Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast.
Today John Metter, lead pastor of Cross City Church, brings a message in the Origins series
that helps answer the five most important questions in life.
How you live today depends on how you answer these questions.
Here's John Metter with the teaching on the five questions.
I have to tell you I'm loving our Origins series, love the book of Genesis.
If you have your Bibles go ahead and open them up to the very first book of the Bible,
Genesis, the very first chapter of the Bible, chapter one.
We're going to be looking at verses nine through 13 today.
The title of the message is very simply Day Three.
We've been walking through the book of Genesis one day at a time.
We began with an overview in Genesis chapter one verses one and two.
We looked at the first day after that.
We looked last week at the second day.
Today is Day Three.
I absolutely love the fact that God goes before us to lay foundations and answer questions
that are the most important questions in life long before we ever get to the place of asking
the questions.
He goes before us.
He prepares the world.
He provides for us in every way.
If I read the book of Genesis and look at it from the perspective of God laying down
the foundations of the world and God laying down the foundations for life for you and
I, I find all kinds of principles.
We all need foundations, don't we?
We all know the importance of foundation.
Maybe one of the most famous structures ever built as it pertains to foundations is the
Leaning Tower of Pisa.
How many of you know about the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
You should have heard about that long, long ago.
It was built in the 1100 era in the middle of Italy.
The Tuscany region is a building that began leaning shortly after it was built.
Now it leans 17 feet from where it should be at the top from where it is today.
It's leaning 17 feet over.
Over the years, different people have tried to identify why is it leaning and why is it
such a problem.
One particular answer to that might be that the name Pisa is actually named for the soil
that is beneath this building and Pisa in the Italian language means marshy ground.
Doesn't sound like a promising place to build a structure like that, but they built it on
marshy ground.
Since that time, many builders and construction experts have come back and counterbalanced
the building and they've poured different kinds of foundation around it, tried to hold
it up to keep it from falling, but it stands as an illustration that if you build a building
on a faulty foundation, it will not stand true.
That's true of life.
Today people are building on foundations that won't hold up.
Foundations that are not the original foundations, man-made foundations, man-made truths that
are not holding up in their lives and they're confused and they're angry and they don't
know where to turn, but God has always given us the foundations we need for life.
Please stand with me as we read this text today, Genesis chapter 1 verse 9, as we look
at the foundations that God has given us and the important question that he's asking us,
questions such as who is God and what is truth?
What was I created to be?
Who are my people?
Do I pursue healthy relationships or what is my purpose?
What's the meaning of life?
All these questions are answered in the Bible and today people are looking everywhere for
these answers when they're all right here.
Genesis chapter 1 beginning in verse 9 all the way through verse 13 has God creating
on this third day.
Verse 9 says, then God said, let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place
and let the dry land appear and it was so.
God called the dry land earth and the gathering of the waters he called seas and God saw that
it was good.
Then God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees on the
earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them and it was so.
The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind and trees bearing
fruit with seed in them after their kind and God saw that it was good.
There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
Father, I pray today that you'll use this text in our lives.
All to mind the things that we need to be reminded of to live life, to build on the
foundations you've given us and we thank you for giving us your truth and we ask this in
Jesus name.
Amen.
Please be seated if you would.
Well, one reason I've loved this series is because as we walk through the first few verses
of Genesis, we learn so much about God, so much.
For example, we can answer the question, who is God?
In Genesis 1, 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Now that verse is a verse we all know by memory, but what we sometimes don't think about is
the theology behind that.
It answers the question, who is God?
God is eternal because in the beginning, God was already there.
We learned that God is one, the word Elohim in the Hebrew language describes one God and
three persons, God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
That's why later on in Genesis 1, when the Spirit is hovering over the face of the water,
we know who that is, that's God.
But it also says that God is all-powerful.
If God can speak and all creation comes into existence, what does that say about the power
of God?
Can you do that?
Can I do that?
Can anyone do that on the planet?
And the answer is no, only God can do that.
He is all-powerful.
I don't know about you, but that brings me great reassurance.
So on day one, he created the elements of our world and gave it the first form, the
first word that God has given us recorded in scripture is in these first few verses.
And we know from all the Bible, all the scripture that the earth was first formed with a watery
sphere as a watery sphere.
And we found a YouTube video that showed us this watery sphere created in a scientific
lab and I want to show it to you again because I want you to see the likeness of it and what
we see today is the earth.
This is a watery sphere created in microgravity and as it spins, you'll notice that it has
a core of bubbles in the middle of light with two poles on either side.
If you look at a modern picture of the planet earth taken from space, it looks very similar.
A watery planet that is rotating, it has poles and also has land that has appeared.
Of course, we read about that in just a few moments, but it looks very similar to what
the Bible describes God's creation as being in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1.
It sounds similar because it is the same.
The earth we look at now is the same earth that God created all these thousands of years
ago.
It's helpful for us to be reminded of what that might have looked like.
Now you've seen that earth from a distance a million times, but every time you see it,
you ought to be reminded of the similarities from Genesis chapter 1 to what it is today.
Earth on day 1 when God created the heavens and the earth on day 2, God separated the
waters from above and from the waters below and he demonstrated through that that he is
the God of power and the God of order.
He speaks and everything happens the way he says it happens.
Now as you look at that first diagram, you also need to remember there's a second diagram
that I told you about in the past and that diagram, that video shows a watery sphere
again that is rotating, but it not only shows that watery sphere, but it shows what happens
to that watery sphere when the land masses are beginning to be created.
I'll show you that in just a moment.
The day 2 God created the waters separated from the heavens above and the waters below
and on day 3 God introduces us to some principles that help us see his design and his plan and
his focus.
Really when you walk away today, I want you to know something about God's design, God's
focus.
I want you to know something about his plan for your life.
So first of all we dive into this with the plan or the principle of separation.
Verse 9 says, God said let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place and
let the dry land appear.
That's a pretty simple description there because what's happened with God speaking that is
he collected and bound together the waters and separated them from the land that he made
to appear.
Remember in Genesis 1, 1 it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and
the earth was formless and void and darkness hovered over the face of the deep.
So this watery sphere took place, but here in verse 9 it says that God allowed the rest
of this to appear and the water began separated from the land.
Now I love when I read later in my Bible additional commentary on the creation event itself.
One of those would be Solomon.
You think about Solomon, you think about the wisest man in all the world, right?
And yet Solomon didn't get knowledge from his schooling or his education.
God gave him that wisdom.
God gave him that knowledge.
When Solomon writes about the creation event in Proverbs chapter 8 he says some remarkable
things.
I want you to look at this text with me.
Proverbs chapter 8 beginning in verse 22.
When he's personifying wisdom and describing how God's wisdom worked to create the heavens
and the earth.
It says this, the Lord possessed me, that is wisdom, at the beginning of his way before
his works of old.
From everlasting I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the
earth.
Where there were no depths I was brought forth, where there was no springs abounding with
water before the mountains were settled, before the hills I was brought forth.
While he had not yet made the earth and the fields, nor the first dust of the world, when
he established the heavens I was there.
Notice the next line, when he inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, when he made
firm the skies above.
That's Genesis chapter 1 verse 5 and 6 and 7.
And when the springs of the deep became fixed, when he set for the sea its boundary, that's
our text today, so that the water would not transgress his command.
When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him as a master workman
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the world, his earth,
and having my delight in the sons of men.
Solomon is giving a very strong specific description of the wisdom that God possesses.
It's descriptive to help us be able to trust how God's wisdom brought the earth into existence.
The wisest man in all the world helps us have that creation story in more detail.
And then on this third day, as we look at Genesis chapter 1, the land begins to appear.
I'm going to put that other video on the screen now.
The same watery sphere that's operating in microgravity was injected with tea leaves,
and as soon as it was, not only did the bubbly core in the middle remain intact, but the
tea leaves moved to the outer circumference of that watery sphere.
Very similar to what we read about in Genesis chapter 1 in the passage we read today, God
made the dry land appear.
Now when God made the dry land appear, he separated the waters from the dry land, and
that's significant because the key to this particular principle is separation and distinction.
By bringing orders and boundaries to the earth, God brought distinctions and protections to
the earth.
Day one, he separated the evening and the morning.
You remember reading about that?
Day two, he separated the waters above from the waters below.
On day three, he separates the waters from the land, and everything we have today in
the way of water is built upon this command.
We have seas and rivers and lakes.
Everything is separated.
Everything has a distinct purpose and is unique in how it's created to serve the rest of creation
until Christ returns.
Everything that God created has incredible messages behind it and incredible insights
for us to live by.
Let me give you an example of that.
Matthew Mori was a guy who lived in the 19th century.
He was a scientific thinker living years ago.
He was a Bible believer, and when he read Psalm 8, 8, which was written by King David
more than 3,000 years ago, he saw this line, whatever passes along the path of the seas.
So taking scriptural literally, he set out to find the path of the seas.
He knew the sea had current, and he began to study how the sea currents, how the river
passageways was important to life.
Because of his work, modern sciences of hydrography and oceanography would begin.
He later on was called the Pathfinders of the Sea, and Psalm 8, and that description,
Pathfinder of the Sea, is on his tombstone.
Can't am assemble that kind of information.
Today modern ships and modern science form theories based on the original path of the
seas that God put in place at creation.
Let me show you a map of sea currents.
That map was written in 1887 based on the studies of this man that I've just described.
And for all these centuries now, we've looked back at how these paths that God is shipping
and boating, how we maneuver the seas, all because God separated the land from the waters
and created these kinds of currents.
By the way, the separation of land and water gives us space on which to live and grow things.
Currents guide us in shipping and boating and sailing.
Separation between the waters below and the expanse above give us the space and sky that
God needed to later on create all the constellations in the solar system.
And we look at all these things, not only the currents that are in the ocean, but the
laws of gravity that God created.
Everything else, and we decide not to change it because it's too massive, it's too powerful,
and no one would think of trying to change it.
We just go with it.
We just cooperate with it.
We depend on it.
We rely on it.
We don't mess with God's design because we don't want to mess with the perfect design
that God gave us.
We don't doubt the natural laws He gave us.
And in the same way, should we not also take Him at His word when it comes to every other
principle He gives us?
I mean, if God can be trusted to put the heavens and the earth where they are, if He can be
trusted with the currents of the seas to draw the boundaries between the dry land and the
ocean, cannot God be trusted with all the commands He gives for your life, all the principles
He asks you to abide by and won't by?
I look at our earth and how old it is and how long it's been around and how well ordered
and how well coordinated the solar system is, and I think if that God's going to advise
me about anything in my life, I'm going to take Him for His word.
Because who am I to dispute that?
And what is my knowledge compared to His?
What is anyone's knowledge, even all of our accumulated knowledge, compared to the God
who created this earth in the way that He did?
So let me ask you, if God's wisdom is adequate to design and create our planet and universe,
is it somehow not adequate for your life?
The truth is, we need to take moments and ask ourselves, why would I not seek His wisdom?
Why would I want to contradict His commands?
Why would I not have His confidence for His future in my life, for relationships, for
marriage, for whatever else it is?
And I need to ask you today, do you have a solid foundation that you're building on that
God gave us from the very beginning, or are you on a shaky foundation and leaning like
that tower we talked about?
The principle of separation, but we also see here the principle of multiplication in verse
11, it says that God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit
trees on the earth, bearing fruit after their own kind, with seed in them, and it was so.
Now you need to pause for just a moment and think about all the vegetation that God has
placed on the planet.
This principle shows us God's plan for populating the earth, whether it's the vegetation or
the fruit that came out of those fruit trees that we read about here, the principle for
populating the earth with animals or birds or fish or human beings.
For just a moment, can you imagine what the earth looked like at that moment?
Because at that moment, the waters were separated from the land and God spoke and vegetation
came into being.
Fruit trees and other kinds of trees, all kinds of green grasses.
Years ago I was on a trip to northern Brazil where I went into the Amazon basin and saw
my very first rainforest.
If you've ever been to that area of the world or if you've ever seen pictures of that area
of the world, it's quite remarkable.
The Amazon rainforest is amazing.
And photo after photo, if you were to Google it, you would see God's creative work in just
speaking this word.
The immensity of it, the complexity of it, the variety of it is just amazing.
So God created this and this was the earth at God's creation.
In fact, Genesis chapter 2 verse 9 says, out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow
every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food.
And a river flowed out of Eden that watered the garden and from there divided and became
four rivers.
I read that to you because I want you to be reminded that everything God created was not
just general and it was certainly not chaotic.
It was orderly.
It was specific.
It had geographical areas with rivers and lakes and oceans just as He designed.
It was God's plan.
And God was filling the space He created with an amazing beautiful life.
So beautiful and unique.
So many plants, so much variety, so much creativity that it should astound us when we see the
plant life on our planet today.
It should astound us that God would do that with a word.
Years ago my wife and I were in Fort Worth, Texas and we were going through graduate school.
For me that was seminary.
And we were pretty poor, meaning that we went on a lot of cheap dates.
Does anyone know what a cheap date is?
A cheap date is where you don't spend very much money at all.
For us it was a McDonald's Happy Meal and a trip to the Botanical Gardens because it
was free.
And we would go to the Botanical Gardens, we would spread out a blanket and we would
have our Happy Meals.
I might have had more than one, but we had our Happy Meals.
And we looked at the beautiful vegetation, the trees, the streams that were in that Botanical
Garden.
All of them natural, all of them created by God, all of them had a purpose.
Great variety, great beauty, mesmerizing really.
And when you sit in a place like that and think about God's creative power and how He
spoke and all those came into being, it brings you to a place of awe where you say, God,
you're an amazing God, that you would speak and all the elements would come into being
like that.
And that's what happened in Genesis chapter 1.
And here God is not just creating things like the ground and the water, but He's creating
life.
All of a sudden we have life, life in the vegetation, life in the plants, living things
created in full maturity.
He created the seed first, He created the plant first.
Just like later on He created Adam and Eve, a fully mature man and woman, He created these
plants fully mature and expected to multiply and replenish the earth.
Now the principle of multiplication is extremely important to life and extremely important
to understanding God and how He works.
But it's important to you every day too.
You eat because of multiplication, because those trees began to produce fruit, because
plants produce vegetables and so forth.
You eat because of multiplication, you exist because of multiplication.
You're here because a father and a mother conceived and you are here because of multiplication.
And for the first time in creation God does something else.
He creates something indirectly.
In other words, He creates vegetation and plants and trees to have seed and to multiply
themselves after their kind.
Now the seed contains everything in it to simply be planted and to multiply an exact
replica of itself.
Think about that with me for just a moment.
Ken Ham, again, says this correctly.
He said if you were to write out the information that grows into one tree, it would take hundreds
or thousands of books to record the DNA information that's on one seed.
Now we know something about building things from the human perspective.
We just recently completed a construction project.
Recently I pulled out all those blueprints just to look at how big they were.
There was a roll that was about this big around about this long, weighing 30 to 50 pounds,
something like that.
And when you unroll all those blueprints it describes the architectural renderings that
the builders later used to build the buildings that we are in today.
It's pretty impressive.
The idea we gave them, the architects took a lot of money and a lot of time to build
these blueprints.
Then the builders came in, laid the foundation, built the building, millions of dollars spent,
untold number of man hours to create the buildings that we're in today.
Pretty impressive.
But not in comparison to a seed that's in every flower and in every piece of fruit.
Because in every flower and every piece of fruit is all the DNA, all the information
that once it's planted it builds itself.
It doesn't need a builder.
It doesn't need an architect.
It doesn't need anything else.
It doesn't need money.
Plant the seed and it multiplies itself perfectly because God created the principle of multiplication
and in every part of his creation he wrote into it the capacity to multiply.
Now just take a moment and say, God, you're awesome.
There's a big difference between putting together blueprints at the hand of men and a seed that
God spoke into existence.
My wife and I marvel over this.
In fact, Kim is kind of a plant whisperer.
She goes and finds plants that seem to be dying in other places.
People throw them out on the curb and she sends me by my truck to pick them up because
she's going to rescue them.
When I say she's a plant whisperer, I say she sometimes talks to them and they seem
to respond really well to what she has to say.
She'll take seeds and plant them in dirt and she'll watch the plant come up and she has
them all over her house and all over her outside.
Avocado seeds make great plants and just a few months they're standing tall and straight.
It's really amazing.
But every time we see a seed planted and growing, we marvel at God.
We marvel at the fact that he made all this happen.
Every tree you see, every plant you see is a miracle of God.
It's not a miracle of nature.
It's not because of Mother Nature.
It's because of Almighty God.
And it follows the pattern that we read over and over in the Bible, after their kind.
Ten times this phrase is used in Genesis chapter one.
After their kind, after their kind.
And it illustrates the principle of separation and multiplication.
What Mrs. This is so important.
All the plants and animals God created were their own separate kind.
And there is variation within the various kinds, but the seeds always bear fruit after
their kinds.
We've never planted an avocado seed and gotten an orange tree.
We never have.
And we never will.
They all stay within their kind.
There's variety within the kinds, but they all stay within their kinds.
And later on, animals and birds and fish after their kind.
Variety within the species, but no evolution of the species.
Now the word seed in the Old Testament is the same word for sperm in the scripture.
And the same principle applies.
God will use the seed to multiply and replenish vegetation, trees, animals, and the human
population after its kind.
We don't blend.
We don't change.
We don't morph.
We don't evolve.
But even saying that conflicts with the secular worldview.
And I understand why the world thinks this.
If you take God out of the picture, you have to come up with some explanation for how we
got to where we are.
And the earth is so massive, we tend to think that it's just a mess of life and it has to
be random.
It has to be wild for all these things to happen in this way.
They can't explain the order.
They can't explain the ability for reproduction the way we can.
But the reality is they think that because it's a huge mess, it has to be out of control.
Nobody's big enough for this.
Did you know on the planet there are 7.78 billion people?
There are 196,000 square miles of land.
332 million cubic miles of water.
There are three trillion trees.
Three hundred billion birds.
Twenty quintillion animals.
Thirty-eight thousand McDonald's.
Fifteen million coffee shops.
I read that the other day.
But none of this is a biological accident.
Everything came into being with a purpose.
It's planned.
And that means every one of the 7.78 billion people on the planet are planned by God and
not an accident.
You're not here because of some random act that took place before you were born.
You're here because the God who spoke the world into existence wanted you here.
And He has a purpose for your life and a plan for your life.
God is just that powerful.
He knows you as well as He knows anyone else on the planet.
He knows you as well as He knows every tree and every bird.
He knows whether a sparrow falls from the air and dies or not.
He knows all these things.
His eye is on the sparrow and His eye is on you.
Everything about creation says this is by design.
And it's an amazing God who created and made all these things and an amazing God who made
you.
And I'm kind of a people watcher.
Back in the day when malls were a thing, my wife would go shopping and I would sit on
the bench that was made for men whose wives liked to shop.
And I would watch people walk by.
And I loved watching people walk by.
It's amazing to me to see the DNA from generation to generation that's obviously on their face
or on their body type.
There'll be similarities in size, similarities in how they walk, their gait, or their facial
features.
I enjoyed watching fathers and sons.
And I could almost spot them pretty plainly.
Oh, that's definitely a father son.
Or a mother daughter.
That's definitely a mother daughter there.
Recently we had a father and his two sons walk across the lobby of our church.
And I watched him walk across the lobby and I said, man, the apple doesn't far fall from
that tree, far fall from that tree.
Because those boys walked just like their dads.
They had the same long legs and everything else.
Wow.
You know, God doesn't create random people at all.
Everything He does, He does in a personal way, in a unique way, in a purposeful way,
in a meaningful way.
But the world we live in would deny all that, all that beauty, all that purpose, all that
meaning.
Our culture says, there's no God, the earth just happened.
The culture would say, we're just random.
We're just evolved animals.
We don't have higher meaning or higher purpose.
There's no way to connect with anything other than here.
Consequently, your life is not worth much.
Culture says, gender and sexuality is a confusing mix.
We're really not sure what a man is and what a woman is.
We're really not sure what is going on.
But the Bible says that we have a powerful creator God.
The Bible says that we are distinctly designed and distinctly created to reflect the image
of that God.
The Bible says that God gives us eternal power and eternal purpose and destiny because of
what He gives us.
The Bible says that our gender and our sexuality are God given from birth.
Now if I were to make practical application from all those truths, I would say that you
are uniquely and intentionally designed by your creator who wants you to know Him and
to follow Him and experience Him in a very real way.
And He puts you where He's put you on the planet for a purpose.
And the sooner you find that out, the greater your joy is and the greater your foundation
will stand.
It's so important.
You're not an accident.
You're not a biological mistake.
God wove you in your womb, in the womb of your mother.
God designed you with purpose and loved you as an image bearer of Himself.
All these kinds of things are true because of this principle of multiplication.
And I want you to have a solid foundation for who you are.
I know there were many, many people who came before you who gave birth to you all of a
sudden, but God was involved in every bit of that.
Go search your DNA out as far back as you want to, but it all will be found in God's
will and God's plan.
You were here because of God.
Never feel alone.
Never feel without purpose.
The principle of multiplication, the principle of provision.
The Bible says in God saw that it was good in verse 12.
In other words, God looked at His handiwork and He did that at various times through creation,
period, and He said it's good.
We talked about this just a little bit a few weeks ago.
But the idea of God saying and declaring it is good is Him saying it is good and perfect
and just what is needed.
In other words, it's designed to fulfill the purpose that I placed it there for.
But what is it needed for in respect to this vegetation, these trees, these fruit?
What's it needed for?
It's an interesting question.
Here's the answer.
His provision shows His focus.
He created this watery globe for something, for someone.
God's primary focus is on mankind, on you.
Now if you're watching a movie of creation, it might seem like that the food God created
has no purpose at that moment.
Those fruit trees with all those fruit bearing seeds had no purpose at that particular moment.
You might ask why this fruit?
What is all this vegetation?
What are these vegetables for?
Why would God divide the land from the oceans?
And the answer is He created all this earth because He's going to place us on this planet.
He's going to put us in His creation.
He always goes before us.
He always puts us after He's prepared us for a place.
You know NASA has spent over a trillion dollars trying to find life on other planets or on
any other place other than earth.
And you know what they've discovered so far?
Absolutely nothing, zero.
No life on other planets, no beings anywhere else.
So God created earth not just to have an earth, but for us.
He focuses on providing for us.
He's providing for us by arranging the world around our lives where He would place us.
His focus isn't on the earth in and of itself.
He didn't create the earth just to be preserved.
His focus on the earth is to create it, to glorify Him and for us to be provided for.
He puts us on the earth for our work.
He puts us on the earth for our sustenance.
It's created for us.
He's gone before us in every way.
His focus is what He's going to do in your life on this planet.
Not only does He do that, but He speaks it over and over and over in everyday life.
God goes before us.
He provides for us.
Now I need you to get into your personal challenges in life for just a moment with me.
If the God who speaks and creates the earth has a way of providing for us, His image bearers,
later on, then whatever you're about to face, God has already gone before you and is on
the other side, having met that need, whether you know it or not.
For example, Deuteronomy chapter 31 is a series of verses that God spoke to Israel when they
were fearful.
Here's what He said, the Lord is the one who goes ahead of you.
He will be with you.
He will not fail you nor forsake you.
Do not fear or be dismayed.
God's not just saying that just so that Israel will do it.
He's saying that to them because that's what He's going to do, because He's going to be
there.
If you really grasp what that means, it means that there's no place that you can go where
God has not been first.
There's no place that you can go where God is not there.
There's no challenge that you can possibly face that God has not already become aware
of that by His infinite wisdom and made provision for that in the days ahead so that you'll
meet that challenge with His provision.
It ought to encourage you that God will always go with you, that He goes before us and always
has.
I told the story years ago about being in a tornado as a little boy and being awakened
in the middle of the night and all the roaring of that storm was around our little house.
Really what woke me up was my father picking me up out of bed and putting me kind of on
his shoulder and walking out into the rain and into the wind and the storm.
He was going to take us to the cellar nearby.
A neighbor's house had a cellar.
He had been there before.
He had an exit plan when the tornadoes came through because we lived in Tornado Alley.
I knew nothing about all that stuff.
I just knew that I was being awakened in the middle of the night.
I was on my father's shoulder and we were heading into the storm.
Man, I have to tell you, I remember being afraid.
I remember shaking.
I remember not knowing what was going on around me.
But then when he got me to that cellar and we went down into that cellar, it was quiet
and there was no wind and we weathered the storm and came out just fine later on that
night.
And that's a vivid picture of what God does for us.
He has a plan for us.
He goes before us.
He always has.
He always will.
He showed it in creation.
And he does it today.
You're never alone.
You're always with your heavenly Father.
And he promises that no matter what area of life we're in.
God goes before us.
You know, the truth is if you walk without God's consciousness, you're going to walk
a life filled with fear.
Every change is going to disturb you.
Everything that's different than it was the day before is going to alarm you.
You're going to find panic going in every which direction because if you don't have
a sense of God's consciousness, all you've got is you.
And all you've got is this idea that the world is random and out of control when it in fact
is not random and it is not out of control.
You are not random and God is not missing.
He's God.
And he has you in the palm of his hand.
He always has.
And he says through the principle of provision, I go before you.
I'll take care of that for you.
David wrote Psalm 139.
David has already faced Goliath.
He's faced the armies of Saul who were trying to kill him.
He's faced every battle you can imagine.
And when he gets to Psalm 139, he says this.
He says this in Psalm 23 and 139.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside the still waters.
Yea, that I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for thou art
with me.
This is the God who goes before us.
Psalm 139 says, where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you're there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.
David says, God is with me.
Wherever I go, he's there.
He's watching me.
He's going before me and it's true of you as well.
And no matter what challenge you face, no matter what battle you're in, no matter what
war comes to pass, this is what God has always done.
It's what he'll always do, whatever the scenario.
In fact, when Jesus came to earth, he came talking in this very same way.
I love John chapter 14 where he talks about his departure and prepares his disciples.
Here's what he said about his going.
He said, in my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
For I go to prepare a place for you.
For if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself
that where I am, there you may be also.
I go before you.
Even in death, I go before you.
Shortly after that, Jesus said those famous words that we had cut into a stone and put
it by our front door.
I am the way and the truth and the light.
No one comes to the father but through me.
Jesus said that, that he went to the cross and he faced death and was buried.
He rose again the third day.
He's gone before us even in death.
You can't lose.
If you're a God follower, you can't lose.
He's gone before you in life.
He's gone before you in provision.
He's gone before you in death.
He's gone before you in resurrection.
Everything that you can possibly imagine, he has gone before you because he's the God
he provides and he gives us indications of that from the very, very beginning.
Let me bring you back around to that foundation story for just a moment.
Are you building your life on the foundation that's solid that we read about from Genesis
one onward or are you building your life on something marshy, shaky that causes you to
lean, lean away from God, lean into your own understanding, lean into science or some modern
thought instead of standing strong on the foundations that God gives us.
Jesus invites you to build your house on the rock which is him and his words.
Just a few moments, I'm going to close in prayer.
Today my hope, my prayer would be that you would see that you need a foundation that
is strong and eternal that was laid down by God himself.
As you would see that you need what Jesus Christ offers you in salvation and in wisdom
for life.
I would love to have one of our people talk with you behind the decision stations that
are available right there.
Just stop and just say, I'd like to talk about my faith in this God.
I have some questions I want answered.
I have some things I need to know so I can put my faith in this God and believe in him
and walk with him.
I want to invite you to our guest reception room right outside the center exit doors and
across the hallway.
I'd love to meet you there and tell you a little bit about our church.
More important than all that I want you to have a relationship with the God who speaks
and the world comes into existence.
Would you stand with me as we pray today?
Father, I'm so thankful for the privilege of being able to open your Bible today, the
word and look from creation to today at how everything that you've created, everything
you've done and said come to pass just as you say it will.
Father today, I know there are those that are looking for wisdom and strong foundations.
I know they want to build their lives on something that will hold.
I know around them the world feels like a storm and it is a storm in so many ways.
So many different kinds of messages, so many different kinds of quote truth and quote.
But there is one truth that you give us that we can count on and that is your word.
So father today I pray that every person in this room will test and make sure they're
standing on the solid foundation that's built on Jesus Christ and on your word.
Thank you father for letting us in strong in Jesus name.
Amen.