January 29, 2023 – Sermon Transcript

Pastor Mike (00:01):

So that means that it requires you to be authentic in life. It requires you to live a communal and, and live with people. It means that you actually have to create rituals in your life to, to throne and to push back this system that’s trying to just suck you into the race.

Hannah Hunter (00:17):

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome back to Sundays with The Gathering. I’m Hannah Hunter, the director of Digital Reach here at The Gathering Place in Palm Beach Gardens. This week, we’re talking time what it is and what it means to be free and present in every season of our lives.

Pastor Mike (00:31):

So today I kind of got it outta the bag. You know, we’re, we’re looking at the fourth day of the creation narrative in the Bible, and we’ll, and my prayer is that we will discover a way of ordering our lives by aligning our lives with a way that God created and ordered the world. But also as we’re looking at, you know, this, this is like, um, a story that’s so familiar, but sometimes we, we, we read it too fast. And I’m hoping that as we’ve been taking time to look at the creation story, that, that there’ll be a sense of curiosity, awakening to us, um, a sense of wonder that would ignite our biblical imagination. That we can start seeing new ways of how God is at work and our lives. And then as we read the scripture closely, that we could see the gospel revealed in creation.

(01:26):

So, so that’s, that’s my heart for this message, that through all this, by looking at how the world was made, how it’s told in the Bible, that, that we’d have this new imagination. We have a new appreciation of what God is doing in our world, and, and that we can see Jesus everywhere. And then maybe we can help some people point to that and say, Hey, there’s, there’s Jesus. He’s right there. And, and, and He is good. So, question I wanna ask you just to kind of get us started. Um, do you ever feel that you are in a race against the clock? No, not a, you know, I, I don’t know about you. I mean, cuz like, even, even before service, you know, I was, I was talking to a friend and we’re talking about how we can meet and it’s like, Hey, let’s look at the calendar.

(02:09):

And we’re trying to squeeze things and, and look at like, what are some available times. But it feels like that we’re always trying to beat the clock. You know, probably even right now, you’re probably asking yourself, how long will this message last today? Um, you know, <laugh>. Um, and, and you’re probably thinking about what you’re gonna do next. So just gonna tell you right now, it’s gonna be long. Um, but, but just to kind of get us in this frame, um, Lewis Mumford wrote, um, in his classic in 1934 and technics and civil civilization, that the clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age. Due to the mechanical clock, timekeeping passed into time serving and time accounting and time rationing. Mumford explains that as this took place, eternity ceased gradually to serve the measure and focus of human actions. Humanity’s relationship with to time was forever changed as abstract time became the medium of existence.

(03:11):

So organic functions, uh, were regulated by it. So one eight, um, not because they felt hungry, but when they were propped by the clock, right? It’s breakfast time, it’s lunchtime, it’s dinner time. Um, one slept not when they were tired, but when the clock sanctioned, it, Mumford was putting his finger on something important. The shift from natural from narrative to the organic view of time to a mechanized, uh, segmented and abstract view of time. So let’s look at today’s scripture. We are in Genesis chapter one, verses 14 to 19. This is the fourth day of creation in God said, let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them serve as signs to mark’s sacred times and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in a vault of the sky to give light on the earth to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and it was morning the fourth day.

(04:50):

I’m thankful that Disney is like remaking a lot of the movies going from animated to live action. So that way, and I’m trying to talk to this generation, they have a clue what I’m talking about. But, um, but some of you probably remember the movie, the Lion King, well, their first edition or second edition. But, um, you remember in the Lion King, when you have Timon and PBA and Simba and they’re lying down on their backs and they’re looking at the sky. Yeah. And they’re like, you know, like, what do you think are all those little sparkly things up there? And, and Timone, you know, I mean, he’s just like so sure of himself. He says they’re fireflies, they got caught up there, you know, so, and they’re just like stuck up there. And then, and then pba, you know, says, you know, I think they’re this, these giant balls of burning gas. And, and you know, then Simone’s like, you know, Pumba, you’re always thinking about gas and uh, or it’s always about gas for you. And then Simba says, you know, they’re the great kings of pass who are looking over them and, and they start laughing at him. They’re like, oh, ridiculous. Cuz that’s a story that Simba heard from, from his father.

(06:04):

You know, I’m trying to imagine what it was like, you know, when tradition says that Moses, you know, w was, you know, he, this was given the Torah or the first five books of the Bible, and he was given this, the law and he spent all this time up there with God. And, and maybe one night he was just kind of lying up there and saying, God, what happened? How did we get all this? Let’s look back again and said, Genesis chapter one, verses 14 to 15, and God said, let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them service signs to mark’s sacred times and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And when we read this, you know, remember we’re trying also to learn how to, to read our Bible.

(07:03):

There’s a plain and simple meaning here. And so it’s a lot kind of like, I mean, the way it’s written, it’s kind of a lot like little Tim’s theory, you know, fireflies that are just stuck up there. Um, remember when we start talking about how like, you know, the ancient world understood creation. Remember there was waters, there was all this waters, and then God separates the waters, right? And then God creates this vault, and you remember us talking about this vault, but this basically this expanse or this covering that, that holds the waters up so they don’t fall down on us. And now we’re, we’re hearing that, um, this, this vault, what is God saying? Like, Hey, you know, it’s a little dark out there. You know, we already, we, we already separate the water as we created land, but there’s this, there’s like this dark stuff up, up above us, and we better do something about it.

(07:53):

So let’s hang some lights. And so if you can imagine like this, like dome just like, kind of like over the whole world, or even like this, you know, it’s just like God’s just saying, Hey, let’s just start hanging some lights, you know? Um, and, and that’s basically how a lot of the people, the ancient world thought, the world’s created, that there was this, this dome. And, and somebody just decided some great being decided to hang lights. And, and to us, to our modern sensibilities, we’re like, man, that sounds really weird to us. In fact, I think most of us, you know, resonate. Um, a lot of people when I talk to out in the world, they, they resonate more into PBAs theory. You know, that, that the lights are a bunch of balls of burning gas that are billions of miles away. The lights are stars, they’re planets, and they’re moons.

(08:39):

And, and yes, we used them to Mark Day and night seasons, and we use ’em to mark sacred times and days. And yes, this is true. But if this is totally true, then here’s what it’s saying. It’s saying that you and I are ruled by the laws of nature. We’re ruled by how we understand creation. And I put the emphasis on we, because, you know, we create a lot of calendars, okay? And I’m gonna talk about your Google calendar, your Outlook calendar. I mean, I’m just talking about in the world. There’s lots of calendars out there, okay? You know, we in the, in the West, we function by the, the Gregorian calendar, you know, and, and, and we have our calendar of days. And when Christmas and Easter, you know, but there’s also other calendars. There’s like the lunar calendar, you know, like the Chinese New Year just ended recently.

(09:31):

And, and in fact, um, then there’s, uh, the Julian calendar, which those of the Eastern church celebrate. Why does this make any sense or relevance to you? Because some of us, um, you know, recognize both Christian calendars. Cause we were, we were raised in the Eastern tradition. And so that means that for my family, we keep up our Christmas tree and all of our Christmas lights until a minimum of, um, January 14th, according to the old new Year, this year, we were really bold, okay? Because, uh, normally, you know, like I said, Christmas is on January 7th. So we celebrate Western Christmas with you on the 25th Eastern Christmas on January 7th. According to the old calendar, we hold all our Christmas trees and lights till January 14th, but we, after the 14th, we took down our Christmas tree, but I still didn’t want to take down the Christmas lights on the house.

(10:19):

Cause I was like, oh man, that means that Christmas is really over until yesterday, <laugh>. Uh, and, and I, and I ration to myself, I said, you know what? I am right on time because, um, you know, now I’ve made it through all the east and west Christian calendars, and I made it through the Chinese lunar calendar. And I’m, you know, I’m, I’m like there. And so now I’m ready to start my new year. But if you’re we’re really honest with ourselves, we create like the structure in the world and it, and, and we, and it’s by what we created. You know, even in Judaism, they, they move and adjust their calendars. They have a different set of calendars, and it’s all by what we created. We create clocks to divide our time into months, days, hours and seconds. And now we have these new fancy atomic clocks that are so precise that over the entire age of the universe, those clocks would be less than 100 milliseconds off. But here’s the thing I want us to consider, that if this is true, if like all that we are governed by or how we organize our lives is by what we created, then this is sending a message that you and I are slaves to creation and we’re slaves to our own devices.

(11:37):

Let’s just pause for that a moment. Maybe some of us are slaves to the world, the perfect world that you and I try to create to fit everything in and make everything work. And I guess the question I have is, you know, if we have, you know, like the, the Tim’s understanding of fireflies being stuck up there as someone just put lights up in the sky in PBAs with the, with the, you know, the, the fiery gas. Is there any hope for the modern, rational and educated person? And you see the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ says that there is a God that is actually bigger than all these things, and that there is a way to be free from slavery. That’s what Jesus came. So I come to set you free. Let’s dig a little bit further in the next verse. Verse 16.

(12:31):

So, um, there you go. Thank you. God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God sent them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was one in the fourth day. Let’s just go back to the very beginning of that verse 16, God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.

(13:12):

If you look at that, something is off a little bit, God creates two great lights, and then there’s a, a shift, you know, in some translations of the Bible, they put a semicolon, some put a dash, and then it says, okay, there’s some kind of transition. God creates two great lights. And then we have this greater and lesser light. And, and again, like for myself, you know, like, you know, sometimes we’re trained to just read the Bible fast, you know, and, but we don’t really read the Bible slow. And sometimes, even literally where it says, okay, God created two great big lights, but now there’s a greater and a lesser light. Now, I came to a conclusion from this, but then I started pushing back, and then I reached out to Rabbi Strauss, my friend, and I said, Hey, you know, this is where I’m feeling like sphere is leading me on this one.

(14:12):

And, and he said, whoa, that’s a really cool insight, which I’ll share later. But then he also brought another insight that, that to me helped me to understand a little bit about what was happening from the Hebrew mind when they put this gap. And why is this important for us today? You see, like, like us Christians, the Hebrews understood that they were living in a world that had two systems. The system of this world represented slavery. And for them that slavery was, uh, directly connected to the memory or the experience of being in Egypt. That’s how they understood we, Christians are Egypt. You know, we think about Rome, okay? I mean, that’s, that’s what we, we always, um, in, in biblical sense. You know, there’s this fight with Rome, which is the power of the world. For the, for the Hebrews, it was Egypt, you know, so Rome and Egypt.

(15:06):

And so yes, tradition says that Moses wrote, um, Genesis, and again, imagine again just the Israel sitting there, um, at the foot of Mount Sinai. And Moses is laying there like Timon and Pba and Simba, and God tells the about the stars. Now, the stars, you know, that’s acceptable because Moses even knows the stories that God told Abraham. He said, go look up and count the stars. And when you count the stars, so, so, so your descendants be, and so that, that connects right away with the, the promise of the covenant. You know, that’s easy for a Hebrew to understand. That’s easy for somebody like Moses to understand. But then the problem is we have this two great lights and the greater light. Can anybody guess what the greater light is that governs the day? Shout it out. This is, I mean, the sun, okay, why would this be a problem for a Hebrew person, sun, God, exactly. When, when the Hebrews came out of slavery, right? They, they, they were living among Egyptians who, who worshiped the sun God raw. And again, that was, um, an understanding of saying like, how in the world are we gonna reconcile this? That in the very beginning now, the greater God, the greater light is raw. This is a problem.

(16:25):

And, and we see this two competing systems. So in Jewish tradition, they have this thing called mid rush. And Mira is, is basically, um, ways of how the, the ancients, um, use their imaginations to tell the backstories behind the Bible or, or some of the stories that that happened, um, in between the dashes. And so in this particular case, um, the, the Babylonian Tmu actually has a story about why there’s two kinds of lights. And I think they can speak to us today because, um, for them, for the Hebrews, this represents this big struggle between the sun and the moon. And just so you know, I didn’t realize until, I mean, at all the years I’ve been in seminary and all the studies, I never realized that the, the, the Jewish people, the Hebrews associate their identity, not with the sun, but with the moon.

(17:26):

So here, here’s what they point out. It says, um, you know, in one verse, God made two great lights. And immediately the verse continues the greater light and the lesser light. And so here’s the story that they put in between there. The moon said unto the holy blessed one sovereign of the universe, is it possible for two kings to wear one crown? That’s a good question, right? How can kings wear one crown? How can we have two rulers and God answered, go then and make yourself smaller. Sovereign universe cried the moon because I’ve suggested that that which is proper must I make myself smaller?

(18:07):

God replied, go and you’ll rule by the day and by the night. But what is the value of this cry the moon of what uses a lamp in broad daylight, God replied, go, Israel will reckon you by the days and the years, but it’s impossible, said the moon, to do without the sun, for the reckoning of the seasons as it is written. And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And God responded, go, the righteous will be named after you. Jacob, the small Samuel, the small David, the small. Now, for a nerdy theologian like me, I get all excited when I read this kind of stuff. And I know that maybe it’s kind of distant from some of us who are listening today, but here’s where I see the gospel in this story.

(19:05):

The moon is actually able to shine both in day and night. Just think about that for a moment. When the sun’s still out, the moon can coexist and be there. And, and, and, and if you’re imagining the sun as this image of the world or the, the oppressive force or whatever that is, you know, here is, is a word of hope that we can still exist over any kind of power, because in Christ Jesus, we have victory over darkness, over the power of sin and death. And we have victory over the sun or the systems of this world, just like the Hebrew scriptures described this. You see, the gospel is actually about this great reversal, or some people call it the kingdom of God is like an upside down kingdom. You know, Jacob, the small Samuel, the small David, the small, the nation of Israel, you know, the, the, the smallest nation among all the other nations that God is gonna use through this small nation that has all these little issues and all these broken people, God is gonna use them to bring salvation to the nations.

(20:14):

Fast forward to Jesus, Jesus said that, you know, you know, the gospel is for not those that are in power, but it’s for the poor, the lame, the weak, the blind, the broken, the captive. And you know what, for you there, there might be moments where you feel small, you might feel broken, you might feel insignificant cuz you’re surrounded by a bunch of bright shining suns that are always getting the spotlight and always doing this. But, but the gospel says that God will still use you because the gospel or New Testament speaks that, that when we are weak in our weakest moments, that’s when the power and love of God is revealed, because we are strong in Christ. Because greater is he who is in the world than whatever or he who is in out there in the universe. So if Jesus is in us, I mean he is greater than anything that’s out there.

(21:11):

And sometimes we have to take heart because we look at our circumstances, we look at our things, we look at how we feel, we look at our inabilities, and we still have a problem believing in trusting. And so here we see in a little snippet in the, in the earliest part of the creation story, that yes, there’s these great lights, and again, to the Hebrews that just came outta slavery, now they’re getting this story about, this is our story of how our God create the whole world and our God who’s great in all this. And yes, the sun God is there, but the moon, that little moon that that changes, that has phases, that little moon that, that marks the seasons, has a significant purpose. And I want you to know that in Christ Jesus, we too have a purpose. We too have this destiny.

(21:59):

But that’s not all, that’s not all there is to this because we can see the story and think we know the story and still be blind to it. So let’s take another look at this Bible creation story again. But before we do that, I’m just, when I was thinking about the, the cosmos, it brought me back to when I was working on my undergraduate degree. And, and so, you know, I’m a, my undergraduate major is in, in, in, in Russian and Eurasian studies. Okay? So really good stuff for a pastor to have and, um, <laugh>. And so, uh, all, all, all my, all my classmates were planning to go to the state market or uh, uh, state work for the state department, uh, department of Defense or private sector and oil industry. That was, and then like, what do you wanna do? I was like, I wanna be a pastor.

(22:50):

Um, but we’re studying together and I remember my, um, academic advisor said, Hey, you know what, you, you need one, another science class. And, and like, so why don’t you just take an easy one? I said, okay, what’s the easiest science class I could take? You know? And I took astronomy, <laugh>. And so I remember taking this, this night course in Astra, which was really cool cause we can go outside and, and we had this like, great viewing area to observe the stars and all that. But there were these, these two guys that were just so cocky in the class. I mean, they could, they could point and name all these systems and all that. And so at our end of semester, um, proj, we had, at the end of the semester, we had this project that we had to do. And, and so, and we’re supposed to like, you know, pick some aspect of a astronomy and we have to teach it to the class.

(23:37):

And, um, and all of a sudden, you know, one, one of these like super smart guys that always like belittled everyone in the class, like whenever, like you give an answer, they give a better answer. I remember, you know, um, they’re, they’re doing like, I, I did a simple thing on Casio oia, right? And, and they’re like, okay, then all of a sudden they come out and they have this like, really cool presentation for that period of time, and there’s music and all this cool stuff. So they’re really using the tech. And then all of a sudden, like the, the guy starts talking about signs, but then he, there’s stars, but then he starts going into like, the age of Aquarius and <laugh>, and he starts like talking about like naming all these like horoscopes and Libras and all, I mean, he’s just going on and on the Leo, the Libra and the Virgo, and he is talking about all these signs and, and he is going on and on and, and, and everyone.

(24:24):

And then we’re just like, wow, like this guy’s making all these connections and he’s telling about how it’s gonna affect your moods and all this stuff. And I remember at the end of it, our professor said, you know, um, that was really entertaining, but I just wanna let remind you that this is a class on astronomy, not astrology. And and thank you for wasting our time. And that was like what the professor said to this person. It’s like, you know, just like wipe them out. And sometimes I think about us that, you know, again, we, we look at the, the, the stars, we look at the Bible story and we think we know it, but we, if we don’t read closely, we miss some really big things. And here’s the big thing that, that I don’t we to miss, but we’re gonna, let’s dig with me a little bit.

(25:08):

Let’s go back to the whole thing, okay? I mean, godly, we’re only 19 verses in, but remember day one, what did God create? Light? Separate the light from the darkness. Day two, God creates, God divides the waters, right? Water above water beneath day three, God separates the waters below land and seas. Day four, God creates lights to govern the day and the night. What’s wrong here? Sun? Huh? Where’s the sun? There’s the sun. Did anybody catch that? You know, like, uh, you know, like our system, the way we live and work in, you know, is according to the sun, the day, you know, we, we, we mark the days by the movement of the sun or, or how we move around the sun, and that’s our, our thing. But here we see that according to the biblical perspective or, or the way the story was given down to Moses is that hey, um, there’s something else going on here that light does, you know, the day doesn’t get marked by when the sun comes up or when the sun goes down.

(26:19):

But God distinguished when the very first day when God made light from darkness. And that light is not dependent upon the sun. Something is completely off here. So in the Greek mind, they have this two understandings of time, Kronos time and cairo’s time. And we can see from the perspective of living, like most of what we see and observe, we gotta remember we’re, we’re under the vault, right? We’re living under the expanse. And this expanse is freaking huge. I mean, think about it. I mean, it includes like the skies, it includes the galaxies. The expanse includes what we understand of the speed of light sound. All our laws of, of physics and nature are all from the perspective of under the vault, all from underneath, all representing that Kronos time. And here’s the thing that we have to understand. The God that you and I worship is not contained within the vault.

(27:22):

God is outside the vault. You know, God created the light before the sun and moon even existed because it reminds us or speaks to us that God’s timing, God’s sense of, of when we need to move, when we need to act, when things need to happen is outside and completely different than our understanding of time. You see, I honestly believe that Cairo’s time is like one of the deepest and truest sense of time. John polling, uh, writes this. He says, Cairos is the deepest and truest form of time. Understanding that is the first step. But then actions, habits and practices are necessary actually to reorder and reorient our lives, to accord with this, this deepest reality, though the jealous God of Kronos demands our time down to the actual milliseconds. And, um, we have a God who is de throne Kronos and returned life to its proper service to Cairos, which makes time a gift.

(28:34):

And we see God’s divine self-giving through speech and act in real history from creation for the exodus to the law, the prophets from the incarnation of Jesus to the resurrection of Jesus, to our baptism, to participating in the sacraments of Eucharist. And all of these make time have this sacred, um, residue, which in the end of all things, what we know is this. That all these things of this created order will be thrown to the feet of Jesus who is before all things. And in him, all things hold together at the feet of the one who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, at the feet of the one who reconciles himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, at the feet of the one who came in the fullness of time. Jesus the Christ. You see, Kronos time refers to time as a duration or sequence, right?

(29:35):

Kairos, time named seasons. It, it, it it is, is cyclic. And, and it’s understanding, it’s a time, for example, like we know that, you know, there’s a time to plant tomatoes, right? Or there’s a time to make dinner. Another person says it this way, says like, Kairos time is three dimensional, including time, space, and meaning and time as story. Kronos time, however, is flat reference, referencing only time and space. So as an example, consider life before mechanized time. You know, prior to the mechanical clocks, it was easier for many human beings to experience this kairos dimension of time. You know, cause we look at the nature of how it ebbs and flows, you know, um, we look at the movement of the sun, the cycles of the moon, the rhythm of the seasons. Um, this is all very local and the structure of our lives was more woven together by stories and rituals and seasons.

(30:33):

Um, another example of understand difference between kairos time and Kronos time can be thinking about childbirth. You know, while there was a certain dimension of Kronos time when the, when the, when my son William was born, you know, I mean we have an exact time. We, we, you know, he has exact weight, we have all these different things. The cairos time was that something inside of me changed when I all of a sudden became apparent when that little boy was born. Do you see the difference in today’s world? You and I are mostly driven by Kronos time. And what I wanna invite you to do is find ways to allow kairos time to enter into our lives, to reorient us to what is really more permanent to that higher good good. And, and I have to admit, you know, it’s hard, it’s really hard to, to, to change this, to have this, this shift going on because living by Cairo’s time in a Kronos world does not come easy.

(31:37):

Because remember that, that god of Kronos, that god of time is a jealous God. And so it, it requires discipline practices to, to to be risen up inside of us to actually resist these things. So that means that it requires you to be authentic in life. It requires you to live a communal and, and live with people. It means that you actually have to create rituals in your life to, to, to throne in the push back. This system that’s trying to just suck you into the race and, and, and the, and the small acts of resistance. That’s what chips away at the power of this cairo’s time. You see what it means. And, and, and reality is that, you know, we need to properly order our lives and, and then situate ourselves according to kairos time, not according to the Kronos time. I know this is getting a little confusing, but just bear with me.

(32:30):

You know, the point is, is that we want to order our lives so that heaven can break through. So that when Jesus said, you know, thy kingdom come and thy will be done, that we can have these thy kingdom moments in our lives. And how do we do this? We order our lives by daily, dying daily to ourselves by choosing at the very beginning to say, you know what? I’m gonna surrender to God’s plans and I’m gonna listen to what God’s saying and how are we gonna listen to what God is saying to us? It comes through observing what is happening in our world. It’s not just like studying the Bible for intellectual purpose, but it’s observing what is happening. It’s taking time to reflect and saying, God, what are you trying to say to me that’s happening in my world right now? It requires us to discuss it with other believers and other people who are maybe outside of our tribe to see if there’s any continuity is, is what?

(33:17):

Is God speaking to humanity? And then once we have an understanding of what God is saying, then the next question is, you have to decide is how I’m gonna respond to what God is saying. And that requires us to, to make some planning, to actually give an account for our actions and actually to act. So may that means like setting aside this daily devotion time. Maybe it says I’m gonna make a priority for community. Or maybe it says, you know what? Family time is gonna be actually really important. So I’m not just going to eat dinner cuz it’s dinner time, I’m gonna eat, but I’m actually gonna have a, a kairos moment with the people who are d nearest and deepest to me for us who are married. You know, whether it’s date night, you’ll just go on date night for the sake of, uh, date night. But you do it to have that kairos moment of connection. So instead of checking the box of a ritual and religion, you know, let us move on. Um, you know, sometimes Facebook shows a bunch of worthless junk on there. But um, recently, I, I reposted on my thing. I I just, I saw it came up and I thought this was really cool. It said, religion is a guy in church thinking about fishing relationship is a guy out fishing, thinking about God.

(34:30):

Do you see the difference? You know, we have to make this movement, this shift inside of our souls. And when we make all these little small shifts and we start making some deliberate actions and we start really thinking about our lives and realize that we are not a servant to the cock, but we serve an almighty God who promises that when we yield to him that he’s the one who will truly set us free. What happens is it causes us when we look up that we don’t deceive the, the, the limits of the vaults. That we don’t just see the limits of our, our understanding, but we understand beyond the vol vault, beyond what we can see, beyond what we can understand is an eternal God who is filled with love, filled with compassion, A God that can intervene in a second on what we’re doing and a God who chooses to be with us right now, that God is Jesus our creator, the God who put on flesh and chose to live with us, to, to have his abode or his home with us.

(35:29):

And, and so what we are called to do is if we can make that shift in little parts of our souls that I believe where it really will, will, will culminate into is a, is a heart of worship. And that when you see creation and you see like the stars, that you won’t be just limited by just a scientific explanation, but you understand there is a God that is beyond our comprehension that is out there. That even though God is in all things and fills all things, God is so close and intimate to the God who wants to connect with you. And so when you connect with Jesus and you say, okay, God, you know what? I’m gonna slow down and I’m gonna, you and I have my intellectual questions and all those things, I’m gonna slow down and realize that you’re bigger than that and I’m just gonna trust the big narrative, the big story that you love us so much, that you want to be with us, and that you see the depths of our heart.

(36:42):

You see that sinful junk that’s inside of us, the stuff that condemns us and hurts other people. You see all that stuff and you still love us and want to be in a relationship with us. And you’re removed every legal requirement of the law by taking the penalty of our sin, by dying on the cross, and resurrecting so that we can have life to the fullest. God, I have my questions. I have my doubts. There are gaps in the story that I don’t understand, but something inside my soul says, I can still trust you, and that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna trust you. I’m gonna worship you, and I’m gonna follow you because God, so far everything that I see in the beginning of the story is that you’re good and everything that you make is good. So God, as I go forward, help me to worship you by keeping you at the center and experiencing you in these small holy mo moments throughout my life. Amen.

Hannah Hunter (37:58):

Hey, beautiful people. This is Hannah Hunter. I’m the director of Digital Reach here at The Gathering Place in Palm Beach Gardens. Thank you for joining us this week. We love getting to share our journey in Christ and community with you. And if you’re in the Palm Beach area, we’d love to get to connect with you in person at our Sunday Worship service at 1115. For more information about our community in faith, check out our website at the gathering place fl org. Thanks for listening.