Genesis | Week 1 | Full Service

All these things that we're looking for into the new year for being the key to life, that you we need to use wisdom in those things. They're not bad things. The problem is they will never answer the eternal longing that you and I have. You see, the thing that we really are looking for that we are looking around, the thing we're trying to find the key to is, is we have a longing for more. No matter what we get that just doesn't isn't there more? Isn't there more? Isn't there more? And that's true. And you know where that longing comes from? The book of Ecclesiastes

says it this way. God planted eternity in the hearts of men. See, the God who created us planted an eternity in us, which means we do long for more. So those temporary things are things we do have to deal with. They're not bad things.

But if you try to make temporary things fulfill the eternal longing, you're gonna be really disappointed. And you're gonna look right past the real key as you're running after all the others.

So that's why we're gonna read the bibles here. That's why we're gonna start in Genesis. And that's why I wanna talk about Genesis because today's big idea to open up this series and also just the whole year is simply this,

the who defines you. That's the big idea. The band, the who. Go listen to their songs. They def no. It's not Whoville either. The who is what defines you. When we're looking for the key to life to see how it works, we always wanna look for the hows when you need to look to the who first. Who created you?

Because the who who created you really defines who we are. We don't find our identity in the other things. And if you skip the who and go to the how, you're gonna miss the whole purpose in the even if you do good things.

I have a friend, Rod Kaya. We bring him out. He's a strategic planner. That's what he helps. We get our team together. We're smart. But we need someone to herd the cats. And so and the one thing he does when you're trying to strategic plan, like you're trying to get towards the ultimate goal, what are we supposed to be about? He has a phrase, get the how out of here.

Because you get jumping right there. Well, gotta do this. We gotta we start getting into ideas and planning. But he goes, why would you go to how when you don't even know the who, the what? What are you doing? Where are you supposed to be? And so a lot of us, our New Year's resolution, our plans for life are always to the house,

disconnected from the who. So I'm gonna challenge us this year to go in this year. What if we really come to understand the who? Who created you?

Because what we're gonna see today in the first two chapters of Genesis, it's the creation story. We will come to find that. As we read this, we're gonna find a lot about who God is. And by extension, who he is helps us understand who we are and what we're supposed to be about. So what I wanna do is I'm gonna actually read

Genesis one and two, the whole thing, and then just make two points out of it. And I'm gonna the reason I wanna read the whole thing even though it's two whole chapters is this. You're gonna see the point that it didn't take that long. The entire story of creation

is only in two chapters. And what you're gonna see in this two chapters is the second chapter is actually just a repeat, an isolation of a part of the first chapter. So he really says the whole how in one chapter.

And the problem is if you're a how person more than a who person, you're really frustrated with stuff like this. As I read it, as we talk about these points, the one thing you gotta remember going into this, set a few ground rules is these first two chapters were meant to reveal the who. Who created and

who we were created to be. It's not supposed to tell you every in and out of how creation went.

And that's where a lot of us get distracted by the house. Like people wanna talk about, what about evolution? Was it really twenty four hour periods? How long was it? How was this? And you're gonna ask all these how questions and you're gonna miss the point.

Now I'll just tell you this. If you're someone that gets hung up on that and you're somebody that's believed these lies that says, well, this has to be just poetic. It can't be literal because the science is settled. Alright. Well then go wear your mask and the science is settled. And what you'll realize in life,

the science is not as settled as you think. There are go to Answers in Genesis. If you're someone that rejects the bible and has a hard time with the creation story, you haven't studied enough. There in Answers and Genesis, there's a lot of really smart Christian people with all the letters after their names like all the other people. There are scientists that have real educations and really trained that says what this story says can be literal and it does not contradict what we know about how the world works.

So most of the time when we keep getting stuck in the hows is for two reasons. Best case scenario, we're just really curious. Worst case scenario is you're not really looking for information. You're looking for an excuse to not trust God.

You're looking to say, well, I don't have to believe anything. I don't have to be accountable to a God because I don't understand how that works. And that's what I would challenge you to to to look past as we read this because what we really need to look for is the who. Because the who defines you.

And as we know how we're defined, we can now know what the purpose is in these first two chapters when he lays out the who who created us and what he created us for. It helps us move forward in life from there in the word of God. So here we go. Like I said, before I jump in though, the book of Genesis,

you can go watch the videos, read the stuff. I'm gonna give you the most basic outline on the planet to understand what we're reading here as we start. Genesis can be divided into two parts. This is my cliff notes for you. The first 11 verse chapters are the beginning of the human race.

Chapter 12 through 50 is the beginning of the Hebrew Hebrew race.

So this is how we all got here, and there's some interactions. We're gonna look at some of those stories of when we see the who who created us and how he interacted with us. We're gonna learn some valuable stuff in that. And then in chapter 12, God starts to call out a people through a man named Abraham,

and it's his plan for redemption. And he starts it right there. The whole Bible has one plan. It always has.

And just by this one last little thing before we read this, if you're new to this whole thing, a lot of people, the bible does it. You guys, you Christians, you use the bible to prove the bible. You do this. The bible isn't one book. It's 66 different books written by over 40 authors inspired by the holy spirit

over a period of about seventeen hundred years on three different continents.

And here's the other thing. It says the same thing. There's a cohesive story. There's a plan through the whole thing. And that's crazy. If you're a skeptic of the bible, you need to answer this. They did not have each other's writings when they were writing. And they don't contradict themselves. It's the same story. They say some of the same stuff all the way through. I challenge you to go find three writers on this planet right now writing about the same topic

that agree a 100% on everything they write about. You you won't. So it's a crazy, crazy

matter of fact, we have coming up. I can't remember what month it was. We have a how did we get our bible conference happening here. It's the real deep. If you're the one that's like, I like the I like the guy that talks so boring it has to be deep, then just come to that. I'm not saying he's gonna be boring. I'm just gonna say they're gonna they're gonna really go into the I I that was not a good advertisement for that.

If you're someone that wants to know all the ins and outs, like how did we get our bible and you can trust it, you're gonna wanna come to that. And just look on our website. You can see when it's when it's coming. I can't remember now. I completely forgot. That's the worst commercial ever.

Sorry, man. I'm fighting a head cold. I'm just not thinking straight. So if I shook your hand, I'm sorry. You're now sick. I also licked it before I shook your hand. So good luck with that. Anyways, I gotta get to reading this or we're never gonna get done. So

story time with pastor Bill. Let's go through it. Here we go. Genesis chapter one verse one. In the beginning, God. Alright. I I gotta stop already. Four words in. I gotta say that for a minute.

You're like, how long is this gonna take to get through a feast? No. It's just just this once. In the beginning, God. That tells you something. In the beginning, God was already there. God didn't have a beginning. But the key thing is in the beginning, like I said, it's the beginning of human race. This is not trying to explain the beginning of everything.

It's the beginning of us.

God was already there. There's already stuff created. We'll see here in a minute. There's already an Earth. There's a void. There's stuff. There's a character that shows up. The villain shows up in the next chapter, chapter three. And it's implied he's already been around, and he's kinda this guy that we know as Satan. And they give some of his background later on in script, but they never tell us the whole story of what happened. God has already created stuff. He's already been doing stuff. He's this is not trying to explain the beginning of anything. It's the beginning of us.

That's what it's saying. So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water. Then God said, let there be light and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness night and evening passed and morning came marking the first day. Now, right here, gotta stop again. I'm sorry. You're like, he is never gonna get through this. I

want you as we read through these days of creation, notice how many times it says, God said and it happened and it was good. Just just listen for that. We already have heard it here. God said it happened. It's good.

Day one. Let's keep going. Then God said, let there be a space between the waters to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters the earth. And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. God called the space sky. When evening passed and morning came, marking the second day.

Then God said, let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place so dry ground may appear.

And this is what happened. God called the dry ground land and the water sea and God saw that it was good. Then God said, let the land sprout with vegetation. Every sort of seed bearing plant and trees that grow seed bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came. And that is what happened. The land produced vegetation. All sorts of seed bearing plants and trees with seed bearing fruit. Their seeds produce plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.

And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day.

Then God said, let the lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be the signs to mark the seasons, days, years. Let the light shine in the sky, shine down on the earth. And that is what happened. God made two great lights. The larger one to govern the day, the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars.

God set these lights in the sky, the light of the earth to govern the day and the night, to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good evening past morning, marking the fourth day.

And morning came, marking the fourth day. And I know what some of you are thinking. You get stuck in the house. You're like, how can it be literal days when we didn't have the sun and the moon until day four?

Well, let that blow your mind a little bit. Go back and read the first part where he said he created light and was day and night. But anyways, sorry. No more distractions. Let me read.

Then God said, let the waters swarm with the fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind. So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water. And every sort of bird each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw it was good. Then God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply.

Let the fish fill the seas and let the birds multiply on earth. And everything passed and morning came marking the fifth day. Then God said, let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind. Livestock, small animals, and scurry along the ground and wild animals.

And that is what happened. God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw it was good except for cats. They came at another time on their own and they were bad.

No. That part's not there. Just making sure you're still listening. Then God said, let us make human beings in our image to be like us.

They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground. So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them.

Then God blessed them and said be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground. Then God said, look, I've given you every seed bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I've given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the small animals that scurry along the ground. Everything that has life. And that is what happened.

Then God looked over all he had made and saw that it was very good. And evening passed and morning came marking the sixth day.

So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day, God had finished his work in front of creation. So he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy because it was a day when he rested from all his work of creation.

And then this is the count of the creation of the heavens and earth. Now he goes back in and what he's doing is he's isolate in on the creation of man and woman. He's gonna focus on that.

When the Lord made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. The Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth and there were no people to cultivate the soil. Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils

and man became a living person.

Then God planted a garden in the in Eden in the East. And there he placed the man he had made. The Lord made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground, trees that were beautiful and produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden, he placed the tree of life in the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

A river flow flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches. The first branch called the Pishon flowed around the entire land of Havilah

where gold is found. There'll be gold in those hills. The gold of that land is exceptionally pure. Aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. The second branch called the Gihon flowed around the entire land of Cush. The third branch called the Tigris flowed east of the land of Asshur, and the fourth branch is called the Euphrates. As soon as that whole party talks about these rivers and golds and valuable stones, they're like, why is that all of sudden in the middle there? Of all the things, he's willing to take two chapters to describe it. He stopped to do that. This is why I tend to think this is literal.

Because he's giving you Google map directions, and he's actually describing it as a real place. The Tigers and Euphrates still exist. The other rivers disappeared. There's a flood. There's some things that happened. But but they know based so they know somewhere along where the tiger that's where it was.

He's actually stopping to explain this. We know where this is. And it was exceptionally beautiful. There was precious stones, and it was beautiful that he made. That's kinda the point. And then he says, the Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.

But the Lord God warned him, you may freely eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die. Then the Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. It's not. I will attest to that.

He said, will make a helper who is just right for him. He's gonna make a helper. He said, God, it's not good for you to be alone. I'm gonna give you a cleaning lady. That

is not what it says. First service I said, hey, ladies, listen up. I want you to what it says. And I realized it's not the ladies that need to listen up. Guys, shut up and listen to what this means.

That word for helper in the Hebrew is the same word when Jesus said, I need to go because you're never gonna be able to truly live out unless you have my power within you. I need to send the helper, the holy spirit. That word for the helper is the same one of the titles for god, the holy spirit.

So he's saying, I am sending you someone of equal to come alongside to be a teammate. Not an assistant. A teammate. And he and it even accentuates it here when the way he created woman. It says, so the Lord God formed from the ground first of all, he formed from the ground

all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And the man chose a name for each one. I think we end up with, like, gnat and fly because he got really tired near the end.

He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. So I think God gave him the job of naming them because he they kept coming in pairs. And I think he sat there and goes, wait a minute. They're all coupled up. What about me? Bingo.

And then it says, so the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the God took out one of the man's ribs. Where did he take? Right from the side. Not from the head to be over, not from the foot to be under, but to be right by the side. And it's the spot where you hit him

to be the holy spirit in his life. So the lord so he took the rib and closed up the opening. Then the lord god made a woman from the rib and he brought her to the man. At last, the man exclaimed, this one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She will be called, woah, man. That was my inflection.

Because she was taken from man. This explains why man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife until they can't afford housing, and so they move back in so they could try to save up. And the two are united into one. Add a little bit in there. Sorry. Trying to contextualize

it. And now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. We need to bring the back verse 25. We'll do a sermon on that someday. So there you go. That's it. Just told the whole story. Of all the house, of all the things, He only took that much time to tell us all of how we came into existence.

But there is a lot he reveals about who he is and what his purpose was and who we are and what our purpose is. If you're looking for all the other answers, that's not what it's for. And you're gonna get distracted. You're gonna miss the point. And the point is the who defines you.

And that's really what goes wrong in chapter three next week. They try to be defined by something else. And then the rest of the bible is trying to fix that.

And so here we go. So what does this mean then? With that much what he shared, what is it really trying to say? What do we learn from this? And I just made I just wanna make two points that I think we can extrapolate from all this information here. Just two simple

points here that we don't get stuck in just the house. Because God is a God of detail. He is about the house. Matter of fact, the book of Leviticus, there's 27 chapters of how

on how to worship him, how to have this tabernacle, and how to do and a matter of fact, that's where a lot of you are gonna stop your yearly reading from the bible. You're not gonna get past that. Or you're gonna do this.

So God, for some reason, wants to give us incredible detail on that and not much detail on this. Why? Because in Leviticus, it's describing how are we to relate to him. How are we to approach that's critical.

And so here we go. So what can we learn from this? Two things we can really take away. First is this, God is a good, loving, and creative God who creates life, beauty, and order out of chaos. That's what this is all saying. First, how many times he said it's good?

We know he's loving because what he did is we can see as he built this whole thing for us, as he took the time to make us, he made sure we were taken care of. We'll see that in the next point. And and and love. And here's the thing about love. Love is best expressed towards someone else. Now God is three in one, so he can have a loving relationship within himself. But he's a creative God and he likes to care. So he created us to show love.

And so what we understand then, we know that if the who defines you, we have got to understand how do you see god? Because as a w Tozer said, how you see god is gonna determine how you see everything else. It's the most important thing about you because how you see God is gonna define everything else about you.

And and and so do you see him as good and loving? Because he's also creative. Look at how creative he was in this story. I mean, it doesn't tell us all the ins and outs. But man, he he didn't just build a world where we can eat, sleep, and survive. I mean, do we need all the stars? Do you need the rest of the cosmos?

No, he's just showing off there. He's like a expert decorator. You know what we need? We need a few billion lights in the sky at night. And

he's creative and loving and good. And you know what? We were built to be in his image. That's the next point you'll see in a minute. But he wants to create. And guess why we like to create stuff? Guess why we try to go make stuff? Guess why we do that? Because the who defines you. That's why.

And you know what makes God such an incredible, credible like so good and creative and awesome? Is he's one of those few people that's an artist and an architect and a builder. He can dream something. He can design it. He can build it all at once. And and and think about it. He's a master artist.

He is the only artist ever that created art that makes art. Think about that. He's like Leonardo da Vinci painting a painting or Michelangelo and he finishes like, that's beautiful. Just wait. And you see that painting paint another little painting.

And the little painting grows up, gets a little bit rebellious in his teen years. And then it moves out. Then it finds another painting. And then they paint little paintings. You ever think about that? We can create. Now now God is the ultimate source of life, but he used us. He made us with the ability to create life.

He created art that can make art. That's kinda cool. And he loves us and he's good. And if you notice he brought order out of chaos and says there was stuff already there, but it was in chaos. And he brought order into it.

And that's what he wants to do in our lives. That's what he created us for. He created us to to know this good loving God, to be good and loving people, to be creative and live in this creative world he had for us and live real life. It says he breathed life in. He created a body

and Adam's there alive. I think he was physically alive, But it wasn't till he breathed in him. He doesn't say that about any of the other creatures. He breathed this life, a soul into him. The image of God

into him. And it allows him and he did it with beauty. He created the world to be beautiful and for us to see the beauty in what God's doing. And really to bring order out of the chaos. And what we're gonna see next week is we bring chaos back into the order and the beauty. We brought the ugly back in because we bought into a lie

by looking for the wrong house. We're taking that key and we're trying to use the key for the wrong doors.

Is your life in chaos right now? If your life is in chaos, the key is not something out there. The key is found right here in a relationship with the who who made you. That's the first thing. And that leads right into the second thing is God created us in his image

and he designed us to have purpose, connections with others, and a relationship with him.

He wants to have a relationship with him and he designed us in his image to be like him, to have that creativity, to have that to see what he sees to go. And in that image, since he creates and he works and he does stuff, he created us to have this purpose. He gave Adam a purpose. Tend the garden. Manage the world. Manage this. Be fruitful and multiply. If you go to the New Testament, we have another purpose added, to be a part of the body of Christ. Why do you think it's called the body of Christ?

We're not an organization. You don't go to a church. We are the church. We are to be the body. We are to be an embodiment, a living thing. And we have a purpose. We've been given a mission to go point other people to the loving God who loves them. Go help bring the order

and the love and the beauty back into their chaos so they can have a relationship with God and find purpose. We were meant for a purpose. God built us for a purpose. The problem is we try to use God as a key to get to the purpose we think we're supposed to have. And our purposes are always temporary.

And then when God says, hey, this is my purpose for you. But the problem is that's gonna take time and money and things away from what I want to get done in life. So then we resist living out his purpose. And then we wonder why life is chaotic. See what that teaches? Like, we understand

that he wants in his image for us to live out this purpose he has for us. And this purpose is connection with others. It shows that he connected with his wife, but now we know we're connected to the church. We're supposed to be the part of the church body. We're supposed to have a connection

to be a part of a church and to be a part of the mission. He gave us a job to do. Do you have those connections? Do you have community? Are you connected to what he built you for? Do you go to church or are you a part of the body of Christ? Because being that

is all this other stuff that you're running after and even ignoring, saying I don't have time to do what God wants me to do. The thing you're spending your time on will never fulfill that longing you have. It's never gonna work. It's leaning into the purpose, the eternal purpose he created us for is. And when we resist

I got a perfect example of what we're acting like. When we're a Christian, like like like like right now, like, guys, I'm just gonna let's celebrate. Had just under 12,000 people here for Christmas services. 12,000 people. Just under 600 people

said yes to Jesus and entered in a relationship with him and and and and and found Jesus as Lord and Savior. The average church size in The United States is a 125 people. So we had five churches of people say average churches say yes to Jesus just in one weekend.

And as it's grown, we have to we're doing a building campaign, which I need everyone to give to because, look, we're already crowded. We have to go to five services. We gotta knock these walls out. We need to build a children's building to have more room to better take care of that next generation. We gotta take care of those little masterpieces

that are gonna go paint their own masterpieces one day. And we wanna show them the purpose, and we wanna do that. But I need the church to get involved. I need us to be the church to do it.

There's a lot of little babies to take care of. Like the video said, our children's ministry needs people to serve. And here's the problem. There's people sitting in this room right now. You've been in this church. You've been a Christian a long time, and you are probably called and gifted to go do that or serve somewhere. But a lot of you are absolutely gifted to serving children, but saying you just won't do it.

And usually, I don't have time. I don't have this. I don't have that. It's usually the temporary thing that's distracting you from the eternal calling. And I would be unloving if I didn't challenge you with this. Because you know why? It's exactly like what God's calling us to be as a family. And in a family,

to live in a good family, that means everybody takes part in the family. Right? And if you're a parent and if you're honest, if you're not a parent, you can remember what you did as a kid, is oftentimes when you have kids, they resist being a part of the family.

Oh, they want the good stuff, but they don't want the responsibility stuff. They wanna just be left alone, give me what I want, and leave me alone. And a lot of us approach our relationship with God and our relationship to the church family that way. We act like have you ever noticed like little kids, man, the first time they they spend hours being creative and making big messes and making forts in your house and all that. And they were totally coordinated why they did that. But they're alright. Time to clean up. And they lose all body functions

like like an a a marathon runner that just lost control the last 100 yards. You know, they're like, they just can't do it. And you ever see a little kids like, I can't.

I'm tired. Or they'll just get really stiff and fall over, you know, and they don't do it. And you're like, oh, little kids are the worst. Why do they do this? Then they have this moment. They're okay. Then they become teenagers.

And they'll sit there with the headphones and TikTok videos and doing they have, like, such an important schedule in life, and they want your money. They want your car. They wanna go stuff. Like, hey. Can you take the trash out? And they're like, what?

You know, like, asked them to do the baton death march from World War two or so. They're like, even if you force them to like, ah. And you're like, oh, sorry. I'm asking you to take out the trash, which 80% of it is your stuff because you're eating everything in this house with you and your swarm of locust friends,

which I bought, by the way. And now you don't wanna go take out the trash? We're in a loving family here. Participate. I mean, she'll probably be mad. I got one at home right now. She's 20.

But she's just quiet, so I can never figure out what she's doing. She came back home from school and I'm like, just wanna ask her, did you get a job yet? I know she's in the process. And and then what about school? But if I ask her, she acts like I'm putting her out. How dare you ask about my life?

I'm like, okay. Well, I'll just give you a life update on where I'm at. I'm gonna stop paying for stuff and I'm gonna ask you to move out. That's where I'm at. Anything you wanna tell me?

Now we laugh because you get it, you know it. But if you are a Christian that comes to this church and you refuse to give, you don't wanna serve, you wanna do it, guess what you're being? That's you.

That is you. Why are you mad at your kids? Use example at all. You're treating the family of God. The purpose God built us for. The family we're supposed to engage in. You're acting just like that. And I need to be willing to say, let's stop it. Let's stop it.

Man, we we have to raise extra money to try to build this building. Do realize if everyone that said this was their church literally honored God with their finances, we'd already have this building built? Straight up cash.

Why don't you do what God wants you to do? It's funny. Six days of creation. Remember I said how many times did he say, God spoke and it happened?

God still speaks to us. How come when it comes to us who we call ourselves his children, we're the only ones that it doesn't happen? It's because of chapter three. And a lot of us as Christians are still living out chapter three.

We're missing it. We're missing out on this loving purpose that God has for us. And you're gonna run through this year looking for other keys or you're gonna turn your relationship with the bible and God into a key, but you're trying to open the wrong door with it. And it's gonna be frustrating because he created us

for so much more. And that's what it's meant to be. And you know what? You understand it comes from his love. We should trust him. See, the challenge is always we don't trust his goodness or his plan because his plan is a process.

I mean, did he took six days to create. That's slow. Now for us, we're like, really? It's more than six days in the year and I've already blown all my resolutions. He created the whole unit. He could have said it in six words. He took his time. God is a God of process and in our life he has a process.

And once we go through the book of Genesis, you're gonna realize like, well you say serve and then why does God allow me to be in this scenario and this is hard and it's tough and how long? It's been a year. It's been two years. You realize there's some guys that go it's like forty years.

If you don't understand what God's trying to do and you don't understand he has a process that he's invited you to be a part of, if you're trying to use even your relationship with God and the word is a key to the door you want to open, you're gonna miss out what he actually has for you. And he loves us.

But we get caught up in the house because we want to doubt. We want to buy into the lie from chapter three, which I don't wanna rob the thunder from next week. You don't wanna miss next week, but it is Daniel preaching so I'm afraid he won't do it right anyways. So I might as well tell you this. I'm

totally joking. He's got an excellent message, but I forgot what I was gonna say because I was ripping on him. As we buy into this lie that makes us doubt, is God good? Is he holding out? I don't wanna trust his process. So I'm gonna resist his plan. And we just keep doing it.

But even you read these two chapters, if you look for the right thing, I've heard this people that you some of you studied this a million times, you buy all in and you still probably not have never noticed what I'm about to say right now. You're gonna go, uh-huh. Never noticed that because you're too busy looking at the other stuff.

You ever noticed that everything God created was just he spoke it in existence except for one thing? You notice that everything else was as he spoke it, but one thing he did more than just speak it into existence. You know what that was? Us.

He slowed down. That's why chapter two isolates on that. He rolled up his sleeves and he got in the dirt. He performed a surgery and he got hands on even more than just speaking things into existence. Because that's what tells you why there's only two chapters sharing all this and why the second chapter is an isolated

go deeper into us being created. Because it really shows you why he created everything that he created.

But if we get too down in the weeds, we get too distracted, we look it's like that key. It's right there and we're gonna look right past it. We're not gonna see what it is. We need to back up and see the big picture. If you were able to see the whole picture of the Bible, you'd understand what's going on.

Matter of fact, a woman, Maria Wright wrote a book where she studied these looks like these like just lines in the ground by the Nazia people in the plains of Peru a long time ago. And when they studied him, everyone thought they're just some form of loosely related ancient irrigation ditches. Well, then in 1939,

a doctor that was studying it was able to get in a plane and fly over the top of this area. So he got to see what this was, these lines in the ground. I got a picture of one of them. What they thought was

disconnected, loosely related irrigation ditches were actually giant drawings of birds and insects and different animals and people.

And it was artwork. It was this big connected picture. But when you're down in the dirt, when you're looking at it, you don't even get it. But when you backed off and saw the whole picture, you saw it was painting a picture of something bigger. Which by the way, my brain functions like, how did they even do that without being able to see it? And why would they even do it? Because they never got to see this angle.

Which is weird to me.

But still, it's these beautiful things when you back off. And a lot of us look at the Bible, then we look at our life and go, yeah, the bible stories, they're they're loosely connected. They all have something to do with God. But what does that have to do with me? And we don't see how it's all interconnected.

But when you look at the first two chapters, it lays out exactly what the whole story is. The entire story of if we back off and see that what God really was building when he created, when he built us, was he was building a home.

Not just a house, not just a place to live, not just some creative art project. He was building a home for us. The entire universe was created around the home that he wanted to build for us.

And then he walked with us in the garden. It was a home that he was gonna live in as the father. He was the home that he was gonna say, well, you're gonna have kids and grandkids, and I'm gonna be the father of this home, and we're gonna be a family.

That's what it's that's the whole story of the bible. You know what's interesting?

There's 1,189 chapters in the bible. Eleven eighty nine. Only two describe the creation. Only two does it say it is good. Chapter three brings bad and chaos. Don't miss next week. And then the next 1,186 chapters is not some loosely kind of disconnected irrigation ditch. It is 1,186 chapters of God's process

and God's story of redeeming us back to chapter one and two. It's 1,186 chapters of describing how he's giving us a key to come home and to live at home

and to be back to what he created us for. And we could live that way now being a part of the church. We're still in a broken world. There's still scary things out there. And that's why there's locks on our doors. But if you think of the bible as anything, even as a Christian,

we can buy the same lie that chapter three has. In chapter three, this lie that buys us in that we buy into, every sin can be connected back to this lie. And that lie is that this isn't a home, That God put us in a prison cell and he has a safe that he's keeping the good stuff in. And you got a jailbreak and safe crack

to figure out life. And a lot of us take that same lie and apply it to our so called Christian walk. We take the bible and we think what this is is I gotta come here and figure out the secret to get away from the thing I don't want.

And I show up at church, God, I'm praying. I'm like, I don't like how life is. I don't like this. I don't wanna be in this scenario. I wanna I wanna be out of here. I wanna get out of this jail cell. So you think the Bible says just unlock and give me the freedom. And unlock and give them the freedom. Get out of here. Well, being in a family, being home does give you freedom.

But that's just that's freedom for. That's not freedom from.

And we just think of the bible as I wanna get away from something or I wanna find something. I wanna live my best life now. And if I honor God and stuff, he's gonna open up that safe and he's gonna give me the treasure. The problem with a cell and a safe key is that still comes back to you. It's I've decided what I wanna get away from, and I decide what the treasure is.

But the key, the key, knowing God, the key, the whole story of the Bible, the key, it's a key to a home. It's a key to come back home. And here's the deal, when you have a home, it is key. It does have locks.

But I have never heard in the history of nine eleven calls, someone said, come and help me. I've locked myself in my house. You know why? Houses are designed to be locked where you can't get in from the outside without a key, but you can get out.

But yet the lie from the enemy is that if the things I said, serve, get involved, give, live out this purpose. Oh, that's constrictive. You're giving me rules. We're acting like a teenager. And how many teenagers do you feel like, life this feels kinda like a prison. I can't wait to get out on my own.

It's not really about the resources or anything like that. You wanna get hurt because you just don't wanna be told what to do. But if you understand the love of what it means, God doesn't want us to be locked up in a cell. We're not locked out of a safe, but he does want us to be locked in safely in the home.

And the rule the things he asked us, the house rules, are to keep the doors locked, to keep everything out. And if you realize Genesis one and two had one more illustration that meant more than what it said, it's symbolic because this theme continues to scripture. God separated and united

several times in those two chapters. Separated waters. United. He divided and united. Separated and united. Do you realize in the New Testament says, if I come home, if I enter a relationship with Jesus, we're to be holy. Holy means separate. Becoming a part of the body of Christ means to unite.

It means I'm gonna go home. I need to separate from philosophy of the world. I need to separate from being a jailbreak and a safe cracker.

Because unlike what Satan said, God is not holding out on you. He's not keeping the good stuff. He's not sitting there. You're in a cell, and he's keeping the good stuff in that tree of knowledge of good and evil. And you need to break out of this, not listen to him, and take that fruit. And

that is the same exact thing every one of us continues to do over and over and over again.

Unless you see the key that's right in front of you

and come home.

What would happen this year if this year became more about my resolution is to come home. To spend more time at home. Spend more time

talking to my father. Spend more time with and serving and supporting my family.

What would happen if we did that? Father God, I thank you, Lord. I thank you that you are loving, good, creative. That you wanted to bring life and not just general life but beautiful life and order into chaos.

God, I thank you that you create us in your image. We were designed to have a purpose and a connection with each other and a relationship with you. God, am thankful that you rolled up your sleeves and got in the dirt to make us and form us.

And Lord, I'm thankful that two stories of the creation that you give us eleven eighty six chapters of your word describing how you were making it right. So we can not only come home but live at home. So Lord, my prayer is simple. I pray for myself, everyone in this room, anyone watching online.

I pray that we would hear you. We would see the key. We would hear your voice. And we would choose to come home. And not only choose to come home but live at home as an active part of the family you called us to be. I pray that we would do that in this year and just see the beauty of what you meant our lives to be.

I thank you and I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hey, I love you guys. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.