity

was made in God's image, and Genesis shows the flaws,

how dependent and how finite humans are, and it's because

of sin. We'll talk about that when we get to

chapter three of Genesis. There's so many flawed people in

the Bible, and we already start seeing all the flawed

people in Genesis. People with bad motives, people that don't

trust God. They're all present in Genesis. But because we're

starting at the beginning, we know why they're like that,

but we also know how God will save them. Genesis

is not about humanity finding God, but about God pursuing

his creation, and that's what we're talking about to God's

creation and the creation story. And so I don't know

if you've written anything down already, or you're already your

book is already full. I'm sorry. But the bottom line,

the big idea of the whole sermon tonight is that

God formed the world with order and purpose so that

humanity might live in rest with him. God formed the

world with order and purpose so that humanity might live

in rest with him. This creation narrative is so important

to the rest of Genesis and the entire Bible. And

I don't know if you've read this chapter one hundred

times already, and that can almost hinder you sometimes with

being too familiar with a certain part of the Bible,

because you stop asking the right questions. You start you

stop asking the questions that the author, the person who

wrote this book wants you to ask, because you're so familiar, Oh,

day one, he did, this day do. It's so familiar

that you kind of have to if the veil of

familiarity so that you can start seeing what God has

in store for you in this chapter. This is what

the Puritan John Owen has to say about this section

of Genesis the works of God, and in the creation

of the world, do set forth the glory of His wisdom, power,

and goodness. You're going to see all of that in

this opening right now. And so we're going to cover

three points tonight as we get into the first chapter

of Genesis, and I'll give them all to you right

now so you can keep me accountable. We're going to

talk about the God of creation, the goodness of creation,

and the goal of creation. The God of creation, the

goodness of creation, and the goal of creation. Let's start

with the first one, the God of creation, the God

of creation. We're going to read the first verse of

Genesis here in the beginning. God created the heavens and

the earth, and we're going to stop right there because

that already tells us a lot about who this God is.

Who is the God of creation? Who is this God

of the Bible. Well, he's a god that's been present

from the beginning. There's an eternal aspect to this God,

a god who is in a forever space. And it's

so hard for us to comprehend things that we have

no point of reference. For us as humans, we don't

have a point of reference for something that doesn't live

in time because we're born into this earth and we

automatically are in time. We don't know what that's like,

and so it's hard to comprehend a God who's not

like that or something that's not like that. But God is,

and that God created the heavens and the earth. God

created from nothing. He didn't create from something that was

pre existing. He created out of nothing. And we're going

to see really quickly that he speaks his creation into existence,

and nothing outside God shapes or limits what comes into being.

Creation exists because God wills it to exist. Creation exists

because God wants it to exist, and that goes straight

to you as well. Verse two. The earth was without

form and void, and darkness was over the face of

the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over

the face of the waters. And now it's really important

here because I'm going to reference some Hebrew words here

and just for just for your own sake, Genesis was

originally written in Hebrew, that's its original language, and so

what we're reading is an English translation. And I don't

know if anybody in here speaks another language, but sometimes

there's not a one for one translation where you're going

from one language to another language, and so sometimes you

need a bridge. You need to bridge that gap, and

that's what I'm here to help you do because sometimes

you'll read something without form and void. What does that mean.

I'm going to try to bridge that today some other

things as well. And so we're gonna get into that

with this phrase without form and void, because these opening

two verses set the tone for the entire chapter of Genesis.

And these are these two words, and they rhyme in Hebrew,

and we're gonna say together, everybody say tohu vavo who.

Those are the two words here that are translated without

form and void. Tohu without form and vo who void

And simply these words mean unordered. For tohu and bo

who uninhabited or empty. There's an emptiness and there's an unorder.

And that first word to who is also used to

translate wilderness. It's translated desert. And that's the different ways

that you can see it. It's just unordered. Sometimes it

could be translated without a purpose. And so this is

the state of the world after God creates the heavens

and the earth. It's unordered and it's empty. And so

in the Hebrew worldview. There's no word for things that

don't have a concrete to them, you know, there's no

words for concepts like chaos. There's no word for a

chaos and Hebrew, but this Tohu Vavo, who is the

closest you can get to a chaotic state in the

Hebrew mindset. Because something that's unordered, something that's empty, something

that doesn't have a purpose, is chaotic. And I don't

know if your life feels like that sometimes, where you

don't feel like there's an order in your life, you

don't feel like there's a purpose in your life. Maybe

you feel like there's an emptiness to your life. It

can be chaotic. But this is really important. The spirit

of God is hovering over the face of the waters.

God does his creative work from within that environment, from

within that chaos, from or within the unorder and the emptiness.

God is going to get creative and he's gonna do

the amazing things that we see today the sun and

the moons and the stars and all of those things

he's doing in this environment. And so if God can

bring something from nothing, if God is present in chaos

rather than absent from it, then no life, no moment,

no season is beyond his purpose. That's where he does

his best work. And so you might have come into

twenty twenty six with some of twenty twenty five's baggage.

You might have come in with some of that on

order that you wanted to get rid of. You might

have not found a purpose yet in twenty twenty six,

and you can think, Oh, my life feels empty right now.

My life has no purpose right now. But we serve

a God that does his best work when those are

the conditions. That's what's gonna happen in the rest of

this chapter, because that's what God is gonna address. He's

gonna address the tohu what's been unordered, and he's gonna

address the oh who what's empty. And that's the next

section that we're going to talk about the goodness of creation.

The goodness of creation. This covers all of verses three

through thirty one, and we're not going to read it

right now for time. We're just gonna read three through five,

which is the first day. And I want to show

you the pattern that's in all of the days, because

these are days one through six of creation. God creates

the whole world, and he creates everything we see over

the course of six days. And so this first day

will provide a sample for us, so to speak, so

that we're not going to go through each day individually,

but we'll we'll see the pattern. And in your journals

or when you're taking notes, you can make note of

all the patterns that you see throughout the rest of

the days. But let's read verse three, and God said,

let there be light. And there was light, and God

saw that the light was good, and God separated the

light from the darkness. Verse five. God called the light day,

and the darkness he called night. And there was evening

and there was morning the first day. And so let

me give you the pattern of the creation days. Right now,

God says something and it's created, and then he sees

that it's good, and then there's evening and there's morning.

That is the pattern for the days. And so you

can go through, go through your Bible, go through your journals,

and you can circle underline anytime that pattern is there,

and you'll see it in the days. But I have

a there should be a chart that you can look

at on how this breaks down. These are the six days,

and so you see on days one, two, and three.

He's creating spaces. He's ordering what was unordered. He's addressing

that tohu in the second verse. And then days four, five,

and six, he's feeling the space is that he just created.

He's filling the emptiness. Day four, five and six, he's

addressing the bohu. And so that's why that second verse

is so important because this is what we see God doing,

and this is the pattern for days one through six.

And so once everything is created, everything is ordered, and

everything is filled. Now it has its purpose. That's why

God calls it good. God doesn't call creation good because

it's morally virtuous because it's doing the it's doing the

good thing. It's not cheating, it's not stealing. It's good. No,

it's good because now it's functioning the way he intends

it to function. That's what makes his creation good. But

this is where we're gonna sit for just a minute,

because there's something unique created on day six, and that's humankind.

Humanity is created on day six and God calls it

very good. So why is it very good? Good? Let's

read verse twenty six. We're gonna jump all the way

down to verse twenty six right now, and this is

the creation of man. Then God said, let us make

man in our image, 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 earth. Verse twenty seven. So God created

man in his own image, in the image of God.

He created him male and female, he created them. And

just as a bonus that verse twenty seven, that's the

first poem in the Bible. And it's a poem written

to humanity. It's a poem written about humanity. That's the

first time poetry is used in Hebrew. And so why

does creation become very good only after people are created?

And that's because people are created on purpose for a purpose.

You know. I just preached these two verses or these

three verses to the middle schoolers on Sunday in Patriot Youth.

And this generation is struggling with value and worth and

feeling if their life has a purpose, and feeling like

maybe nobody would care if I wasn't here right now

on this earth. Maybe people would like it better if

I was gone. And so I'm reading them these verses

and saying, no, God created you on purpose for a purpose,

and does anybody need to hear that today. God didn't

have to create you, but he chose to create you.

He didn't have to create man, but he decided to

create man. Psalm one thirty nine thirteen says, for you

formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my

mother's womb. He created you on purpose, for a purpose,

and you're made in His image. And that's what makes

humans unique compared to anything else in that's why they're

very good. It is because they're created in his image.

The sun and moon and stars don't bear his image,

the animals don't bear his image. Mankind bears the image

of God, and that makes us unique. That makes us valuable.

That gives us worth because we're made in His image.

And so human value is given by God. It's not earned.

There's nothing you can do to lose your value. There's

nothing you can do to put your value back up.

Your value is what it is, not because of you,

but because of the God who gave it to you,

the God who created you. You know, I played a

game with them, with the middle schoolers on Sunday, but

I adjusted the game for adult audiences. Here, we're gonna

play it together right now. I'm gonna show you in moments.

In moments, I'm gonna show you a painting, and I

just want you to think to yourself, how much would

I pay for that painting? You can look at your

bank right now if you want to reference or whatever

you want to do. How much are you willing to

spend on this painting? What do you think it's worth? Okay,

let's show them the painting on the screen. How much

would you pay for this painting? Maybe you're really into

art and you're saying, ooh, I'd actually pay a lot

for that painting. Well, how much would you spend? Or

maybe you're like it's not great, like CHATCHBT could do

a better painting. I think I can get it specifically,

however I want. I'd pay twenty bucks a month and

I could be able to get that painting if I want.

But how much would it be this painting sold? Would

it be surprising to you if I told you that

this painting sold for over four hundred and fifty million dollars.

It goes on record as the most expensive painting ever

sold in history to this date. I think you was

sold in twenty fifteen. And do you think it was

sold that much because of how expensive the paint was

that was used for the brush, or the quality of

the brush, or the canvas that it was painted on,

or because it's a painting of Jesus. If you didn't

know's that's supposed to be Jesus. This painting is called

Salvatore Mundi and it's painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Oh,

now it makes sense. You see, the painting's worth didn't

come from what was used to paint it. It came

from the creator of the painting. And that's the same

with your worth. Your worth doesn't come from what I

say it is. Your worth doesn't come from what your

parents say it is. Your worth doesn't come from what

your husband says it is. Your worth doesn't come for

what anybody has to say it is. It comes from

your creator. That's where your worth comes from. And so yes,

you're worth more than creation. You're the most worthy thing,

the most valuable thing in all of creation. Why because

that's who Jesus is. For Jesus died on the cross.

He didn't do it for the sun and the moon

of the stars, He didn't do it for kittens and puppies,

even though we think they're so cute. He died on

the cross for you because you were worth it. You

were worth dying for because you're the most valuable thing

in creation. And so, because we're created in God's image,

how we see ourselves and how we treat ourselves it

matters because we're made in his image. But also, this

is the next step, how you treat other people matters

because they're made in God's image too, And so when

you treat other people with honor and respect and dignity,

you are honoring and respecting the God who created them

in his image. So when you disrespect somebody and you

feel like they deserve it and they're made in God's image,

who do you think you're also disrespecting? They're made in

his image, and so we should treat them with honor

and respect in value because that's the God who created them.

Creation is very good because God's image now lives within it.

Creation is very good now because now it's on a

God's done the ordering, he's done the felling, and he's

put his image within creation. And so now what happens, Well,

now we see the goal of creation, the goal of creation,

which is this seventh day. In chapter two, chapter two,

let's read it together in verse one, and we'll read

up to verse three. Chapter two, Verse one. Thus the

heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts

of them. And on the seventh day God finished his

work that he had 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 is done. In creation. The seventh day, God creates

over six days, and then on this seventh day he rested.

And seven is so important to this whole section of Genesis,

this whole first chapter, in these verses seven is monumental.

And I don't know if anybody has heard the word

numerology before, but that's when numbers mean something in the Bible.

And sometimes maybe you struggle with maybe knowing whether a

number is supposed to mean something specific or not, or

anything like that. But I'm gonna give you a rule

of thumb here that you'll never go wrong with a

number means something when you can't get away from it.

When you're reading the Bible. When that number is inescapable,

it means something for sure, like without a doubt. And

that's not to say the other numbers don't mean it,

but for sure, like you cannot go wrong on yourself

when you're trying to interpret the Bible. And seven is

everywhere here in this first chapter. God doesn't want to

get you to get away from the number seven here

in this chapter. And some of them you lose in English.

Some of the sevens are missed in English, but they're

present in Hebrew. Some of them we can see together.

But some of them you'll have to just go home

and take my word for it. It's in Hebrew. You

can you can double check me. But there are seven

days of creation. There's seven times God says it is good.

The opening verse, the first verse in Hebrew is seven words,

and the second verse is two sets of seven words.

And this last section in Hebrew is three sets of

seven words. Seven seven seven. Seven is everywhere. And why

is seven so important? Because it points to this day

of creation. It points to this seventh day. And so

I don't know if you've heard it before, that seven

is the number of completion, which is true. Seven is complete.

The seventh day is when all of God's work is complete.

But it's also an arrival number because you've arrived here

at this seventh day has reached its intended purpose on

the seventh day, and it's about rest. And this word

rest is where we get the word sabbath from rest.

You might think maybe God needed to rest because he

was tired from all the work he did. It was

real tough just speaking everything into existence. He needed to

take a breather, But that's not what this word rest

primarily means. There's word in Hebrew primarily means to stop,

to cease what you're doing because it's done. And so

on this day God rests, He stops what he's doing

because it's done. What he wanted to do is already finish,

and so he's done creating. That's what this rest is.

It's a stop. And if you notice, this day also

breaks one of the repetitions that's been happening, which is

evening and morning. There is no evening and morning on

this seventh day. Why why is there no evening and

morning to this day? And that's because this day is

never meant to end. This seventh day is eternal. This

seventh day is forever, this day where God has finished

creating his creation, and now his image bearers are subduing

and ruling the earth in peace and harmony with him.

His presence is there and it's forever, and that's the

goal of creation, and that's the whole point of why

God created everything for them, for his image bearers to

dwell on this earth with him, and they ruled it

in peace and harmony. And there's something that happens in

Genesis chapter three that makes this day end. It ends it,

and humanity now does not live in the seventh Day

of Rest anymore. But the days go on, and the

days go on. But the whole story of the Bible

is getting us back to this point on the seventh day,

and the person to bring us back to this seventh

day is Jesus himself in Revelation twenty two. It all

comes back to this day where God is with his

creation the way it was supposed to function, and is

image bearers are ruling the earth together in peace and harmony.

And there is no more sorrow, there are no more tears,

there is no more sin, there's no lying, cheating, sealing

any of that. They're in his presence, ruling in peace

and harmony for eternity. That's the point of the Bible.

That's the point that the Bible's trying to get us

back to. That's what the story is getting us back to,

where Jesus reinstitutes this seventh day that never ends, that's forever.

And so Genesis is not just a book about history,

but it's a book about God's design. And this series

won't just be about curiosity. How did God create or

what happened on Noah's arc or how did Abraham walk

from one way to the other, But it's about formation.

God is forming something in his creation, and though they

do what they want at times, he is present with

them and he's directing them. We were not created for

endless striving. We weren't created to just be on this

rat race of life with no end. We just come

to this earth to work, to work, to work, and

then die one day and that's it. But we were

made to live in rest with our creator, in peace

and harmony, forever and ever endeavor. That's the intention that

God had when he created the world. And so the

Bible begins with rest lost and it ends with rest restored.

That's the story of the Bible with its bookke nds

right there. And so God formed the world with order

and purpose so that humanity might live in rest with him.

And there's only one way to live in that rest

with him, to ultimately live in eternity with him, and

that's through the work of Jesus Christ. God sent Jesus

to this earth so that he can die on a

cross and pay for the atonement of your sins, to

pay the payment that you can't pay for something that

happened in chapter three a Genesis. And that's a whole

other sermon on the sin that enters into the world

and all of those things. But it's that sin, those

things we do wrong, the lying, the stealing, the cheating,

the ulterior motives, all of those things, that's what prevents

us from being in His presence forever for eternity. And

so God himself comes to this earth and dies on

a cross so that you can live in eternity with him,

to have peace, to have harmony in his presence forever

and ever and ever. And that's available to you today.

You're able to know the answer to the question that's

written on that building out there, which is where will

you spend eternity. Is your eternity going to be the

Seventh Day that we just talked about, or is your

eternity going to be separation from Jesus and God himself,

separated from peace, separated from harmony, separated from his presence,

Or is it going to be eternally and eternity in

his presence as you're ruling the earth with him in

peace and harmony with the other image bearers. It's only

through his work and believing in that work that you're

able to enter into that and know what your destination

is when you die, because we are all gonna leave

this earth one day. We go to one of two destinations,

and it's either in the presence of Jesus forever or

separated from the presence of Jesus forever. And it's only

by believing in his sacrifice on the cross they are

able to enter into that eternity with him. You know,

we preach the We preach the Gospel to the kids

every service, and we always, at least in the elementary classes,

we always want to emphasize the Gospel, emphasize how what

does their eternity look like? And so for a child

it's always hard. How do I do that? How do

I get an eternity with Jesus? And we always tell

him it's as easy as abc accept Jesus as your

Lord and savior, believe that he died on the cross

for your sins, and confess the fact that you're not perfect,

that you're a sinner and you need a savior. That's

that's as easy as it is. But it might be

hard to put our pride aside for a second and

recognize that truth tonight. Maybe you were in twenty twenty

five and this wasn't a reality to you yet. But

let's start your twenty twenty six off right knowing that

your eternity is secure in Jesus Christ, and now you're

going to live in that seventh Day with Him in

peace and harmony forever and ever and ever. If you

wanted to do that tonight in this place and you say,

you know what I do, want to accept Jesus into

my heart, We're all going to say a prayer together.

And this prayer isn't what saves you. This prayer isn't

what punches your ticket into eternity with Jesus. The prayer

is just a confirmation and an affirmation of what you

already believe in your heart. And so let's all bow

our heads, close our eyes, and repeat this prayer after

me say, Dear Lord Jesus, I accept you as my

lord and as my savior. I believe that you died

on the cross and you rose again for my sins.

I confess that I'm a sinner and I need saving.

But I thank you for forgiving me in Jesus name.

I pray, Amen, Amen, Amen. You know the Bible says

that there is a party going on in heaven right now.

There is a celebration happening in heaven right now for

everybody who just gave their life to Jesus. And so

I want to do something really quick because I want

us to all participate in that party right now, participate

in that celebration right now. And so if you'd be

so bold, I'm going to ask you at the counter three,

if you said that prayer and you meant it from

your heart, to raise your hand. And we don't want

to embarrass you, but we want to celebrate with you

and celebrate you joining the family, because that's what patriot means.

It means family, but specifically the family of God. Because

you just joined the Patriot right now, and so on

the counter three raise your hand, one two, one two,

three you raise your hand. If you said that prayer, Amen, Amen,

if you said that prayer for the first time. We

want to get a resource in your hands written by

a lead pastor, Adam. It's called Following Jesus a Family Journey,

and it'll outline what do you do now that's you're

a Christian, now that you believe in Jesus, what does

your faith journey look like? This book will outline the

next ninety days of your faith journey. So you can

get one of these at any of the Faith Journey

kiosks when you exit. I just want to emphasize that's

for if you said it for the first time and

you believe you became a Christian just now. If you

really want that book, we do have them available as

well in the Patriot Shop, just at a minimal cost.

If you weren't able to grab a journal, you can

do so right after the service. They'll still be available

so you can get locked in for the rest of

the Genesis series. Because we have a road ahead of

us and it's going to be very fruitful. And I

hope it's fruitful in your life. Lastly, if you have

need of any additional prayer, you need somebody to believe

God with you, maybe to cry with you and to

seek the Lord. We have our prayer team right here

at the front at the end of service that they

want to pray with you and believe God with you.

If you need some prayer, maybe even going into this

twenty twenty six. Okay, I'm gonna pray for us and

then we'll be dismissed for tonight. God, we come before

you and we just thank you Lord for bringing us here. God.

We thank you for how rich your word is, how

much stuff there is to learn from this word. God,

and we just pray for the rest of this series, Lord,

that you would continue to speak to us, continue to

reveal things to us. God, and keep this fire in

our hearts for the whole year and the rest of

our lives. God, we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen,

We hope to see you soon. Family,