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
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.
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
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?
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
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
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
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
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
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
pure poetry. Some people who try to kind of
try to take advantage of Genesis chapter 1 and make it, you know,
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
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
literary critics and historians have said, Jenna Genesis chapter
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
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
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,
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.
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
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,
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
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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.