Creation

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0:00 So I don't know exactly why we're going to go from Genesis for the next seven-year week. And then I like the story in Genesis. I think they're really fun. There's a lot of stories in the Book of Genesis. And we're going to start today with the very first one, the story of creation. I realized once I got started thinking about the third creation that you could probably do.

0:33 So we expect on the sort of creation, if you wanted, we're not going to do that. I'm probably not smart enough to pull that off. But before we start off, we're going to spend one week on the story of creation today. Just a little bit. Okay, we can't cover all of it, but we're going to talk through some parts of it. Before we do that, let's pray. Hey, Lord, thanks for the chance to be here together, to be your church together. Be with us. We know that when you gather in your name, you are with us somehow.

1:06 Very, very away. We've come because we need you in very, very good ways. Because we need what you have to offer. The love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, generous, self-control, we know the fruit of spirit. The fiction and love, the purpose and direction, we need hope and perseverance. Lord, give us your presence and all of that that that brings for us today.

1:39 In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. The book, Again, has some very early stories. You start reading it and it starts really cleanly in the beginning. It has this interesting, their race and perspective of this observer of creation.

2:09 Nobody was there except for God at the beginning. God writes a couple of things on stone topics for Moses, maybe with his finger. I don't know, maybe with his will. But he does it right on paper very often. Of course, God didn't write the first story of creation. Moses put it down on paper for us. Just to kind of give ourselves the context and remember that for all the scriptures,

2:39 all of this books that falls out of the sky, but it's a story that arrives in the context of community. So, our tradition understands that the first fall book of the scriptures, the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, that Moses wrote in the desert, while he and God were waiting for a generation that was obstinate and didn't want the gift of the promise from him waiting for them to die.

3:09 Moses meets in the tent of meeting with God on a regular basis and gets a lot of information from him. Moses uniquely is described as a man who spoke with God as a man, speaks to another man face to face. Remember that he would go into the tent of meeting, talk with God, and when he would come out, you have to wear a veil over his face, right? Because he had been in the presence of God, somehow the presence of God in the story of scripture

3:39 is always associated with light. There's just a light in the enemy off of the presence of God. So, the Shrikha'ana glory, the glory in the holy of holies has a presence, right? He creates light in the beginning. At the end, we won't leave the sun because Jesus Christ on the throne will be the light. So, Moses goes into the tent of meeting and he speaks with God as a man, just another man face to face. And when he leaves, he's still emanating in this light. It's like coming off of him because his skin has absorbed it or something.

4:11 I don't understand how he will still be reflecting the light of God when he leaves him, but he does. Enough that people can tell how long it's been since he was in the tent of meeting because it saved over time. And so, what you find is you leave the story of an accident closely is that Moses developed this pattern or habit of wearing a veil over his face because people trusted in more when he was glowing more and left when he was glowing less. And he didn't like that. So, he would put a veil in the face so they couldn't tell how much he was glowing from the presence of God in that, right?

4:43 And so, in those conversations with God, Moses gets not only the drawings from the town of the city, he's near the head of the city which modeled for us the temple and still has the process of connecting together. And the stream is kind of holding us to God. He gets to all of the tabernacles, but he also gets to begin the story of creation. And then he gets comprehensive stories and corroborated together with the stories of the people that are pastown,

5:13 but then he gets God's version and he pulls it together into the first five books of the Bible. God is the Texas Leviticus covers and to run. And I'll just get those in that desert. He's on me, is the last three, two years before he goes back and God buries into his own hands. Remember, the test that we have of these, you know, then Moses writes them down and who knows where to go, right? I mean, the people of Israel, when you read the story, are so kind of cavalier with things that when David becomes king,

5:51 they're not 100% sure where the art of the covenant is. That has the pen commandment to this era, staff at bud. It's with some good named Shiloh who's been kind of taking care of it, or Eli after I loathe, right? At one point, once after they built a temple, the side becomes king and he's cleaning out the temple and finds these old books. They have lost the copies of the Torah, the people of Israel. They've still got the temple, but they have all these different forms of worth of being in the temple,

6:25 a pyrical, an empathetic, and they did not remember or know the books of the Torah. The side of the Torah is without, and starts reading and has a great revival of the worship of God in the kingdom of Israel. They are very cavalier with the text. And the original Hebrew is tricky to read because it's just these symbols all lined up next together without any vowels, all the consonant sounds, and you're supposed to in reading know how to drop the vowels from one's end.

6:55 I'm telling you this to say that this story of Genesis has gone through some stuff to get to you. Your copy of the scriptures most likely is an English translation of what we call the Masulex text. It's a Hebrew text that the oldest version actual physical copy we have dates to the 10th or 11th century. It comes out of a group of Israelites called the Masulees that not only preserved the tradition of the text by copying it by hand,

7:28 but also took those vowels down and made them into little dots and lines above the consonant sounds because they didn't want people to forget how to fix the vowels in with the consonants. That tradition is the closest to the Israelite tradition meaning it exists unbroken hand-coffing from hand-coffies even though the oldest that we have between the 10th or 11th century. Their age group will all the copy of the Old Testament from the second or third century, but it's a Greek translation of the Hebrew.

8:03 It's called the Septuagint. Usually we use the Masulex text. So what you have is the Masulex text translated into English, dating to the 10th century from this Israelite community that goes back. Of course, we almost lost that several times, right? The Christian community in the Roman Empire at pain of death preserves the text. The Christian under- Persecution burned the tolantic coast at dinner parties for empires with the spurring overtests to do them rather be killed themselves.

8:39 Text will be preserved by being put underground into persecution communities. And then it's preserved by monks in the rest of us and then finally in printing presents and then digital and get to you. It's some kind of miracle. There are discrepancies among some copies, but nothing essential.

9:11 And not enough where it would would you expect there to be much more confusion about the text given what it's been through. But there is a wide, very wide, not unanimous, but very wide agreement on the Tmanazoretic text as being the ones that made it through the desert. Penn by Moses. So that when you open your Bible where they're based off delivered to you or you got it at some store and you turn to the front of the door.

9:52 Turn to the first page and you read in the beginning. You are reading some ancient stuff. It's incredibly relatable and beautiful for being so old. Like I tried to read, it's older than the Iliad and the Iliad is not fun to read translated into English.

10:25 The Odyssey is kind of interesting, but Democrats read way easier than the Odyssey. And it's older than that. I don't know if you've ever tried to read the eponocrods or the Babbabah data. This stuff is written by people in a Lisa's Gennie States. That's not a dead rich on the Dzmuchen stuff. That's not a Gati Ponschow, the ancient test of the Hindus. This thing that we have is unique among texts.

10:57 It's no wonder that even non-believers, even people don't follow the way of Jesus will use an historical marker because it is unique, unique and preserved by a community of people unbroken all the way back to Moses. It is in some kind of miracle that you have what you have that you can turn to the fold and read in the beginning.

11:30 Remember, then the context of Moses is the first of the Israelites. We'll get to some of the drawings of the first Israelites, but just for understanding the context when it's written, Moses is not the first of Israelites. He's several genocities, several hundred years, hundreds of years past the first of the Israelites. But Donald Denk of the miraculous in the life of Moses, he has rescued Israel from the greatest military power of the day,

12:08 decimated their army, split the Red Sea, walked into Sinai, and sat on board to give you some of the prime land in the region. I'm going to make you a group of slaves into a nation. I just agree, you several million descendants of Abraham will be my people, Albin, your God. And they go through some rocky stuff, which is why they're in the desert waiting for a veneration to die, but in one world the response is, okay, cool, what sort of God are you?

12:42 What do you want from him? Moses, while we're waiting for the tenor instance to die, let's get the story straight. At a beginning. And so the God of Abraham has a big help. The God of Moses and Israel says, in the beginning, that's me, and I'll make all things.

13:14 He doesn't start by saying, hey, you want to know what kind of God I am, but do you need some crops? Do you need some food? I'm the God for the food. He doesn't say that. You want to know what kind of God I am? Do you need some kids? Got a fertility. I bring kids. He doesn't say, you want to know what kind of God I am? You see the stars, you need to know how to get to where you're going? All this stuff, man. Walk by the charts and I'll tell you how to get to where you're going.

13:46 No, this God, Abraham, I did these big ups. He got a motive to this year, since you want to know what kind of God I am, I made it all. It's not a claim that every God makes. The God of Abraham, I did this big ups. He got a Moses and Israel says, in the beginning, was me and is nothing good. He says, out of nothing, I call earth into existence. I call life from...

14:21 We could talk about all the seven days and the majesty of the things he creates. I've said it before, but it's worth saying again, the very first thing he says is what there will be like, and light exists, and we still can't figure out what light is. Is it a wave? Is it a particle? It doesn't need matter to move. It'll travel across the vacuum of space infinitely, but it will also move to matter, and you can filter it in different ways.

14:52 You can bend it and open up. There's different ways inside of it, but then it offers a particle too. We can't figure out what it is. It's the very first thing. You know what? Let's start here. Light. Then I was talking to the kids about animals. Some of the animals... Some of the animals... stuff is fascinating. One of the things I like is why do lizards get to grow their tails back?

15:23 I don't know. I think it was a fun idea. Why do some animals have a skeleton on the outside? I don't know. They fed it and they grow a new one. One of my favorite things, I love that trees grow up. They grow up to the sky, and their leaves come out. I love that. And that's a pine tree that's different from the lava. It's different from the palm tree. You see?

15:53 One of the things that I like that I read years ago was that male lions have a little tuft of hair on the end of their tail. Right? They're the only giant cats that have that, and they can't find a purpose for it. Other than when they observe male lions, they play with the tongues with a little tuft of tail. The hair on the end of their tail, they pop it down, and it comes chasing. I mean, some really good ideas here.

16:23 The other one is the way that when they study the way water works, how it spins together and runs into droplets and finds the lowest area. And it's different from the way air operates. You guys? So, God has some really good ideas when he creates, right?

16:54 So, this is unique characteristic of the God of Abraham. I was going to check up the God of Moses and Israel. Clearly strong ideas. Why is it so hard for us to just believe? In the desert, cool. You could be God. We'll be people with sort of God. Are you all in the beginning? I may go. But you need sort of made it all, right? That's crazy.

17:28 Really, there's, we can come up with, really, we have watched the many things working, most things evolve. So, when you say you made it, what you mean is you oversaw long periods of evolving animals. They happened into the cattle. Why is it so hard to just believe evolution relies on natural selection?

18:00 Like, evolution means that less desirable characteristics and traits die faster than more desirable characteristics and traits. And so then the ones that provide longer reproduce more and evolve into something different. If we were all going to evolve from one single cell organism, death would have to be a part of the story from the very beginning. And it's now just in the growth of the free myth of life.

18:30 So, for me, it's easier to say God made the world perhaps since he made it, it's been evolving. It's probably since he made it, it's been evolving. But he gave us a start to a certain place. The other one that's interesting is that story of the bang. Anybody that wrote Guardians of the Galaxy yet? Guardians of the Galaxy is an amazing experience if you are into those types of experiences.

19:04 Fantastic. But it's all about the talk about energy and the beginning and the big bang. I was going to pull up into this thing and write the law of thermal dynamics that everything is expanding, expanding, expanding. And at some point we don't know when it will stop expanding and it will come back. And then it'll come so tight all the matter in the universe and the people will explode again.

19:35 And this idea, the big bang is closer to the notion of Eastern religions, some sorrow where the world has no beginning and no end. It always has been and it always will be. And we are a karmic force going through one season of existence into another. And again, which Eastern religion you have, there may be an essential you there may not. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Moses and Israel since there is a final beginning and the beginning starts with God.

20:09 Before that there is nothing. After that it's everything. And it springs from the mind of the God of Jesus. He said, you want to know what kind of God I am? Do you want to know in the desert and get ready to be my people? I am a creative God. I am a mountain and speak universes into existence. Right? I feel like I get that like our best science that's creation is not realistic.

20:45 For me, our best science has said lots of things about lots of things. All the while my people have said from this text, look God made it. So I don't have a problem being ignorant in the eyes of scholars there.

21:15 When it comes down to it, I'll pick the story of my people that has propelled us from one generation to the next for thousands of years over the particular stance of the day. I just will, I'm okay being wrong with the science and right with my people. I belong to the people of God not to, I don't know if they have an association or whatever the scientists are.

21:51 I don't belong to them, I belong to the people of God. And the people of God say God made the world out of his own imagination. All of it. Right? So if we're wanting to know who this God is, we're wandering around the desert, we get the invitation to be the people of God in the world. First thing we need to know, this God is creative. It makes sense.

22:21 Right? And then, easily, if God makes things, then he gives things. Holy smokes. So, it's Moses in the tent and meeting somewhere. And in the beginning, the place was formless and void.

22:51 And into the void, covering over the deep is my spirit. My word goes out. Let there be light. I know no one ever saw it before, and then it exists. And then we separate the left or right from the greater night. We pull back the waters, we expose the land, we bring up the shrubs, we get the beef from the water, and the things in the air, and then we bring humanity in, and we set them in the garden.

23:22 Set them in the garden, and then we say, let's apply some duet, roll over it. I image out into space. But there again, it doesn't stay old. It doesn't say that Wami, God gives the garden,

23:53 so the first one, just says that he does. I don't know what that experience is like, how like, convulsant they are, that they didn't exist one moment, and then the next moment they do. I've been thinking about how, collectively, we recognize our position in the world. Like how, you know, humans have a recognition from the time we're young that we will die,

24:30 and yet we still have a capacity to live. What's interesting, that we know death is coming, and we can live as though it's not. Equally interesting, we know we didn't always exist, but we can live as though what the reports didn't matter. What matters now, I'll am here, and take up the whole space. Last week I was mentioning how God, the Father, sends God the Son, leverages his will in tents and presents

25:04 in order to get us the hope of resurrection. They drive us so much, so much work and effort in order to get us hope, you think he could have gotten a certainty. He could have gotten us some kind of voucher or something that says that your resurrection is secure, that all he could do, he leverages his will, his tent, and his thumb. Death, resurrection, and ascension in order to get us a little bit of hope. And what I thought when I read that in first two or one was,

25:36 you must be in much more peril than you realize on any given moment. It must be much harder to get to you. Your situation must be much more peril if the path of the universe can leverage his will and his thumb just to get you a little hope. It must be awfully hard to believe that he is the God of the universe that you are going somewhere.

26:06 When he makes the first ones, I wonder if they have a realization that what he just gave them. Here, a minute ago, you did not exist, and now I formed you another death and breathed into your life the primordial spirit of life, and I gave you the garden. In theory, the feeling is true for you. There was a time when you did not exist, and at just the right time, according to his poor knowledge and will, in the womb of a woman, the God of the universe,

26:43 it pulls you together, and at just the right time in those nine months, breathes the breath of life into you, and it's a change. There was a moment you did not exist, and before the parable and the will of God, he called you into the world and gives you a free gift of life. Now, once as the first ones formed without a place, breathed the breath of life, popped some up into the garden, and said, here, this is yours. Just as he did for them, he had done for you.

27:14 He created you of his own free will and volition for no other reason than he wanted to. And not only creates you, but give you a life to live. Thank you. You and I, look, you're not required to believe that God created the world, but you can. I wouldn't you.

27:46 A world that God made is better than one that can buy accident. And if there is a God who made the world, there might also be a God who made you. And if there is a God who made you, then the one who promises, surely I will be with you always to the very end of the age, has the capacity and the power to come through on those promises.

28:20 It means you may have a provision on protection forever, come what may, the one who imagined life, commit to stay by your side through it all, against in life death, resurrection, eternity. He is important for us that our God made the world.

28:54 I mean, look, I'm not mad about evolution, but other terms people use for trying to make the story of creation, some sort of scientific document that dates the earth and lives of the world. And if the earth and merge with the science to, I'm not mad about it. I think it's silly. Not particularly helpful. And this is the point. Point is our people for thousands of years.

29:30 Held to the truth that who our God is, is the beginning of all things. And through every nation and state and rule and culture, this truth has preserved our people and protected our faith and given credence to the promises of Jesus. So that when all from faith sends nothing can separate you either heighten our depths or anything at all creation separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, we know what we speak.

30:17 One who made it protects you. So for the stories of Genesis, we're going to get into this like, it gets to this nature of what does it mean to believe? And in what ways are we different from the world? What does it mean to be a member of Israel, the people of God in the world? First is Israel, the people of God understand that God made the world. And to enforce that. Because he made the world, he also made me.

30:49 And believing that he made me gives me the capacity to vote for the future. Right. Thank you for your commitment to us and your creativity and display. Give us the capacity to be. For creative work and all that. We pray.