Skip to content From Chaos to Purpose | Genesis 1:1-2:3 | Pastor Gabriel Guzman Jan 8 · 39 min ...more
From Chaos to Purpose | Genesis 1:1-2:3 | Pastor Gabriel Guzman
January 8, 2026 · 39 min
Series Patria Sermons January 8, 2026 · 39 min · Patria Sermons
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Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
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0:01 Well, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the first Wednesday night of 20 26. You guys have come out here to get it set right, get started right. If you could do0:13 me a favor really quick. If it's your first time, not here at Patriot, but your first time here to a Wednesday night fresh start service, can you raise your hand just so we can get an idea of what we're working with0:24 here? That's awesome. Hey. Hopefully, you like us here tonight. We have fun on Wednesday nights. We go through the word, and we have a great time. If you haven't met me before, my name is Gabriel. I'm the0:36 family ministries pastor here at Patriot Church, and so maybe you've seen me in in over there in kids. Thank you. Thank you. This is my inaugural pastoral sermon tonight.0:48 So here we go. The anointing is here now. So we'll see how it see how it changes. But tonight we're going through through Genesis, which is a great study that1:00 we're starting here. Last year, we had a great study in the book of Joshua. And so if that that did something to you when you if you were here with us last year on Wednesday nights that ministered to you, the book of1:10 Genesis is gonna double down on that. And if you haven't been through a book study before, we're gonna go through the whole book this year. So chapters 1 through 50. Genesis is a little bit of a bigger book, but that's1:22 okay because we're all doing it together. Amen. Hey, if you have if you were able to get your journal, we got some beautiful Genesis journals. We always do a journal when we do a study through the Bible. And so last year1:34 we did the Joshua journals and just, you know, you're able to write in there and highlight and all of those things, and it's just in a solitary, you know, uniform volume. But this year, we have our own custom1:45 Patria Genesis journals. And so if you were able to get 1 before service started, you are blessed and highly favored, and we we love you for that. And I'm a give you some stuff tonight for you to write down and1:57 and put in there and scribble it up and just make it just such a resource to you. If you weren't able to get 1, we wanna encourage you to go after service. They'll still be available. But if you're thinking to yourself,2:08 man, I would love a journal, and but financially right now, I just can't do it. There was a member who generously donated 5 journals to give out tonight if somebody just doesn't2:20 have the means to get a journal. And so, I got I got security with me, so don't don't just don't just don't just rush it. But the first 5 people that come up to the stage2:32 that need a journal, not financially able to get a journal, this is this is gonna be for yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We could don't worry. It's he's not gonna jump you right now. It's okay. Here we go. Okay. We got it. 2, 3.2:44 0, there he is. 4. And you are the faithful last 1 right here. There we go. You guys can share if you want. It's up to you. So those those are the journals2:56 right there. We got our journals. I'll give you some things to go through today. We do have And I'm not gonna complain though, because there are some sections we're gonna have to cover like 3 chapters in 1 session.3:07 But today, we're just gonna be going through the first chapter and the first 3 verses of the second chapter. And that's the story of creation that we're gonna be talking about tonight. And that's what I have for us in3:18 store. But without further ado, what what we do here at Patreon is that we stand for the reading of God's word. We wanna honor and respect God's word just like we would any diplomat or any politician if they3:30 walked in the room and people stand up or salute or anything like that. We'll show that same honor to God's word. And so we're not gonna read all 35 verses right now because I wanna get you back in your seats pretty3:41 soon. So we're just gonna read the opening 2 verses of Genesis together. So let's read this right now and see what the Lord has in store for us tonight. We'll read verse 1. In the beginning, God3:52 created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.4:04 Lord, we come before you right now, and we just thank you, Lord, for bringing us here tonight, for destining us to this moment, Lord. We thank you that you have something for someone, for every single person in this4:15 room, a word for them, God. Nobody came to hear the words of a man, but they came to hear words from you, Lord. And so I pray that your your spirit be present in this room, and4:27 that your word go go forth powerfully tonight, God. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Amen. You may be seated. You may be seated. Now before we get into our4:38 chapter, for tonight, our chapter and 3 verses for tonight, I just did wanna say a word on Genesis in general as we're preparing to go into this study tonight. Because Genesis is such an important4:50 book. And I don't know if you've been saved, for a while or you've just been saved for a couple minutes or however long you've been you've been saved, but chances are you've already come across the book of Genesis5:01 because it's the very first book of the Bible. It's the first pages when you open up a new Bible. That's the book that you're gonna come across. And so it's 1 of 66 books that are in the Bible, but it's not merely just5:12 the first book of the Bible. It's 1 of the foundational books of the Bible. Genesis is so important to understanding the rest of the Bible, and there's so many themes and there's so much theology5:24 that finds its roots here in Genesis. Every major doctrine finds its roots here in this book. In Genesis, you'll you'll learn more about who God is, who humanity5:36 is, why the world is broken, and how God saves. That's all present in this book, and it begins to flesh out all of those things. Genesis shouldn't just5:48 be read as the beginning of something, but should be read as a story with a destination. Amen. I have a quote for you from Martin Luther who talks about5:59 Genesis. He says, this book is the foundation of all scripture for without it, no 1 can properly understand the rest. If you don't understand6:11 Genesis and understand it correctly, chances are you don't understand the rest of the Bible. But we're gonna correct that today if you're sure. Maybe you've never read Genesis6:23 before. Maybe you've never studied Genesis before. That's what these studies are for. And you know, we're not gonna be able to go every single word and every single verse, because we only have 35 minutes, and we we we6:35 value your time. But like pastor Aaron always says, you know, sermons are commercials for you to get in the word for yourself. And so if you ever hear something and you're like, oh, I I wonder more about that, or I wish6:46 I could go deeper into that, or you hear somebody talking about a chapter and maybe we're just able to reference a story, I wanna encourage you to, you know, go home or right when service is over to go back and study6:57 that that week. Go back and read it through that week because we wanna just encourage you and set you on fire to get in the word for yourself. I just wanna talk about these 2 big themes that7:09 are found throughout Genesis, and Genesis really nails down, and that's God and mankind. God and humanity. You learn in Genesis that God is personal7:21 and not distant. You learn that He's the creator and in control, that He's perfect and intentional, and that He acts first. Genesis is a book that talks about how7:32 God didn't just create the world and leave it on its own, and He went and stayed away from it, but He created the world and stayed with the world. And He's a God that pursues His creation. And7:44 He's a God that's personal. And He's a God that acts first. He's not passive in His creation, but He is active in His creation. And He is actively pursuing His7:55 creation. And that doesn't just stop with this first book, but it is true today that God is pursuing you today. And you'll learn a lot about yourself when you read Genesis. For humanity,8:07 and we'll see a lot of that in these first 3 chapters even, but humanity was created with a purpose and with dignity. Humanity was made in God's image. And Genesis shows8:19 the flaws, how dependent, and how finite humans are. And it's because of sin. We'll talk about that when we get to chapter 3 of Genesis. There's so8:31 many flawed people in the Bible, and we already start seeing all the flawed people in Genesis. People with bad motives, people that don't trust God. They're all present in Genesis. But8:43 because we're starting at the beginning, we know why they're like that. But we also know how God will save them. Genesis is not about humanity finding God, but about God pursuing8:55 His creation. And that's what we're talking about tonight, God's creation and the creation story. And so I don't know if you've written anything down already or you're already your book9:07 is already full. I'm sorry. But the bottom line, the big idea of the whole sermon tonight is that God formed the world with order and purpose so that humanity might live in rest with9:19 Him. God formed the world with order and purpose so that humanity might live in rest with him. This9:31 creation narrative is so important to the rest of Genesis and the entire Bible. And I don't know if you've read this chapter 100 times already, and that can that can almost9:43 hinder you sometimes with being too familiar with a certain part of the bible because you stop asking the the right questions. You start you stop asking the questions that the author, the person who wrote this book wants9:54 you to ask because you're so familiar. Oh, day 1 he did this, day 2 he did this. It's so familiar that you kinda have to lift the veil of familiarity so that you can start seeing what God has in store for you in this10:05 chapter. This is what the Puritan John Owen has to say about this section of Genesis. The works of God in the creation of the world do set forth the glory of His10:17 wisdom, power, and goodness. You're gonna see all of that in this opening right now. And so we're gonna cover 3 points tonight as we get into the first10:29 chapter of Genesis, and I'll give them all to you right now so you can keep me accountable. We're gonna talk about the God of creation, the goodness of creation, and the goal of creation. The God of10:41 creation, the goodness of creation, and the goal of creation. Let's start with the first 1. The God of creation. The God of creation. We're gonna read the first verse10:53 of Genesis here. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And we're gonna stop right there because that already tells us a lot about who this God is. Who is the11:04 God of creation? Who is this God of the Bible? Well, he's a God that's been present from the beginning. There's an eternal aspect to this God. A God who is in11:16 a forever space. And it's so hard for us to comprehend things that we have no point of reference for. You know, us as humans, we don't have a point of reference for something that doesn't live in time. Because we're born11:28 into this earth and we automatically are in time. We don't know what that's like. And so it's hard to comprehend a God who's not like that or something that's not like that, but God is. And that God created11:40 the heavens and the earth. God created from nothing. He didn't create from something that was preexisting. He created out of nothing. And we're gonna see really quickly11:51 that He speaks His creation into existence. And nothing outside God shapes or limits what comes into being. Creation exists because God wills it to12:03 exist. Creation exists because God wants it to exist. And that goes straight to you as well. Verse 2, the earth was without form and void,12:16 and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And now this is really important here because I'm gonna reference some some Hebrew words here.12:28 And just for just for your own own sake, Genesis was originally written in Hebrew. That's its original language. And so what we're reading is an English translation. And I don't know12:40 if you any anybody in here speaks another language. But sometimes there's not a 1 for 1 translation where you're going from 1 language to another language. And so sometimes you need a bridge. You need to bridge that gap,12:51 and that's what I'm here to help you do. Because sometimes you'll read something without form and void. What does that mean? I'm gonna try to bridge that today and some other things as well. And so we're gonna get into13:01 that with this phrase, without form and void, because these opening 2 verses set the tone for the entire chapter of Genesis. And these are these 2 words, and they rhyme in Hebrew.13:13 And we're gonna say it together. Everybody say, Tohu. Tohu. Vavohu. Vavohu. Those are the 2 words here that are translated without form and void. Tohu, without form,13:25 and bohu, void. And simply these words mean unordered for tohu and bohu uninhabited or empty. There's an13:37 emptiness and there's an unorder. And that first word tohu is also used to translate wilderness. It's translated, desert, and that's the different ways that you can see it. It's just13:48 unordered. Some sometimes it could be translated without a purpose. And so this is the state of the world after God creates the heavens and the earth. It's unordered14:00 and it's empty. And so in the Hebrew worldview, there's no word for things that don't have a concrete to them. You know, there's no words for14:11 concepts like chaos. There's no word for chaos in Hebrew, but this is the closest you can get to a chaotic state in the Hebrew mindset. Because something that's14:23 unordered, something that's empty, something that doesn't have a purpose is chaotic. And I don't know if your life feels like that sometimes, where you don't feel like there's an order in your life. You don't feel like14:35 there's a purpose in your life. Maybe you feel like there's an emptiness to your life. It can be chaotic. But, this is really important, the Spirit of God is hovering over the face of the14:46 waters. God does his creative work from within that environment. From within that chaos, from within the unorder and the14:58 emptiness, God is going to get creative. And He's gonna do the amazing things that we see today. The sun and the moons and the stars and all of those things He's15:10 doing in this environment. And so if God can bring something from nothing, if God is present in chaos rather than absent from it, then no life, no moment, no season15:21 is beyond His purpose. That's where He does His best work. And so you might have come into 20 26 with some of 20 20 five's baggage. You might have come in with some of15:33 that unorder that you wanted to get rid of. You might have not found a purpose yet in 20 26. And you could think, oh, my life feels empty right now. My life has no purpose right now.15:45 But we serve a God that does his best work when those are the conditions. That's what's gonna happen in the rest of this chapter because that's what God is gonna address. He's gonna address the tohu,15:57 what's been unordered, he's gonna address the vohu, what's empty. And that's the next section that we're gonna talk about. The goodness of creation. The goodness of16:09 creation. This covers all of verses 3 through 31, and we're not gonna read it right now for time. We're just gonna read 3 through 5, which is the first day. And I wanna16:21 show you the pattern that's in all of the days, because these are days 1 through 6 of creation. God creates the whole world, and he creates everything we see over the course of 6 days. And so this16:33 first day will provide, a sample for us, so to speak, so that we're not gonna go through each day individually, but we'll see we'll see the pattern. And in your journals or when you're taking notes, you can make note of16:43 all the patterns that you see throughout the rest of the days. But let's read verse 3. And God said, let there be light and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.16:55 And God separated the light from the darkness. Verse 5, God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning the first17:07 day. And so let me give you the pattern of the creation days right now. God says something and it's created. And then he sees,17:19 that it's good. And then there's evening and there's morning. That is the pattern for the days. And so you can go through go through your bible, go through your journals, and you can circle, underline anytime17:31 that pattern is there, and you'll see it in the days. But I have a there should be a chart that you can look at on how this breaks down. These are the 6 days. And so you17:43 see on days 1, 2, and 3, he's creating spaces. He's ordering what was unordered. He's addressing that tohu in the second verse. And then days 4, 5, and17:55 6, he's filling the spaces that he just created. He's filling the emptiness. That's good. Day 4, 5, and 6, he's addressing the bohu. And so that's why that second verse is so18:07 important because this is what we see God doing. And this is the pattern for days 1 through 6. And so once everything is created,18:19 everything is ordered, and everything is filled, now it has its purpose. That's why God calls it good. God doesn't call creation good because it's morally18:30 virtuous. Because it's doing the it's doing the good thing. It's not cheating. It's not stealing. It's good. No. It's good because now it's functioning the way He intends it to function. That's what makes His18:42 creation good. But this is where we're gonna sit for just a minute. Because there's something unique created on day 6, and that's humankind. Humanity is created on18:54 day 6, and God calls it very good. So why is it very good? Let's read verse 26. We're gonna jump all the way down to verse 26 right now.19:06 And this is the creation of man. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have19:17 dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Verse 27, so God created19:29 man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And just as a bonus, that verse 27, that's the first poem in the Bible. And19:41 it's a poem written to humanity. It's a poem written about humanity. That's the first time poetry is used in Hebrew. And so why does creation become very good only after19:53 people are created? And that's because people are created on purpose for a purpose. You know, I just preached these 2 verses or these 3 verses to the middle schoolers on Sunday in20:04 Patriot Youth. And this generation is struggling with value and worth and feeling if their life has a purpose and feeling like maybe nobody would care if I wasn't here20:16 right now on this earth. Maybe people would like it better if I was gone. And so I'm reading them these verses and saying, no, God created you on purpose for a purpose. And does anybody need to hear that today?20:30 God didn't have to create you, but He chose to create you. He didn't have to create man, but He decided to create man. Psalm 13nine20:41 13 says, For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. He created you on purpose for a purpose and you're made in His20:53 image. And that's what makes humans unique compared to anything else in creation. That's why they're very good is because they're created in His image.21:06 The sun and moon and stars don't bear His image. The animals don't bear His image. Mankind bears the image of God and that makes us unique. That makes us valuable. That21:18 gives us worth because we're made in his image. And so human value is given by God, it's not earned. There's nothing you can do to lose your21:30 value. There's nothing you can do to put your value back up. Your value is what it is, not because of you, but because of the God who gave it to you, the God who created you. You know, I played a game with21:42 them, with the middle schoolers on Sunday, but I adjusted the game for adult audiences here. We're gonna play it together right now. I'm gonna show you in moments in moments, I'm gonna show you a21:54 painting. And I just want you to think to yourself, how much would I pay for that painting? You can look at your bank right now if you wanna reference or whatever you wanna do. How much are you willing to22:05 spend on this painting? What do you think it's worth? Okay? Let's show them the painting on the screen. How much would you pay for this painting? Maybe22:17 you're really into art, and you're saying, oh, I'd actually pay a lot for that painting. Well, how much would you spend? Or maybe you're like, it's not great. Like, Chatty22:29 Boutique could do a better painting. Think I I can get it specifically however I want. I'm gonna pay 20 bucks a month, and I could be able to get that painting if I want. But how much would it be? This painting sold22:41 Would it be surprising to you if I told you that this painting sold for over 450000000 dollars? It goes on record as the, most expensive painting ever22:53 sold in history to this date. I think it was sold in 20 15. And do you think it it was sold that much because of how expensive the paint was that was used for the brush? Or or the23:04 quality of the brush? Or the canvas that it was painted on? Or because it's a painting of Jesus, if you didn't know, that's that's supposed to be Jesus. This painting is called Salvator23:16 Mundi, and it's painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Oh, now it makes sense. You see, painting's worth didn't come from what was used to paint it. It23:28 came from the creator of the painting. And that's the same with your worth. Your worth doesn't come from what I say it is. Your worth doesn't come from what your parents say it is. Your worth doesn't23:40 come from what your husband says it is. Your worth doesn't come from what anybody has to say it is. It comes from your creator. That's where your worth comes from. And so, yes, you're worth more than creation.23:52 You're the most worthy thing, the most valuable thing in all of creation. Why? Because that's who Jesus died for. Jesus died on the cross. He didn't do it for the sun and the moon and the stars.24:05 He didn't do it for kittens and puppies, even though we think they're so cute. He died on a cross for you because you were worth it. You were worth dying for because24:17 you're the most valuable thing in creation. And so because we're created in God's image, how we see ourselves and how we treat ourselves, it matters because we're made in His24:29 image. But also, this is the next step, how you treat other people matters because they are made in God's image too. Amen. Come on pastor. And so when you treat other people with24:41 honor and respect and dignity, you are honoring and respecting the God who created them in His image. So when you disrespect somebody and you feel like they deserve it24:53 and they're made in God's image, who do you think you're also disrespecting? They're made in His image. And so we should treat them with honor and respect and value because that's the God who created them.25:06 Creation is very good because God's image now lives within it. Creation is very good now because now it's on a God's done the ordering, He's done the filling, and He's25:17 put His image within creation. And so now what happens? Well, now we see the goal of creation, the goal of creation, which is the seventh25:29 day in chapter 2. Chapter 2, let's read it together in verse 1, and we'll read up to verse 3. Chapter 2 verse 1, thus the heavens and the earth were25:41 finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the25:53 seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation. The seventh day. God26:05 creates over 6 days, and then on this seventh day, He rested. And 7 is so important to this whole section of Genesis. This whole first chapter in these26:16 verses, 7 is monumental. And I don't know if anybody has heard the word numerology before. But that's when numbers mean something in the Bible. And sometimes maybe you struggle with maybe knowing whether26:28 a number is supposed to mean something specific or not or anything like that. But I'm a give you a rule of thumb here that you'll never go wrong with. A number means something when you can't get away from it when you're26:39 reading the Bible. When that number is inescapable, it means something for sure. Like without a doubt. And that's not to say the other numbers don't mean it, but for sure. Like you cannot go wrong on yourself when you're26:51 trying to interpret the Bible. And 7 is everywhere here in this first chapter. God doesn't wanna get you to get away from the number 7 here in this chapter. And some of them27:03 you lose in English. Some of the sevens are missed in English, but they're present in Hebrew. Some of them we can see together, but some of them you'll have to just go home and take my word for it. It's in Hebrew. You27:14 can double check me. But there are 7 days of creation. There's 7 times God says it is good. The opening verse, the first verse in Hebrew is 7 words. And27:26 the second verse is 2 sets of 7 words. And this last section in Hebrew is 3 sets of 7 words. 7, 7, 7, 7 is everywhere. And why is 7 so27:37 important? Because it points to this day of creation. It points to this seventh day. And so I don't know if you've heard it before that 7 is the number of completion, which is true. 7 is27:49 complete. The seventh day is when all of God's work is complete, but it's also an arrival number because you've arrived here at this seventh day. Creation has reached its intended28:01 purpose on the seventh day, and it's about rest. And this word rest is where we get the word Sabbath from, rest. You28:13 might think maybe God needed to rest because he was tired from all the work he did. It was real tough just speaking everything into existence. He needed to take a breather. But that's not what this word rest28:25 primarily means. This word in Hebrew primarily means to stop, to cease what you're doing because it's done. And so on this day, God rests. He stops28:37 what He's doing because it's done. What He wanted to do is already finished, and so He's done creating. That's what this rest is. It's a stop. And if you notice, this day also28:48 breaks 1 of the repetitions that's been happening, which is evening and morning. There is no evening and morning on this seventh day. Why? Why is there no evening and29:00 morning to this day? And that's because this day is never meant to end. This seventh day is eternal. This seventh day is forever. This day where29:12 God has finished creating His creation, and now His image bearers are subduing and ruling the earth in peace, in harmony with Him. His presence is29:24 there, and it's forever. And that's the goal of creation, and that's the whole point of why God created everything. For them, for His image bearers to dwell on this earth with Him,29:36 and they ruled it in peace and harmony. And there's something that happens in Genesis chapter 3 that makes this day end. It ends it. And humanity now29:48 does not live in the seventh day of rest anymore. But the days go on, and the days go on. But the whole story of the bible is getting us back30:00 to this point on the seventh day. And the person to bring us back to the seventh day is Jesus himself in Revelation 22. It all comes back to this day where God30:12 is with his creation the way it was supposed to function. And his image bearers are ruling the earth together in peace and harmony. And there is no more sorrow. There are no more tears. There is no more sin.30:24 There's no lying, cheating, stealing, any of that. They're in his presence ruling in peace and harmony for eternity. That's the point of the bible. That's the point that the bible's trying to get30:36 us back to. That's what the story is getting us back to where Jesus reinstitutes this seventh day that never ends. Amen. That's forever. Come on now pastor. Amen. And so30:48 Genesis is not just a book about history, but it's a book about God's design. And this series won't just be about curiosity. How did God30:59 create or or what happened on Noah's ark? Or how did Abraham walk from 1 way to the other? But it's about formation. God is forming something in his creation. And though they do31:11 what they want at times, He is present with them, and He's directing them. We were not created for endless striving. We weren't created to just be on this rat race of31:23 life with no end. We just come to this earth to work, to work, to work, and then die 1 day, and that's it. But we were made to live in rest with our creator,31:35 in peace, in harmony forever and ever and ever. That's the intention that God had when He created the world. And so the Bible begins with rest31:47 lost, and it ends with rest restored. That's the story of the Bible with its bookends right there. And so God formed the world with order and purpose so that humanity might31:58 live in rest with Him. And there's only 1 way to live in that rest with Him. To ultimately live in32:09 eternity with Him, and that's through the work of Jesus Christ. God sent Jesus to this earth so that He can die on a cross and pay32:21 for the atonement of your sins, to pay the payment that you can't pay for something that happened in chapter 3 of Genesis. And that's a whole other sermon on the sin32:33 that enters into the world and all of those things. But it's that sin, those things we do wrong, the lying, the stealing, the cheating, the ulterior motives, all of those things, that's32:45 what prevents us from being in His presence forever, for eternity. And so God Himself comes to this earth and dies on a cross so32:57 that you can live in eternity with Him, to have peace, to have harmony in His presence forever and ever and ever.33:09 And that's available to you today. You're able to know the answer to the question that's written on that building out there, which is where will you spend eternity? Is33:21 your eternity gonna be the seventh day that we just talked about? Or is your eternity gonna be separation from Jesus and God Himself? Separated from33:33 peace, separated from harmony, separated from His presence? Or is it gonna be eternally and in eternity in His presence as you're ruling the earth with Him in33:45 peace and harmony with the other image bearers? It's only through His work and believing in that work that you're able to enter into that and know what your destination is when you die. Yes. Because we are all33:57 gonna leave this earth 1 day. That's right. And we go to 1 of 2 destinations, and it's either in the presence of Jesus forever or separated from the presence of Jesus forever. And it's34:09 only by believing in his sacrifice on the cross that you're able to enter into that eternity with him. You know, we we preach the we preach the gospel to the kids34:21 every every service. And we always, at least in the elementary classes, we always wanna emphasize the gospel. Emphasize how what what does their eternity look like?34:33 And so for a child, it's always hard. How do I do that? How do I get an eternity with Jesus? And we always tell them, it's as easy as ABC.34:44 Jesus as your Lord and savior. Believe that he died on the cross for your sins, and confess the fact that you're not perfect, that you're a sinner, and you need a savior. That's as it that's as easy as it34:56 is, but it might be hard to put our pride aside for a second and recognize that truth tonight. Maybe you were in 20 25, and this wasn't a reality to you yet,35:08 but let's start your 20 26 off right, knowing that your eternity is secure in Jesus Christ, and that you're gonna live in that seventh day with Him in peace and35:20 harmony forever and ever and ever. If you wanted to do that tonight in this place, and you say, You know what? I do wanna accept Jesus into my heart. We're all gonna say a prayer35:32 together. And this prayer isn't what saves you. This prayer isn't what punches your ticket into eternity with Jesus. The prayer is just a confirmation and an affirmation of what you already believe35:44 in your heart. And so let's all bow our heads, close our eyes, and repeat this prayer after me. Say, dear Lord Jesus accept you I accept you. As my35:55 Lord As my Lord. And as my savior. And my savior. I believe that you died on the cross and you rose again for my sins. I confess36:07 that I'm a sinner and I need saving. But I thank you forgiving me. In Jesus name I pray. In Amen. Amen.36:20 Amen. You know, the Bible says that there is a party going on in heaven right now. There is a celebration happening in heaven right now for everybody who just gave their36:32 life to Jesus. And so I wanna do something really quick because I want us to all participate in that party right now, participate in that celebration right now. And so if you'd be so bold,36:44 I'm gonna ask you at the count of 3, if you said that prayer and you meant it from your heart, to raise your hand. And we don't wanna embarrass you, but we wanna celebrate with you and celebrate you joining the family36:55 because that's what Patriot means. It means family, but specifically the family of God because you just joined the Patriot right now. And so on the count of 3, raise your hand. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. Raise your hand if you said37:07 that prayer. Amen. Amen. If you said that prayer for the first time, we wanna get a resource in your hands written37:19 by our lead pastor, pastor Adam. It's called Following Jesus, A Family Journey. And it'll outline what do you do now that you're a Christian. Now that you believe in Jesus, what does your faith journey37:31 look at look like? This book will outline the next 90 days of your faith journey. So you can get 1 of these at any of the faith journey kiosks when you exit. I just wanna emphasize that's for if you said it for the first37:41 time and you believe you became a Christian just now. If you really want that book, we do have them available as well in the Patriot shop just at a minimal cost. If you weren't able to grab a journal,37:53 you can do so right after the service. They'll still be available so that you can get locked in for the rest of the Genesis series because we have a road ahead of us, and it's gonna be very fruitful, and I hope it's38:03 fruitful in your life. Lastly, if you need have need of any additional prayer, you need somebody to believe God with you, maybe to cry with you and to seek the Lord, we have our prayer team38:15 right here at the front at the end of service that they wanna pray with you and believe God with you if you need some prayer, maybe even going into this 20 26. Okay? I'm a pray for us, and then we'll be dismissed for38:26 tonight. God, we come before you, and we just thank you, Lord, for bringing us here, God. We thank you for how rich your word is, how much stuff there is to learn from this word, God. And we just pray for the rest of38:36 this series, Lord, that you would continue to speak to us, continue to reveal things to us, God, and keep this fire in our hearts for the whole year and the rest of our lives, God. We pray all these things in Jesus'38:47 name. Amen. Amen. We hope to see you soon, family.
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