Today is part two of an ongoing sermon series. The last time I was here we did
part one. The series is titled
From the Beginning to the End. And so the last time I was here we looked at
Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1
and we saw how in the beginning God, God was there. God predates
the beginning. The beginning begins because God willed it.
God did not need a beginning. God started
the beginnings. We didn't even bother trying to explain how we know that God
was there because
Moses didn't even bother that. He just said in the beginning
God, God was there. Then we looked at how God is the creator and the sustainer of
all things, that He created the heavens and the earth. And we
we noticed that that was the beginning for basically
mankind's history, humanity's history,
not the history of God or even the history of the farthest reaches of the
universe, but
that what pertains or that which pertains to
mankind. That's the beginning, the heavens and the earth. We also looked at a
little bit of the Hebrew
function of the words, the etymology of the words, and how
God's plurality in Genesis 1-1
shouldn't be construed to mean something about the Trinity,
but it is talking about God and His grandness,
His might, His power, because we're talking about a God
who can bara, create, and only the mightiest,
grandest, biggest God can do
that because only that word is credited to Him.
Men and women cannot bara,
only God can. So using the Hebrew
plural is a comment on
His grandness, His majesty
in the formation of all that we know.
Today we're going to look at what comes
after Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1,
Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2,
because we're going to follow through with this from the beginning to the end,
and I almost forgot the to the end part is
when we read Genesis 1-1 and we see that there is a grand mighty God who can
create and not just create but can create heavens and earth,
you need that when you need a recreated heart.
You need a God that big because some of us are
that bad and only He can make us anew.
We need that, and that is
from your beginning all the way until the end. Remember the work that He
began in you, He will
complete, He will finish, and we need a God like that.
We are now going to turn to Genesis 1-2, you can go ahead and open your
Bibles to that.
Shouldn't be hard to find, it's the first book,
the first chapter, the second verse in our Bibles,
and actually, I know I brought this up here for a reason,
I'm going to hold my Bible open, Bible closes on me.
We begin though by talking not about
God and
and not really about creation, we begin by talking about
the elites in our world or the elitists
in our world. We begin by talking about the World Economic Forum.
The World Economic Forum has apparently been around for quite some time but only in
recent years
have they actually been making more headline kind of news. They've even
started live streaming all of their
meetings. In case you don't know what the World Economic Forum is, the WEF,
the WEF is comprised of the creme
de la creme of the elites in our
world. We're talking about elected officials,
heads of states, billionaires,
multimillionaires, CEOs of international corporations, we're talking about
the movers and the shakers of those who move and shake.
As high up that ladder in terms of the global
ladder you can think of, that's where we find the World Economic Forum
and businessmen and businesswomen and
activists that are highly influential, that's where we find them. It's really
only a tiny, tiny group when you think about the billions of people that they
represent
or that they have an influence over or that they claim to have authority over.
So you really should kind of pay attention, I don't suggest getting
lost in the weeds of it all, but you should kinda know what they talk about
because a lot of what they talk about does come down and impact us
on a real, real day-to-day basis.
The first time that I really kind of looked into this
or started paying attention was in 2020 in the midst of the COVID epidemic.
The founder, the head of the World Economic Forum, Charles Schwab, at that
time
talked about the COVID epidemic not as
how sad it is that people are sick and dying,
how sad it is that we're kind of making or muddling our way through a novel
virus and
he didn't even talk about let's hold some people accountable for how it
happened
or what's going on, why should we do this. Instead Charles Schwab said this,
speaking about the epidemic, there is now a brief
opportunity for global leaders to cooperate to achieve
a great reset. That was the first time we heard that
phrase used. This is a step forward to a more resilient, cohesive,
equitable, and prosperous world. In other words,
don't let a good crisis go to waste.
There's now an opportunity to take advantage of
not it's very sad and tragic that people are dying.
How can we help them? It was let's take advantage of it.
He continued, he said this at the G20 summit in that year,
if we look at all the challenges we can speak about the multi-crisis
economic, political, social, ecological, and institutional crises,
but actually what we have to confront is a deep systemic and structural
restructuring of our world. And this will take some time and the world will look
differently after we have gone through
this transition process. When you talk about deep systemic
crises and a complete global restructuring of things,
I might summarize that as this is a man who's looking at
an opportunity to take advantage of recreating the world after
his ideology. That's how I might summarize it.
Others may disagree with me, but that that's kind of what I hear here.
And at that summit he concluded with this, we have continuous partnerships with
many governments around the world.
Then of course we have NGOs, we have trade unions, we have all those different parts,
of course media,
and very important experts, scientists, and academia.
Religious leaders and social entrepreneurs.
This is not just big government telling
people what to do. There is a spiritual component to this because there are
religious leaders
involved in these conversations. And we shouldn't
we shouldn't think or or confuse ourselves or be
naive enough to think that all the global religious leaders are all on
the same page about all of the various religious moral things
we consider. So maybe
we should take note. This year,
only a couple of weeks ago in January of 2023, I believe two weeks ago, they had
their
their big summit and he started, Charles Schwab, started off that summit by
declaring the year 2023 as the year of the poly crisis,
the multi crisis. It's the year of multiple crises.
That's what 2023 should be defined as or known as.
And he says this, we couldn't meet at a more challenging
time, Schwab declared. We are confronted with so many crises
simultaneously. What does it
I don't want to say that just yet, I'm going to get ahead of myself.
What crises come to mind?
Is it fair to say that there is a financial crisis
if not already present, it's right on the horizon.
An easy example for me
is the cost of groceries. I think the official number is somewhere around 8 to
10 percent, but I know our grocery bill has not gone up only by 8 or 10 percent.
Eggs, in case you haven't heard it,
eggs are now one of the fastest growing black
market imports illegally being smuggled into our country
because of how much they're worth in our country.
It's incredible. When border patrol
is just seizing eggs by the crate loads,
it makes me pause and wonder
if this is a crisis. We can think of the natural disasters we've had.
Tornado Alley, when I was a child, was that north half of Texas and
Oklahoma and into Iowa and then Arkansas, that was kind of Tornado Alley.
They're now proposing a new revamped Tornado Alley that's more
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, kind of
right along the south now because the weather has shifted.
A lot of people are talking about it and it's true, weather has kind of
shifted a little.
We know that there are earthquakes, we know that there are floods, we know that
there are droughts, so you could say that there are
natural crises that are occurring. We've got
new viruses obviously and some are just
antibacterial resistant strains because
everyone's taking antibacterials. So these
viruses and these bacteria do what they do, they mutate to live.
So they become more and more resistant. We have
I guess global strife with war. Have we heard of Russia and Ukraine?
Have we heard of North Korea? Have we heard of China growing in aggression or
what has happened in Afghanistan with how the Taliban is all of a sudden
coming? Those are all crises if we think about it. There's loss of life and
loss of
buildings and
livelihoods and the threat seems to always be there.
So maybe it's fair to say that we're on a verge
of a polycrisis. But this is where
we need to look and we're going to swing this into our verse.
When we think about multiple crises and people are very confused and people are
very stressed and people are
losing hope and people are doing all of that, I might use the word
chaos to describe what we find ourselves in.
Does that sound like a fair word
to just kind of label across what we are confronted with?
It's a little chaotic out there. We now have
riots in Memphis because of more body cam footage.
It's very sad but we have more riots.
It feels like every time we turn around there's chaos
and anarchy and people cheering on the chaos.
But when this man is looking at the crises,
fair enough, and he's perhaps considering it chaotic,
also fair enough, what does this man say next? He goes, we are confronted with so
many crises simultaneously.
What does it need or what do we need
to master the future? I want to pause for a moment.
What do we need to master the future?
I think to have a platform where all stakeholders of global society are
engaged, governments, business, civil society, the young generation, I could go
on,
I think is a first step to meet all
the challenges. When
you are faced with something chaotic,
how many of us have thought that we could take the chaos
and fix it so then the future we could have mastered?
How many of us are tempted to do that?
Sure, sure. I like to be in control of my future.
I like to kind of know where I'm going. I certainly don't like the chaos and the
questions and the uncertainty.
But can we, when we look at
chaos, when we look at all of that, can we actually
declare that we will bend all of our
efforts and make others bend their efforts so that we can control the
future?
How successful is that endeavor?
We can't. I can't control the future any more than to guarantee that I'm going to
go from here
to home without an accident.
And that's only, I can drive as safely as I can. I can obey all the
road rules.
I can't control the future. I can't control
when I might die. I pray I'm going to be here when Christ splits that eastern sky.
But maybe that's not according to God's will. I can't control that.
When I face chaos, what do I do and how should I respond?
Well, I would like to learn of God and how he responds when he faces chaos.
We're going to turn to Genesis 1
and verse 2.
The Word of God reads this,
We go from the previous verse where God created the heavens and the earth and then
the second verse we get a few more details to what the heavens and the earth
would have been
in the beginning. And in the beginning, things were there.
Matter was present because
it says that the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters. It says that the earth
was without
form and it was void. But for it to be
void and without form meant that it was there but
formless. It was kind of empty and
there.
It was dark. It didn't have any logic.
It didn't have any order to it. It was chaotic.
I read that and I think about the times in my life
when I couldn't recognize
form. I kind of felt like I was just moving along.
I might have been going through the motions but perhaps there was a little
bit of
guesswork involved.
I think sometimes people feel like that. They just feel like
time is passing but I don't really have a purpose in my life.
I don't really have a structure in my life. I'm getting
older and I can see other people doing things but that's not me.
I'm lost or
questioning or wondering
or what is the purpose to life at all if I don't have a purpose.
And then if you linger too long on that
maybe you start to feel a little more void.
You feel a little empty. You feel like there's a hole
and a depth to you that you want to fill.
That you long to find that purpose or you long to find that someone or
that something
that can give you what you're so desperately needing in your chaotic
feelings.
And if you can't find it and you linger too long there so many people
start to feel void.
I think that's relatable.
I want to consider a moment the words for this. Without form and void
is really only used a couple of times in the Old Testament.
It's used here in terms of
what the earth was before God considered it
and willed upon it. Empty
and no shape and no logic and no purpose and
darkness was there. And then we see it again as a part
of the blessings and the cursings when God is talking to
His children Israel and the prophets are giving them messages and they're saying
if you're not
living according to my purpose for you, my will for you
then your land will become
a wasteland because you see what we see what God is doing here is he's looking
at
the nothingness and in his
infinite considerations he's going I'm about to prepare a place for my
people.
He was already thinking of you and I and Adam and Eve as
he's hovering over all of that. He's seeing the darkness and he's seeing the
lack of purpose and he's seeing the
the voidnesses that are there and he's
in his considerations he's about to prepare a land
ultimately for his crowning creation
mankind. Similar language is used for the promised land with
Israel similar language is used when Jesus says I go to prepare a place for
you.
He's preparing land and a place to live
and a home for his people but then the warning for Israel
is if you don't live next to me and honor me as your Creator God
then your land will become a wasteland. That wasteland word in that warning
given
that's the shared words that we find here that wasteland means
if you're not connected to me this land I prepared for you
reverts back to void
no purpose empty
it returns back to without form
and void it returns back to chaos
when you're not connected to me.
Yeah the Greek translation for this and we're about to move
we're about to move off of this the Greek translation for the face of the deep
that's Abusos
that's that's the same word in Revelation when
Satan is bound and chained for a thousand years
in the abyss in the Abusos same word
what God shaped and created here when we get all the way to the end of time in
the end of the biblical accounts and right before Christ comes back
we can see alright this is what happens when a sinful world has wandered after
a counterfeit God
distance themselves from me the giver and sustainer of life
it uncreates itself we've got plagues
and we've got earthquakes and we've got hailstones and we've got sin running
rampant
and people with murderous intent and everything else going on
and and then Jesus returns and the elements melt with fervent heat and
so on and the result is that the earth
as best we understand it finds itself closer to
this state without form and void and it's just deep
and just kinda broken and there
in other words if you have found yourself without a purpose or a form in
your life if you have wondered
too long on that and you have found a voidness there
it's good to ask the question have we shifted away from our
creator God have we neglected to stay close to him in that relationship
because he's prepared a home for us he's prepared us for him
and if we find ourselves looking a little bit more like the early earth
have we
gotten away from him and tried to fill our
voids with something else or someone
else than him in other words
is your life feeling chaotic
and could it have something to do
with your relationship to God we find so much chaos in our world today we find
so many people wanting
desperately to get rid of God out of all the conversations
and the net result everywhere has been
immorality in decency in
unloving and unkind spirit narcissism and pride
in an exponential growth and a loss of hope
a loss of need to be alive a loss
a loss of purpose in the life that we are living
when we get God out of the equation
our society is without form and void
and darkness is over the face of our abusos that we find ourselves in
we need God my friends
but God
one of the greatest two words you can combine when considering your spiritual
experience and your spiritual walk in your discipleship journey
is when you're feeling like this there's always that
opportunity for but God but God at the end of this verse the Spirit of God was
hovering over the face of the waters you see
that chaos was not going on and God was oblivious to it
the chaos the the darkness the without for all of that was there
it existed the matter was present because God at some point
in the beginning before the beginning whenever
whenever in that timeline God thought matter should be here
we've got a canvas now and chaos is there
but God is drawing close to it God is inching ever closer so close that
it's it's described as hovering over and hovering upon and and and like leaning
in I can I can envision the Spirit of God doing that
I can envision I can envision the Spirit of God coming close to the chaos
not afraid of the darkness not afraid of the
the the the disturbance that is existing there God is not afraid of what our earth
was the condition of our earth at that time and God is certainly not afraid of
whatever condition you find yourself in today he draws close to you but God
draws close to you he hovers over you he looks at you and he considers your
chaos he considered the earth's chaos at this time in the beginning and the
Spirit of God is hovering near to all of his precious sons and daughters today
considering your chaos he's considering where you are in your life and he's
considering what trials you're going through he he looks at not just in our
frailty how are we reacting to something but he's he's reading our our innermost
thoughts and our feelings and our our intentions and our heart better than we
could ever understand even with a million hours of counseling get
counseling if you need it God knows us better than that he hovers close to us
in those moments of chaos and when God hovers close I trust God as the master
of the future capital M no man or woman in my estimation should declare
themselves the master of the future I trust God to be the master of my future
as he considers my chaos when he looks at me and he sees what I'm going through
the highs and the lows I trust that in his loving kindness in his infinite
grace he will pour out in me the purpose that I need he will pour out in me and
fill up that void that I might be experiencing he will pour out in me the
light from Jesus Christ so that I don't have a darkness over my face when God
considers my chaos he will then give me and fill me and bless me and equip me
with all that I need so that even if chaos continues it's not mine because I
am in Christ what do you picture as God hovers over the face of the waters do
you picture a helicopter parent that the term came up with the I believe the
millennial generation as they started to kind of have kids it was it was you know
they would they would hover over their children and then and really kind of to
the kids detriment not allow them to do risky things safely I think kids should
learn risky things safely because how else are they going to learn about
getting through the challenges in life but a helicopter parent hovers and
protects and bubble wraps and defends so much that the kids can't experience
disappointment or a sprained ankle or or mud between their fingers in other words
a helicopter parent protects them so much that the kids can't experience life
comes to mind when we see God hovering over the chaos does God does God stop
all the bad things from happening in our lives no he says in this world you will
have trials and tribulations not might not possibly could will don't be fooled
or deceived by the prosperity gospel that is a deception you don't give your
heart to God and from then golden sailing and perfect harmony you will
have trials and tribulations things things are rocky in our world are they
not so when God hovers over your chaos what comes to mind
rescue salvation I think of I have two verses one as our scripture reading for
today and you can turn there if your fingers are still there this is from the
book of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy is Moses last sermon to the children of Israel
before they entered the promised land after giving this final sermon he then
alone only with God as his witness ascends a mountain sees the promised
land in vision looks at what the children are going to be experiencing
and even the Messiah and so on and then goes to sleep dies on that mountain with
God as only as the only excuse me the only witness but as Moses is bringing
his sermon to an end we have this Moses spoke the words of this song until they
were finished in the years of all the assembly of Israel this is Deuteronomy
32 give ear oh heavens and I will speak and let the earth hear the words of my
mouth and so on and then we get to verses 10 11 and 12 he that is God found
him that is Jacob and Jacob's allotted heritage that's the promised children the
children of Israel that's you and I adopted into the the bloodline of
Abraham if you will that's us God found you and I in a desert land in the
howling waste of the wilderness in chaos that wilderness word in chaos God
encircled you and I he cared for you and I and God kept you and I as the apple of
his eye he thinks very highly of us he looks on us with love and tenderness and
mercy and and and compassion and he encircles and then in 11 like an eagle
that stirs up its nest that flutters over its young spreading out its wings
catching them bearing them on its pinions or on its wings imagine a mother
eagle strong and majestic beautiful and the symbol of mightiness as it as they
soar on the winds but in her nest moving the sticks and the twigs and and
shaping the leaves and kind of softening it a little not for her sake but for her
young one's sake preparing that nest and and doting on the young the fluttering
over the young the fluttering is the exact word for hovering that the spirit
was doing on the earth's chaos exact word when the Holy Spirit is coming and
drawing close to the earth and looking at the chaos and looking at the void and
looking at the the formlessness of it all there is a loving tenderness in his
considerations about to prepare this nest for my young when God is hovering
close to you he is this mother eagle fluttering over his young hovering close
to shelter and to pick up the young catching them bearing them up spreading
out the wings like a like a shield from the darts of the enemy chasing off the
other birds or the snakes or the other animals that would seek to do harm and
if the baby birds need to be fed feeding the baby birds that's you and I
it's very tender and it's very compassionate when the the Lord
considers your chaos not like an iron rod but like a loving eagle this brings
to mind as as Jesus was entering Jerusalem for the last time and he looks
over the city Jerusalem Jerusalem right I'm paraphrasing but along there he goes
like a like a mother hen I will I tried to draw you under have we ever seen
those videos of a mama hen with a little chicks I get up underneath the feathers
and they're warm and protected and Jesus thought of that of Jerusalem his people
you and I Moses is saying that about God's people you and I and in verse 12
the Lord alone guided him no foreign God was with him we need God to draw close
to us we need to be found in whatever desert land we are living in or if we
have been brought out of it praise God for salvation and saving and redemption
but we're not done yet until Jesus comes back and sin is no more and the enemy of
souls is finally chained up in his abyss os we still need God to consider us in
our chaos we still need God to consider us in the world's chaos we still need
God to hover over us through the ministry of his Holy Spirit holding out
his wings and fluttering close and kind of drawing us into a prepared nest
lifting us up when we trip and we stumble we need a God who considers our
chaos we need a God who will guide us out of our wilderness and out of our
wasteland my friends when you are when you are looking at all the headlines
and you are looking at your own family experience and you're looking at your
own participation in church where it starts to feel chaotic or without form
and void pray that in those moments God draws even closer he helicopters a
little bit nearer and he full holds out his wings like a loving eagle like a
mother hen seeking to protect and feed and bless you my friends we need God to
consider us in our chaos and by faith we claim that he will do that not just
today but all the way to the end when Jesus comes to take us home let's pray
heavenly father we thank you again for your love we thank you that your love
and your your sacrifice your service on our behalf was embodied in Jesus for you
gave him to us Lord many of us face challenges some we share many are very
personal and very close but you know what we are going through you are not
distant from us you have not turned your back on us you have not started us in
your creation and then left us to fend for ourselves but you are involved and
interested in what we go through and you are sympathetic and empathetic in what
we experience heavenly father I pray today that you would be that God who
considers us that God who blesses us that God who fills us with what we need
that I pray that no foreign God would be found among us but that you as our
sovereign our creator our Lord and our Savior would be foremost in our lives
would be primary in our adoration that you would be who we seek after day by
day or we pray all of these things in Christ's precious name amen