Spirit as Life Giver "I Am Who I Am" [7 of 12] Tim Mackie (The Bible Project) 4/27/2014

all right uh great great so let's let's dive into the teaching for today so um uh we last week was a easter wasn't it great to celebrate easter together yeah it was so awesome and um so that uh kind of formed a closure point in this uh the big picture teaching series that we've been in for a couple months uh in this series called i am who i am where we're exploring uh what a christian means when they use the word god and what should come into my mind if i am a follower of jesus who should come into my mind when i say that word and it's a very specific being with a very specific story and character it's the god revealed to us in jesus who is father son and spirit and so we took a month to explore the character of god the father we took uh over a month to explore the character of jesus god the son and today we turn uh the corner to explore uh god's spirit and actually this is gonna be the longest part of the series we in fact we haven't even put an end point on it yet we know it's gonna be at least a month and a half so far and then josh and i were just kind of let's just stay open-ended you know let's just see what happens if we need to feel like we should do more but i don't know what comes into your mind when you hear just even the word apart from god or christianity or anything when you hear the word spirit this is a very interesting concept i think or language concept or word in our culture the concept of spirit i think probably what comes into most of our minds is like something invisible you can't see it it's a spirit it's connected to some one or some thing and then we're just kind of lose interest or whatever and start thinking about your cup of coffee and how good it is or something like that i don't know so so spirit it's it's kind of an illusory term in our language and and when christians come to talk about god's spirit in the bible uh the the spirit in the bible is is either just called the spirit god's spirit it's sometimes called the spirit of jesus and most often it's called especially in the new testament the holy spirit the four most common names the spirit goes by and you know i think you know we could do interesting word association actually it'd be fascinating to sit down with everyone and say what's the first three things that come to your mind when i say holy spirit and it would that would just be fascinating right and to record everybody's answers so i think all kinds of things would come into our minds and it probably depends on your background and your story so for some of us maybe if you have no real framework for christianity or the church or whatever you just speak i don't the holy spirit does not i remember my grandpa used to say holy ghost that was kind of weird ghost in the bible that's weird whatever maybe you don't have any associations maybe some of you what you think of is maybe friends or family or maybe your own story that we're a part of a christian tradition that really really emphasized the person and the reality of the holy spirit and maybe even it was a part of a tradition maybe like what i grew up in when i was a little kid that that there were a lot of uh what at least to me as a child were quite bizarre and extreme behaviors in sunday gatherings connected with the holy spirit i will say no more but if you know what i'm talking about you know what i'm talking about so there's that and then there are other christian traditions that maybe you know give lip service or talk about the holy spirit but for the most part there's nothing experiential existential or mystical about their experience of faith in jesus it's just kind of like read the bible and grit your teeth and pray and you know that kind of thing and so that it doesn't seem like there's any vitality or living reality that people are in touch with those are kind of the two extremes and so um what we want to be what we're striving to be as a community uh that continues to ground ourselves in the scriptural vision of who the spirit is and i think it kind of forces us to walk some kind of middle ground which is why we want to take as long as we need to to explore explore god's spirit and so what i wanted to do today is just kind of clear the ground and explore what i think if you read through the scriptures what is what is one of the first things that should come into our minds when we think of god's spirit according in the scriptures what's the one of the first most primary things we think holy spirit god's spirit oh yes this and what is what is this so oh wow just thank you you're just volunteering okay so so i'd be interested to hear your responses but let's uh first i want to tell you a story about slugs and i think that will help us that will help us so um one of the wonderful things about this is another story about my children i'm so sorry you guys actually i'm not sorry to tell stories my life is so boring and raising little children is so all consuming i don't have anything else interesting in my life to talk about so what my kids say and do is the most interesting thing in my life right now so slugs so my wife loves to garden and so you know we're it's really fun we're out we have a yard this spring for the first time and in a long time and so we're out there digging in the dirt and so you know we're out there in the last few weeks there's been a lot of rain it's really muddy and what creatures comes out actually lots of creatures come out but the slugs are out for sure and so um a few weeks ago after one of the heavy rains my son and i went out to go splash in puddles uh down at the corner and we were coming back and right outside the curb of our front we saw a slug and he's he's really this is the first spring he's really paid attention to these fascinating creatures right these slugs and so just i had to capture the moment so we'll just keep keep it up there now you might see what's actually happening in this picture but don't don't jump the gun yet so can you see the little slug in this little trail it's kind of a small one there that little dark that little dark spot there and it's got a little trail so we were watching the slug i mean you know for a solid 30 seconds or so which is a long time for a two-year-old right so so and then he he asked me this question that just stunned me he asked me why is it going dada and i thought to myself he'd why why is it going surely he doesn't mean that so i think he and i said oh you mean where is it going i think it's going you know into the grass or something like that and he said no why is it going dada and i was like are you really asking me that question right now are you asking me why is this thing here and what is energizing this little thing and what makes it go and what really is behind everything that makes all this world go and so on whoever that's why i'm like is he asking me that question right now i think is he asking me that question and so by the time i really came to and like wanted to pursue it with him it was a good ten seconds and the mind of a two-year-old is a jungle of course and so 10 seconds is he's already on to the next thing or whatever and so i'm like what you know yeah why is it going and then what he probably started to do would be like let me spit on it dada and so then he's starting to i don't know if you can see he's starting to spit on it spit on it right there and then uh and then it was over the moment was gone he was not he didn't even remember that he had asked that question or whatever and then he you know tried stepping on it something like that so so but this really so i don't actually know what he meant when he asked that question it could have been that he just meant like why is it going why is it going that way as opposed to that way but what i would like to think because you know you want to think your kid is probably smarter than they actually are is that they uh he really was asking like something fired inside his little brain that was asking like what makes this thing go what is such a strange little creature it's the first year we've ever really paid attention to them data what is this thing why is it going that is such a good question and it's the same question that i think happens to most of us as we continue to grow up and you go to the zoo or you go hiking or whatever and you're like what on earth is happening here what's driving all of this what makes all of this life and creatures and biodiversity what makes it go and i think that if you were to have asked that question of jesus or one of you knows jewish contemporaries somebody in jesus time who had grown up immersed in the hebrew scriptures you would get a very clear answer to that question from within the scriptural worldview and the answer would be oh this spirit why is that thing going oh i'll tell you why it's god's spirit that makes that thing go grab your bibles and uh turn with me to page one i always left saying turn to page one of the bible page one and uh we'll we'll explore uh the holy spirit and and slugs in genesis chapter one what makes what makes that thing go we're gonna just for a few minutes here cover territory that we covered really briefly way back at the beginning of this series um in the first verses of the bible and the concept of spirit though we're gonna turn over a few stones here that we didn't turn over a few a few months ago so genesis chapter one let's just read the first three verses in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and ding ding the spirit of god was there hovering over the waters and god said let there be light and there was light okay let's pause just totally just stopping right in the middle of a really interesting storyline here so uh there's all kinds of debates and discussions and so on we're just not even to just not even go there it's just not even that interesting right now and so there's a lot of questions you probably want to ask or whatever i just want to focus in on one question and it's the same question we focused in on when we look at this a couple months ago and that's a question of who which you might think is really simple but if once you actually start reading it the who question is really really interesting right here and so this is about somehow the authoring or the origination of the heavens and the earth and of creation and so on who's the one at work here who's working to create first sentence of the bible god who else spirit of god now that's really interesting and this this text has caused jewish readers and christian readers to scratch their heads for thousands of years right now what is going on right here why doesn't it just say god so you have god a very kind of bare statement with no details whatsoever god created the heavens and the earth but then you have this dark watery chaos formless and empty whatever formless and empty and dark means does that sound good to you is that a place where you can go as i say build a park right build a neighborhood and play with your kids and have a barbecue with your friends no no whatever this dark chaotic wasteland is it's uninhabitable for life to flourish and that's what genesis 1 is all about aside from all the debates and the discussions it begins not with nothing it begins with a dark watery wasteland chaos and god and spirit of god are there to bring order and beauty and a garden out of the dark chaotic wasteland that's genesis chapter chapter 1. so who who is there god is there and then you have spirit of god there and what is spirit of god doing hovering hovering is such a strange concept and this is this this word is used um in the hebrew scriptures very rarely the only other times that this word is used it's used in poetry to describe a bird hovering and in a beautiful one of the oldest poems in in the hebrew bible deuteronomy chapter 32 it's yahweh depicted as a bird hovering over its nest hovering over its young which is israel is he's going to rescue them out of slavery in egypt and so this is very you have this you have god creating and and what you have in the beginning is a dark watery chaos and then you have spirit of god like they're swooping in and hovering over this dark chaos and then things start to get start to get really good so i i taught you this word a couple months ago but we're going to do it do it again do you remember the hebrew word for spirit yeah good job you guys look at you rock stars all right so hebrew word uh for a spirit is ruach and you have to it's the kh letter which is you have to breathe through it clear your throat when you say it let's all do it together right you don't unless there's spittle hitting the front of your lips it's not quite not quite good so this is um the hebrew word in the old testament um also the in the new testament which is not written in hebrew it's written in greek it's a different word but with the same kind of nuances of meaning that we're going to see right here it's the word numa numa and the silent uh p right there numa won't you say it with me very good class so numa so think uh you know whatever we we have this word in english or at least this part of this word what where do we use this yeah like pneumatic drills or something or hammered nail guns i don't know whatever you can tell i'm not very handy so this is a new so pneumatic so ruach and numa now here's what's really interesting is that both of these words have been shaped by kind of the the jewish israelite mindset here for what these words mean and what they're about so so ruach so ruach the first one of the main ways it gets translated is spirit but what what does that mean exactly what is spirit now this word also gets used in a lot of different ways i had you do this two months ago but do it again because it'll help it sing and put your hand in front of your mouth and you'll get your morning breath reflected right back at you that'll be pleasant so um let's say hello together hello okay now did you feel that that warm warmth on your hand what is that that's your ruach that's right there so how would you translate that in english it's your breath yeah breath so this both ruach and numa when you see the word breath in your bibles it's almost always the same exact word god's spirit is god's breath what what does that even mean so let's say for example let's say um uh you know uh service gets over and you go decide to go take a walk let's say it's gonna be sunny after our service gets over right let's just pretend right and it will be by the end of the week right supposed to be 80 80 degrees holy cow anyway so so let's say you go for a walk in irving park and you crest over the hill i really recommend walking in irving park it's a wonderful park and let's say you crest over the hill right here and then it kind of flattens out and you get up near the dog park area and you see you see someone lying on the ground right and maybe from a distance they're lying on the ground they're not moving it seems like they're unconscious and you start running towards them what's one of the first one or two things you're going to do you're going to check their pulse maybe maybe that might be the second thing what's the first thing that would be way easier to do you would check their whether they're breathing how would you do that how would you do that how's it depicted in the movies at least i don't know whatever you need you did it you might put your ear right next to their their mouth right now if it's a cold day it's a really cold day and you happen to have a little pocket mirror with you just saying you might you know um what would you do with the pocket mirror what you could what could you do also check their breathing yeah you could you could hold it right there and what would you see start blowing up on the mirror if they're alive you would see the condensate you would see their their breath their ruach their ruach so in other words ruach is is is life how do you know whether someone's alive or not well do they have ruach if you have ruach it means you're alive if you do not have ruach you do you're not alive right does the slug have ruach in it yeah yeah it has every living creature has ruach every human has every creature has ruach it's the principle of life so whatever you want to say you know and we might say well actually it's you know the exhalation of moisture a bit of h2o and carbon dioxide and so on and so no stop it stop it right so that's so you're well that's fine think yes actually do think like that but when you're reading in the bible don't think like that right because you're importing your modern world view into these ancient texts so think think through how this works from 3 000 years ago your ruach it's mysterious it's invisible but it is a it is a number one indicator that this creature is living has life it's its inner life and vitality and so when uh the the hebrews and and the jewish people when they learned to speak greek when they wanted to speak of god's inner life of god's sustaining inner vitality they speak of god's ruach by which they don't mean the old man in the sky who has morning breath what they mean is is a being who who's invisible but who is behind all life as we know it and when we speak of god's spirit we're speaking of his personal presence here right here in the midst hovering in creation and it's god's own inner life that energizes and gives life to all living things okay now this should raise all kinds of questions for us three at least that i want to to address first of all what so what is god's rule it's god's inner life what you know we're using this word of ruach his inner energizing life and it's present right here in in the creation now look back down at genesis 1 with me how how does well first of all look at verse 2 again what's what's the ruach doing what's god's inner life doing is hovering so this i mean that's amazing that's cool but like what what's it doing well it's just hovering it's like it's waiting and what's it waiting for how does god's ruach work in the world and what does it do and what is it that begins god and his ruach beginning to transform this dark chaos into a beautiful garden that's ordered and so on what's the first thing god does he's he speaks look at verse 3 and god said let there be light and there there was light genesis 1 is broken up into a 7-day structure but also 10 acts of god speaking and i had to do this last time but it's just good again put your hand up to your mouth again say hello now you can maybe kind of feel i'll do this sorry you may kind of feel uruah just just like not talking but when you talk what definitely happens your ruach ruach comes out so this is all connected here so you have god but then you have god's ruach hovering there it's like it's waiting and then all of a sudden it's god's word that releases the ruach out to begin its creative order bringing life giving work are you with me here this is all connected through the imagery here it's all very all very intentional there's a connection between god his ruach and his word all working together to bring order and beauty out of out of the chaos and so this connection how does god's ruach work in the world and in the first sentences of the bible it's like it's released or given its marching orders by god's word and this concept has very uh ancient roots in in the scriptures i'm going to be uh just showing you a bunch of scriptures on the screen here as we build out the scriptural portrait of the spirit so psalm 33 for example it's a beautiful psalm highly recommend it there's this little section about the word of yahweh it says the word of yahweh is right it's true he is faithful in all he does the lord loves righteousness and justice the earth is full of his covenant love that is a line worth pondering by the word of yahweh the heavens were made and their starry host by the ruach of his mouth now you can just even maybe guess right there in your english translations how are they likely to translate ruach which one probably breath because we're talking about yahweh's mouth as a metaphor right for his word but it's clearly looking back to genesis 1 and 2 and it's looking at god's spirit as his breath so there's this conception you have yahweh and then you have yahweh's word expressing his will and his purpose acting but it's yahweh is ruach that's there the agent doing the transforming work you guys with me here so here's what i'm inviting us to do whatever you're understanding again of the holy spirit and what you know we have all kinds of conceptions from our are growing up what i'm inviting us to do is to actually replace those experiences and so on with the biblical vision and the biblical vision of the spirit first and foremost literally from the first page of the bible is it's god's personal presence of his inner life that as we're going to see is everywhere present and the primary thing that it does is bring life out of darkness and bring order and beauty out of chaos that's what god's ruach does and that's how it works in the world which which raises another question okay so um you were walking you know up to the park and uh you know you you all of a sudden you find like holy cow the guy's breathing you know he was collapsed on the ground he's breathing and in fact he didn't lose his ruach which is really good news it's it's a bummer to lose your ruach right and i suppose you wouldn't really even know when when you did because you would lose you would lose consciousness and so it raises the question like okay so all living beings including humans like we have ruach where did you get that where'd you get your ruach where'd it come from did you make it for yourself like where okay so we have god has ruach but where did i get my ruach and how does the slug have ruach dada why is it going that's essentially what he's asking here where did that thing get its it's ruach turn the page genesis chapter 2. uh genesis 2 actually starting in verse 4 of genesis 2 there's a distinct um there's a distinct world origin story that's set right alongside genesis chapter one and they're they're different but they're also complementary and so on and so you had humans made and god god's image in genesis 1. in genesis 2 it offers a different type of portrait about the origin of human beings look at looking at verse 5 chapter 2 verse 5. now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth no plant had yet sprung up for the lord god had not sent rain on the earth because there was no one there to work to till the ground but rather streams came up from the earth and watered the whole the whole surface of the ground now to stop real quick here so this is the depiction of this is genesis 2's depiction of the chaos of the formless and void it's just this kind of wasteland and there's water but there's no cultivated farms and fields and neighborhoods and so on because who do you need to make that kind of stuff you need humans you need humans to make that kind of stuff and so where does the story go next verse seven then the lord god formed a human or some years might have uh adam or some of your translations might have man this is another good one here so um the hebrew word for humanity it's the word adam adam from which we of course get our name adam adam so adam is just a hebrew word that means humanity now there's a really amazing word play that's going to go on here in verse 7. keep reading so then the lord god formed adam from the dust or the dirt of the ground i have ground here in niv any other translations there of the dust of the we all have ground anybody have earth dust of the earth nobody all right then so we all have ground dust of the ground you with me okay so here's uh here's the word play because the word for ground which means soil or earth it's the word adama so he you're kind of supposed to go like oh that's very clever right so he makes uh he makes adam from the dirt of the adama and the word so literally adam is human means earthling literally literally and actually so does our word human our word human uh comes from the latin word homo which is connected to the latin word for dirt which is human we have our english word humus have you heard that word for dirt before humus human humans it's the same exact for in english from latin it's this connection in other words it's this awareness that human we are earthlings right we're we're dirt in the most positive complementary way possible right because the earth is amazing and so it's a compliment so we're we come from the dirt and we have an intimate connection with our origins woven into creation and to the dirt itself and how to actually how do you know the human beings come from the dirt what do we turn back into after you put grandpa in the family tomb and eight months goes by and what happens turns back into dirt except for the bones and then you put those in a box so so we go back we come from the dirt we go back into the dirt this is so the images all are so cool here so the lord god formed earthling from the dust of the earth so we're dirt but then there's also this awareness that human beings are something more than dirt and what is that what does god do into the dirt he breathes he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life and earthling dirt becomes a living creature a living creature now there's a whole bunch of other interesting things going on here i'll just point out a couple of them so that word formed then the lord god formed a man this is a poetic image this word formed is used in the bible only ever to describe an artisan and someone who works with clay and makes pots so this is describing so literally one who sits that like gets at the wheel gets a lump and starts spinning the wheel and forming and molding it that is this word form and so god's depicted here as as forming humans out of dirt like a potter spinning this lump the shape that's human and so this is somehow like there's a divine purpose at work in the origins of humanity we come from the dirt but we are not simply dirt we are dirt and divine ruach where did you get your ruach according to genesis 2 verse 7 you did not make it for yourself it's it's a gift your ruach is a gift and you get it on loan essentially from god's own ruach now this doesn't mean necessarily that at this point in the story that like god has taken up residence in the human or something like that it's just it's a very simple point why does it go dada what what's happening here what's with the birds and the humans and the worms and the slugs like what's going on here what's driving all of this and jesus immersed in the hebrew scriptures his contemporaries they would have said ruach what is it that animates you and where did you get your ruach it's a it's a gift i didn't get it for myself if you've had the chance to be present when a little human being emerges and takes its first breath of ruach it's it's like watching aliens or something like that it's just the craziness it's so crazy it's the craziest thing in the world because these little creatures as they're making this transition here they actually for the first like two seconds they appear lifeless but then they cough scream ah you know this whole thing and then they take their breath and you're like holy cow this thing's full of ruach right and it's it's that it's that question right here so this is a very common conception where dirt and divine breath just some other biblical these are all poetry in the hebrew scriptures but other biblical passages that explore this for example the poet in the book of job in a couple different places the line that says the ruach of god has made me and the breath of the almighty the different word breath there in the second line but it's related a breath of the almighty gives me life and he says later he says if it were god's intention if he withdrew his ruach and his breath humanity humanity adam would would perish altogether mankind would return back to the dust so it's it's this idea that our we're all living on borrowed ruach my life does not originate with me it's a gift every day i wake up and i breathe in it's god's gift to me to exist in his world because without ruach you and i are goners now it gets even more interesting because are human beings only creatures with ruach no they're not they're not the only creatures because my son could pay you know recognize that fact by looking looking at the slug and so in one of the most beautiful poems in all of the hebrew scriptures psalm 104 which i recommend you go hike drive 30 minutes up the gorge go hike up one of the dozens of trails sit at the top of waterfall and read psalm 104 aloud to yourself and it will be a transcendent experience so psalm 104 is just exploring god's relationship to the what we call the natural world his creation and the interplay and the beauty and the goodness and so on and so at the last end of the latter end of the poem here in verse 24 it begins and says how many are your works yahweh in wisdom you made them all the earth is full of your creatures all creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time when you give it to them they gather it up when you open your hand they're satisfied with good things let's let's go back here sorry let's stop right here so in terms of the biblical conception here this is again the vision of the reality that jesus would have grown up with in the scriptures is is there any concept here of god like kind of winding up the world to just work according to laws or something and then just takes off on a really long vacation is that the concept of god here can you see if you're familiar with the teachings of jesus can you see jesus's teachings emerge right here when jesus talks about birds receiving their clothing and their food right from yahweh when jesus talks about the flowers of the field being provided for jesus is teaching a vision of god's continual involvement in the world he doesn't wind it up create it and then take off he's actually intimately involved and infinitely generous how do you know god is involved in generous dude go take a walk in irving park on a sunny day all right and look at leaves and flowers and little dogs playing and children and you're like holy cow ruach this thing is amazing it's amazing now it gets interesting here as the poem goes on so it says when you hide your face creatures are terrified when you take away their ruach they die and return to the dust it's this conception here without ruach dirt but when you send your ruach they're created and you renew the face of the ground now just stop just look at that last line of poetry right there so so we're describing we're describing death aren't we what is death it's it's losing your ruach and it returns returns back to god so what is this last line of poetry about god sending the ruach what's it talking about if the line above it's about death what is this line about birth birth right so so in other words what we're asked to consider is that when like a little when when like you know grant great grandpa dear passes away or the lion gets him or something you know and he breathes out his ruach he returns to the dirt but when when mama dear is out there squatting in the field and giving birth to a new little deer and it takes its first inhale of ruach what is according to the poem what's happening right there that's that's god sending his ruach in other words the in this conception god sending his ruach is not just something that happened a long time ago and then it just we are autonomous and continue giving rock to each other and so on it's as if god is actually continually involved in providing ruach at the birth of every little creature if you i've never come across a wild animal giving birth in a field but wouldn't that be awesome if you did and if you did psalm 104 would encourage you to say this ruach that's god's ruach happening right there and it's an act of creation and god's renewing the earth god is continually involved in bringing new life and it's all connected to god's to god's ruach how you guys doing it gets even it gets even better so paul the apostle he was raised in the scriptures he was clearly aware of this and so in the new testament paul the apostle he goes uh to the uh the city of athens greece and he wants to talk with philosophers and he wants to find some common ground with them in their conceptions of the world and of god and so on and so paul begins to talk in ways that would make sense to them and look at the way paul talks to them this is in acts 17 he says he says listen the god who made the world and everything in it he's the lord of heaven and earth god created the heavens and the earth he doesn't actually literally live in temples right built by human hands and in fact he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything actually it's the opposite because he himself is the one who gives everyone life and breath and everything else and here he uses uh the word the word numa so what what is the first thing when you think of spirit god's spirit the spirit of jesus holy spirit what's the first thing that should come into our minds if i'm a christian follower of jesus i'm trying to discipline my mind to think truly about god the this is here it is it's on page one of the bible and it just spills out from there who who is god's ruach god's ruach it's god's second self it's god's personal life-giving presence that shares his own like autonomous inner life and it's out there hovering in the midst of the creation bringing and giving life and existence and sustaining the existence of all of all living things the spirit of god is about life in the bible the spirit of god is god's personal presence whose basic mission in the world is to mediate his life giving love and energy to his creation that's what the spirit does in the hebrew scriptures isn't this amazing i think it's amazing and and these were not connections that were ever really made for me by my own experiences or whatever and growing up but you read the biblical passages and it's just so beautiful and compelling okay so now this raises the third and final question which will kind of usher us into the gospel of luke for a couple minutes so so uh the ruach is god's god's personal presence his inner life communicated out into the world at least in in the hebrew scriptures and it's what animates where did you get your ruach we have it on loan and so on but some of us might be hearing or thinking this sounds a lot sounds a lot like the force doesn't it star wars anybody come on there was anybody raised on star wars i try to bring it up as many chances as i can right so you might be like well this is very similar you know i have this co-worker and like she's really really into kind of new age gaia mother earth spirituality and you're like that kind of sounds very similar to that and there's a sense in which you're right and there's a sense in which there's a big difference but here's what's fascinating i think in terms of available world views in our culture right now so you have um like an atheistic worldview it says you know there's there's no there's there's nothing that exists other than what can be discerned through the five senses or through math or something like that and there's no purpose there's no divine being or whatever and then on the opposite end of the spectrum you have a set of world views that fall under the umbrella called pantheism you guys familiar with this term pantheism which is another just couple greek words pan means everything theism means god so atheism is no god at all pantheism is everything is god and so this is many many some eastern religions the christianity is the eastern religion too and it is not pantheism but many eastern religions nature religions new age spirituality and so that the divine energy is infused into the rock and the tree in the worm and where does it get its ruach and its energy will it's from the divine and all of us are emanations of the divine or something like that you guys know this world view it's quite prominent in portland oregon right and so so actually christianity is more similar to that than it is to atheism but with a crucial crucial difference crucial crucial difference what makes christian theism different from pantheism so remember that scene in star wars sorry it's where luke and obi-wan kenobi is they first meet out in the deserts of tatooine and obi-wan is trying to get luke to learn about his history and so on and he mentions the force and luke says in a very juvenile voice the force you're like oh what's the fourth and it's this little line obi-wan says the force well it's an energy field created by all living things it surrounds us it penetrates us it binds the galaxy together i'm the only one who knows these lines come on you know these lives all right so it's an energy that that is emanated by all living things surrounds us penetrates us binds the galaxy together in a pantheistic world view the divine is an energy it's almost always in these world views an impersonal force and it's either generated or emanated by all living things which means you have the divine energy emanating out of you and so does the worm and the rock and the tree and so on and so very often in these in these world views you end up venerating or worshiping or giving allegiance to different things rocks or trees and it's a really big tree and it's amazing and we get our fruit and our food from it it must be an emanation of the divine and so on and so that's that's what's going on in these in these world views in a christian theist world view it's there's one crucial difference and it's very it's similar there is a divine energy that's that's that's energizing and vitalizing everything we see around us and it is not an impersonal force however our conviction our conviction is that that is an energy that's the generous loving gift of a person of a being a personal being and that personal being is knowable and has a history and has a story and has been revealing to his creatures why why we're all here and why we're energized in the first place does that different make sense to you now what it ought to do is enable us to talk to our panthers neighbors and co-workers and actually have like go on hikes together and just be amazed and then it gives you a chance to talk about the person that you think is behind all of this and they're like that's cool for you you know and whatever like then keep hanging out and be their friends and talk about it but that's there's actually an enormous amount of overlap here because who can who can deny even an atheist who can deny sitting on mount tabor looking over the west hills and you get the spring sunset you guys know what i'm talking about here and there's the you know the evening birds and the amazing clouds and the orange silver purple lining and so on and you're just like oh there's so amazing right it's this transcendent sacred moment and you and your pantheous co-worker can both sit there and be like there is something more going on here there's something bigger than all of us and which at which point as a christian i would say and that something is someone and that someone has made themselves known to us in the person of jesus flip forward with me to the gospel of luke we're going to spend a couple of minutes in the gospel of luke and then land land the plane how you guys doing good i'm doing good too luke chapter one so in the story of the bible this is very briefly human beings who exist as just a pure gift the gift of god's ruach animates us and sustains us and what we do with the gift of our existence through sin and selfishness is just think that somehow we exist for ourselves we take our borrowed existence and borrowed breath and turn our lives into our own little kingdoms calling the shots ourselves and it creates a world that is the way that it is a bunch of creatures living on borrowed breath ruining god's good world and ruining each other and so god's whole mission throughout the story of the bible is to send jesus who is god's own second self to come among us and to be the kind of human being that none of us none of us are luke chapter 1 verse 26 it's a familiar story christmas reading christmas story right after easter verse 26 in the sixth month of elizabeth's pregnancy god sent the angel gabriel to nazareth the town in galilee to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named joseph a descendant of david the virgin's name was mary angel went to her and said greetings you who are highly favored the lord is with you mary was troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this would be but the angel said to her don't be afraid mary you found favor with god you will conceive i.e new life is about to be generated within you you're going to conceive and give birth to a son you are to call him jesus he'll be great called the son of the most high the lord god will give him the throne of his father david he'll reign over jacob's descendants forever his kingdom will never end mary responds with a very very good question right hmm how can this be because you know you do know like i've never [Laughter] so i'm i'm a virgin how can new life be created out of an environment that is not yet ready to bring life out yet how this is a womb that isn't prepared to bring life out how can life be created out of conditions where you would never think life could come into being here the angel answered who's going to come upon you who's to say the spirit have you ever wondered why it just doesn't say god and you know exactly why now don't you because the spirit is in the business of personally entering into environments where life cannot flourish and bringing life just generating life the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high this is so great will do what like this the holy spirit comes does this look i'm sorry i look like an idiot i'm sorry but does this does this um just ring any bells right here the holy spirit coming coming in yeah it's all intentional you guys it's all intentional the power of the most high will overshadow you the holy one to be born will be called the son of god in other words this is the moment where humanity while it exists on borrowed ruach has actually begun to die spiritually because of our rejection of our creator and so god enters the story in the person of jesus the father sends the son to become a human being and the human and the son enters the human race through the power and the hovering life-giving presence of the spirit it's amazing that it's beautiful turn the page chapter three chapter three i i dare you get a pink highlighter uh read through luke's uh two-part work in the new testament which is the book of luke and then the book of acts and just highlight every time the spirit is mentioned and your pages will be bleeding with pink the holy spirit is highlighted and luke and acts more than any other new testament writing and it's all always really cool amazing stuff look at chapter 3 verse 21 when all the people were being baptized by by john the baptist down in the jordan jesus was baptized too and as he was praying the heavens were opened and who should come down the holy spirit descended on him in physical form like what like a bird like a bird like a dove so again you have the holy spirit now coming down hovering over the waters and and who is who is this one that the holy spirit is hovering over it's this one who is going to bring about new creation for all of humanity and what and the voice says a voice came from heaven saying you are my son whom i love with you i am well pleased you have the father communicating his love for the son and the one who communicates and mediates that personal love and presence of the father to the son is is god's his pneuma his own his second self his inner life is now this person father son spirit you guys with me here this is so cool keep okay now what follows afterwards this little tour of luke you guys would you guys doing okay all right so verse 23 gets even better so you have this new human generated by god's spirit and then you find out this new human is in fact bound into god's own self in the community of love father son and spirit now jesus himself was about 30 years old when he began his ministry he was the son of joseph at least it was thought and then what follows gripping gripping story so the long genealogy that has all kinds of interesting historical questions connected to it but look at the last uh the last person in the genealogy all the way down the very end who is it adam adam the son of god jesus comes as a new adam how was adam created dirt and divine breath how is jesus as god the son entered into the human race through god's ruach look at the next sentence chapter four jesus now full of what who the spirit left the jordan and was led by the spirit into the wilderness where for forty days he was tested by the devil so this is a new a whole new thing jesus is this human but who is so full of god's ruach it's as if this is a new conception and we're going to explore this whole idea of being full of the spirit later on in the series it's as if humanity was always intended to be so in tune with the creator that you could say that that we are filled up with god's own inner life and energizing presence not just to exist physically but to exist in loving covenant relationship and so here's jesus this pioneer of a new humanity and he is completely in tune with the father through the presence and the energizing work of the spirit here you guys with me this is this is it's all connected it's all connected last one go down to verse 14. jesus returned to galilee in the power of whom the spirit knews about him spreading through the whole countryside he was teaching in their synagogues everyone praised him he went to his hometown to nazareth where he had been brought up and on the sabbath day he went into the synagogue according to his custom he stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet isaiah was handed to him and unrolling it he found the place where it was written come on verse 18 who is on jesus the spirit notice all these metaphors so you can be filled up with the spirit or you can have it like the spirit is on you the spirit of yahweh is on me he has come and anointed me to do what to proclaim good news good news and so that's the depiction of jesus he's he's god become human in the power and life-giving energy of the spirit to be the kind of human being for us that we cannot be for ourselves and his whole mission is to be here to announce good news that god wants to give us life he wants to give us life and that's going to require a whole lot of horrible things to happen to jesus so that he can give us forgiveness and life when whatever your conception of the spirit is i just encourage you to just kind of time warp back and create a blank slate in your mind and allow these passages to begin to rebuild this portrait of who the spirit is it's god's own inner life it's his presence and he longs for us to be filled up with his very life in us through the spirit as we go on in the series you'll see that the spirit is connected with with love and with joy and with life and with character transformation and with healing it's this the spirit of life and that's the one who jesus has come to reveal to us amen what does this mean for us so i always end here and say i have no idea what this means for you right so but i have a hunch i have a hunch because are is there anyone here who has a feeling like like life like you're not full of vitality and life anybody do you do you have a feeling that you actually feel like god's distant and like actually he's not involved in your life at all and you you feel like you're talking to a wall when you pray or whatever and anybody is there any of us we feel like we have life circumstances or we have traits character traits things within us that they actually diminish life from us and they might be very sinful or selfish patterns and they actually diminish life they diminish our relationships from each other and and from god and what this whole series as we go into the spirit is about is it's like the spirit of god the spirit of jesus it's in the business of entering dark chaotic environments and bringing change bringing life bringing hope and bringing beauty and it's not it's not a force it's not an impersonal energy it's a person who's there sitting next to you when you pray and you're feeling like your prayers are hitting the wall and the scriptures are inviting us to see that god's own his own breath is sitting there next to you waiting to be acknowledged and invited into our life into our experience and so that's what i would encourage us to do with the time that remains think about the parts of your life the relationships the circumstances where you feel like it's formless and void where it's a where it's a dark chaos of confusion or despair or selfishness or sin and let's just in the time that's here let's just invite the spirit the spirit of the living god to once again enter into our lives and to guide us and to point us towards jesus to help us focus on jesus and what he did for us and allow him to speak life and good news into our lives amen let me close into word of prayer you

Channel: Bible Nerds & Tim Mackie Fans

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Id: X6okjSatxY4

Length: 59min 11sec (3551 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021