Saw and Took

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

The Hierarchy Reversed

Shabbat shalom, everybody. Welcome to Founding and Truth. It's good to see everybody today. So we're continuing our short series on the image bearer—what that means.

In the last message, we found out according to the Bible what we are—what the intention was for the creation of man. We saw in Genesis that God knelt down in the dirt and shaped a statue, an image of himself. Or rather, he created man as his image. And then he did one thing that no pagan priest could ever fake with their idols—no matter how they attempted to imitate creating the image of their gods. God leaned down and breathed his own breath through the nostrils of this statue that he created out of the mud, and the statue got up. It was alive. It came to life.

That's the story of you. That's the story of man. That's the story of what God is doing with his images. And then we see that God gave his brand new image one job. If you guys remember, that job was really just a single word in Genesis: to rule. To rule. He wanted his images to rule his creation. Rule over the fish of the sea. The birds in the air—you're supposed to rule them. The beasts of the field, the livestock, the wild animals. All of this was made for his image to rule over as his representation.

It's Not Just About Believing

It's all fun: "Oh, I'm an image of God. Oh, there's—it's a job." Yeah, it's a vocation. It's a whole mission that God would rule through you—essentially, his images. You were crowned to rule. And see, most of us as we continue, most of us were taught from kids to believe the Bible. And I word it like that on purpose. Most of us were taught to believe it—not a bad thing. But not many of us were taught how the Bible actually works, how that's supposed to grow that belief when we read it.

And the thing about the Bible that I think sometimes people get wrong is that the Bible is not a strict rule book. That's not how it was written. People would even argue that the Torah is a rule book, that it's legislation. Well, the first sixty-one chapters are narrative. That's not how it starts. That's not the foundation. It's a story. Now, there may be rules in the story, but that's a different genre than just legislation.

Some of us were taught that the Bible is more like a phone book—just a big pile of verses. And then when we need one verse, we just flip to that verse and we read it for whatever need we have. And that's a really cool way to use the Bible, and I think the Holy Spirit works through that. But I don't think that's what the Bible was for in its grandness. No, the Bible is one—whether we like it or not—one of the most sophisticated pieces of literature ever produced in human history. And this comes from believing scholars and secular scholars alike. It's amazing. The people that wrote the Bible, carried along and inspired by the Holy Spirit, were masters at writing and telling stories in certain ways. They were not uneducated. They were artists. And they had different techniques that they used that sometimes we might miss.

Biblical Hyperlinks

And one of those techniques, which is probably one of their favorites—I would assert—is something that biblical scholars would call intertextuality. I call it biblical hyperlinks. And what that means is that throughout the Bible there comes a point where an author, when he wants to make a point, might plant a word on one page, and then another author hundreds or even thousands of years later might grab that exact same word and synchronize whatever story he's telling with the story that the word was used in previously. In other words, a hyperlink. You go on the internet and you see the little blue underline when you're reading a web page and you click on it and it links to a completely different web page, a different website, a different host, different content. But there's something about them that's supposed to sync them together. It's a hyperlink.

And so you'll see these hyperlinks throughout the Bible—phrases or words that might be in Genesis but might be scattered throughout the entire Bible. And if we would dare not just read past it and click on it and see that, oh, these stories are connecting—this scholar over here, this author over here wanted to reference this story over there to further a point that he's trying to tell you, a bigger point of his story right here. Links together. The stories start talking to each other because they're meant to be alive.

The Garden as Template

The garden of Eden—as we discussed last time—the garden is not just where the story starts in Genesis 1, 2, and 3. It's a template. It's a template. So many authors of the Bible over the next thousands of pages mold their stories around what has taken place in Genesis 1 through 3.

There is an incredible Bible teacher, a mentor of mine, Brad Scott. This is what he would say: "If you learn to read the garden, you can read the whole Bible." And when he first said that, years ago, I didn't understand it. I'm like, "Oh, okay, so there's like some lineups and some contrasts." No, like that's the plan. That's the story. The story of the garden is what God wants, what God's putting all of his energy into—the setup for man and what happens when man refuses to be a part of it. And that same story is cycled over and over and over again throughout our Bible.

And the reason why it probably resonates so deeply is because it's the same story that we have implemented and cycled through, possibly in our own life, many times over and over and over again. And so that's why I'm pressing this point: if you read a story in the Bible, don't think that God is done with it just because that book is closed and you're on to another one.

Setting the Foundation

So let's set the foundation. We're going to speak today about one of my favorite hyperlinks—the hyperlink based out of Genesis 3 of Eve seeing something and taking it. In Genesis 1 and 2, who's at the top of the hierarchy? Who's in charge at the beginning of the Bible? It's not a trick question. It's God, right? It's God. And then who's right under God? Adam. Humans, right? And who's right under Adam? The animals. I'm proud of the graphic. Right? God at the top. Mankind. Mankind was meant to do what? Rule over the animals and all creation? Rule over the animals. There we go. All right. This is how God set it up. And we'll just put a pin in that because it's going to be relevant very soon.

The whole story of the fall of mankind in the Bible is this order getting turned upside down. All right? I mean, by the time we make it to Daniel, Daniel's illustrating human kingdoms as big monsters, like gross beasts that are so destructive, because they're the ones ruling the world. It's the beasts ruling the world in Daniel 7, right? Even though it's humans—no, the humans have turned into the thing that they were supposed to rule over: beasts. And of course in the story of the Garden of Eden, we have an encounter where an animal and the human switch roles a little bit.

The Serpent's Cunning

We'll start in Genesis chapter 3, verse 1: "Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?'" We're familiar with the story, but watch how this animal is described. He is the most cunning of what? All the wild—in Hebrew, the wild creatures of the field. The first thing we realize is this serpent is not a special third category. It is one of the creatures that Adam was commissioned to rule over on page one.

First thing—and there's—I want to take an extra rant because there's a wordplay and I love wordplays in the Bible because the Hebrew authors love to have fun. We see this many times, and whenever they see a word in Hebrew that sounds like another word, they jump through hoops to try to make the wordplay happen. I guess they liked puns, and I love that because I love puns. So there's a wordplay there. It's a pun in the Bible, and it's the word cunning—also translated as wise or crafty. It could be positive or negative. It's kind of a neutral, goes both ways, right? Prudent. The Hebrew word there is arum. Arum. And it means the cunning or wise. So the serpent is introduced as being crafty. And the word for naked is arum. Adam arum. Very close, right?

The wordplay is leading the tragedy of the fall of mankind in Genesis 3, because Adam and Eve were tempted to become arum like the serpent. But what happened after they ate the fruit? They saw that they were not arum. They now saw that, oh, I am actually arom—naked—and they have this sense of shame about it.

So arum, arom. It's just a fun pun, right? The naked ones meet the cunning one. And you chase the serpent's wisdom and you don't come away any wiser. You just come away stripped, just recognizing now in your shame, right? So it's neat.

But the story of the garden of Eden—who is talking in the story of the garden of Eden?

The Beast in the Holy Place

Who starts talking? The serpent is now talking. What a way to start off the story, right? We have a talking snake. It's like another Look Who's Talking movie starring John Travolta as Adam. But so the beast is talking and who's listening? Eve, the image bearer. The animal Adam was given dominion over is on its soapbox, giving the crown of creation theological advice. You all thought it was over when she ate and Adam ate the fruit. No, it's already messed up. It's already out of order. Things are already upside down. And what makes it worse is remember what Adam's job was. We know to rule, but last week we spoke about how it says he is to work and to garden, to keep it, right?

The garden of Eden—work and keep it. And they're two Hebrew words: Abad and Shemar. And we spoke about how the Torah uses those two terms to describe what the priests do in the tabernacle. They are to guard and to keep it. Adam was the first priest of the holy place, right? And the priest has one job. The job is to guard the holy place. That's what the priests do. So when a beast slithers into God's sanctuary or holy place and starts preaching, where's the guard? Where's the guard? And the text says he was standing right there. It says that she turned and gave Adam the fruit. Right? He was right there observing the whole time.

Adam's first failure was not eating the fruit. It was letting the serpent walk into the holy place. Yes, the guard let the intruder in—that's kind of what's supposed to make your eyebrows raise when you start reading the story.

The Serpent's Sales Pitch

And listen to what the beast is selling. Did God really say? Are you sure? You do not need God deciding what is good and evil for you. You could run it your way very easily. The serpent wasn't selling fruit. In other words, the serpent is selling a crown with no throne over it. You can be your own god. You can determine good and evil for yourself. And the woman made in the image of the real God looks at the tree. And this is what happens in Genesis 3:6: The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. She saw and she took it. She saw the thing. She wants the thing and she grabs the thing. Is this how a king rules? No. That is how an appetite moves an animal. A creature follows its hunger, right? But a human being was made for more than just appetite. The second image starts moving on pure hunger and it's not ruling anymore. It's sliding down the order towards the creatures it was made to reign over.

The serpent promised, "Eat this and you'll be like God." And the irony is so thick here because they already were like God. They already—that was the whole point. You already are his image, his breath in your lungs. The crown was already on your head. And the snake was selling them the one thing that they already owned and then charging them for it every single time. It's like trading your DVD collection in for a Netflix subscription. Right. Oh, this is convenient until you realize you don't own anything.

The Root of Ingratitude

Every grasp for the crown you already have is a failure to believe that it's already there. Every grasp for a crown that you already have is a failure to recognize it's already there. It's a root of ingratitude of not being content with what you know you've already been blessed with, not wanting to recognize it for some reason because you want something different or you have an urge for something different or you think you have a better plan for something different. You don't realize that you were already made second to God. The angels are jealous. I mean, we could go through like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Oh, but that fruit might give me some wisdom. It looks tasty. It's very pretty to look at. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

The Fall and the Curse

So, mankind falls in the garden. And what is the punishment? It's exile. And where do they get sent? Out east of the garden. But man gets sent out to eat the plants of the field where the animals eat. They used to eat from the trees of God's own garden and now they put their heads down where the livestock does. If you obey the beast, you will begin acting like the beast. And then God lays down the curse, the sentence, the judgment on the snake that was there that helped facilitate this whole thing. And he says, "Dust you are and dust you will return." The ruach God breathed—not only all creatures but mankind as well—now has a schedule.

And the snake will eat dirt all of its days and its head will be in the dust. And so we come to this looming question in the Bible after reading this story. And it kind of fades into the background, but it's really the question that's throughout the whole story: God gave this spirit, gave this breath, gave this life that had this eternal, timeless power and now he's scheduling it to come back to him. When do we get the vitality and the fullness of this spirit back? How do we get this back? How do we fix this? How do we transition to go back into the presence of God? Back into the fullness of our mission, back into the fullness of his spirit, back into back.

The First Gospel

And while God is doing this, after he curses the serpent and he's telling mankind about all the consequences and how it's going to change creation forever or at least going forward, he makes a promise in verse 15 of Genesis chapter 3. And again, the formal term for this verse is called the protoevangelium. Very weird word. It means the first gospel, the good news that God preaches here. And he says this while speaking to the snake: "I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. And he will strike your head and you will strike his heel." This is your destiny, serpent, cunning animal.

He will strike your head. Someday a son is coming, born of a woman, and he is going to crush the snake's head. But it will cost him because the snake will strike him as well. The son is coming. This is how your Bible launches its story. You guys ready to see what happens next in the story? Because at this point, we really want to see when the son is going to be born, right? I mean, the snake's the bad guy. We see that. We got to turn the next page. What's going to happen? Maybe the son will be born and it'll be the son that squashes his head and the son will probably die because it's probably a poisonous snake.

We don't know. But let's get to the action, right? Turn the page and guess who has a baby?

Cain and Abel

Eve has a baby, and she names him Cain. And she says, "I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord." This is the next chapter after God promised a son would come and crush the head of the serpent. First baby ever born. You got to wonder, is this him? Is this the one that's going to do it? Mom sure thinks so, right? Of course. The boy grows up. Cain grows up. He brings God an offering. And his offering is not accepted in the story. But his little brother, his offering is. And Cain is furious. And God in his mercy comes down to this raging young man and he says this: The Lord said to Cain, "Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is standing at the door like a nice gentleman waiting to come in. Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you. You must rule over it."

Look at the word that God uses to describe sin: crouching. What crouches? Animals. Animals. Beasts. Predators. Right. Shoulders low, eyes locked, muscles just loaded, ready to fire. God does not describe sin as a stain or something like a bad mood or a presence. No. God describes sin as an animal, a beast coiled at the door waiting for the right moment to strike. There's a beast at your door, Cain. You need to learn to rule over it. And then the command: its desire is for you, but you must rule over it, Cain. Rule. Be the person you were created to be. Rule. You were built for this. Do the one thing you were made to do. You were made to rule. So rule this, Cain. You got this.

So Cain, he calls his brother and he says, "Hey, can you come out to the field?" What's in the field? The animals are in the field. And once his brother came to the field, his brother became an animal and kills him. An image killing an image like a predator dropping prey because he could not stand that his brother was accepted and he was not. Give in to the crouching thing at your door and you won't stay a human for very long. Not like how God meant you to be. You start turning into the very thing that you were put in charge of. And the first great hope, the one mom thought might crush the snake, he did not crush it. He shook its hand again. The world turned upside down.

We fast forward through Egypt and the Exodus story and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 12 sons, the daughter, and they all go to Egypt, Joseph, and they're in Egypt 400 years.

And then they're freed from slavery through the Exodus and the Passover. And they walk out and they've traversed the wilderness going around in a bunch of circles. Entire generation dies off. And now they're entering into the land for their conquest. And the land of course is supposed to represent this New Eden ideal, right? So God gives them one rule about the very first city that they come to, which is Jericho, right? Walls come tumbling now. He says that everything in this city is devoted to me. You can't have it. Don't touch it. Don't do anything. Okay?

Achan's Theft

There's Jericho and here's what goes forward. The story quickly shifts to a man by the name of Achan. And in the rubble of the city that they just plundered, it says this: Achan is confessing because he did something. And he says, "When I saw among the spoils a beautiful cloak of Babylon, five pounds of silver and a bar of gold weighing a pound and a quarter." He measured it. "I coveted them and I took them. You can see them concealed in the ground inside my tent with the silver under the cloak."

So they attack this city. Believer's eye. And bad things start happening and there's a negative consequence and they know that someone took something and he finally comes forth and he confesses. He says, "I saw, I coveted in my heart and I took it." There it is again in the promised land right when they entered in. And what did he do with the shiny thing that he couldn't not have? He couldn't even use it. He buried it in the dust, in the dirt. He just had to have it and it ended up getting him killed.

Sarah's Shortcut

How about in Genesis 16, we have patriarch Abraham and Sarah. And in Genesis 16, they've been promised a child, an heir, because Abraham—I mean, it's through your seed that like everybody's going to get a blessing in the whole world. And you're going to look up and your seed is going to be like the stars in the sky. I mean, big promise to this old man. And there was a problem. They couldn't have kids, Sarah and him. They struggled very much with old age. But they were given this promise and the child wasn't coming. And Sarah had an Egyptian slave named Hagar. She had an idea in her mind. I know what God said. I know what God promised that we're going to have a child. But did God really mean that? So she made a choice to determine good and evil for herself. And she went to her husband and she said, "Hey, I have an idea how to speed this up my way. How about we make our slave a sex slave, and you can have a child with her instead of me, and we'll just call it—we'll do it, right?" I mean, no harm in that, right?

Here's the words that she uses: And Abraham agreed to what Sarah said. So Abraham's wife Sarah took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her husband, Abraham, as a wife. You see the connections—it's the same Genesis 3 narrative. Sarah took and gave to her husband. The woman took and gave it over—word-for-word from Genesis 3 on purpose. And it gets sharper because the verse before this says Abraham listened to the voice of his wife. A phrase that is only found in Genesis 3. This is what they were doing. They were pointing back, pointing back. Sarah is the Eve in this story. And this time a human being, Hagar, is the fruit that gets grabbed and passed around.

And notice what Sarah's reaching for—not something God forbade. Just like the fruit. It was something God promised. A son was coming. God swore it. And she could not stand waiting. So she tried to manufacture the promise with her own hands. That is grabbing at its most human: grabbing what God already promised because we cannot stand to wait to let him give it to us.

There's a lot to unpack in the first couple chapters of the Bible, right? It's like they see through us all and they know. They know. And so maybe you're thinking, okay, those were like fools or villains, but surely there's someone in the Bible that doesn't fall for the same pattern of yielding and giving authority and handing over their crown to a beastly nature, right? I mean, surely a man after God's own heart is immune.

The Giant Killer's Fall

Let me introduce you to the giant killer who is on a rooftop one night. It's the man who wrote about half the songs in your Bible. That would be King David. And in 2 Samuel 11, it says that it was springtime and it's the time when kings go out to war. That's how 2 Samuel 11 starts. It's spring and it's the time for kings to go out to war. But one evening, David was on his rooftop in his palace. So the chapter is setting you up. David's not where he's supposed to be doing what he's supposed to be doing. Correct. He's a king that's not at guard. I was going to go for ruling, but at guard's probably good, too. Yeah. King David is on his rooftop minding his own business and he happens to glance down and then for some reason can't unglance down and he sees a woman bathing. And she was very beautiful.

Then David sent messengers to get her and when she came to him he slept with her. He saw, he sent, he took. Here, a woman is taken who was never given a position to say no. He's the king, right? You don't tell the king no, especially a king who's not doing what he's supposed to be doing, right?

And when the word comes back that she's pregnant in the story, David does not repent. He doesn't repent. What does David do? David does the same thing that we all do. He manages it. It's time to manage the sin now, right? Yeah. The Bible is totally written to us. We have this idea that these were like farmers and a bunch of dumb people that we just kind of skip over. No, like they knew—they knew who you were thousands of years before you were born. We're no different. We have cell phones. That's it, right? They knew it was up. So he manages it. We got to go defcon. Let's go. Right.

He calls her husband home from the front, Uriah. Which is one of his own mighty men. One of the guys in the honor roll of King David's mighty men, right? Most loyal soldiers. And he calls him home because it's his wife, one of his best friends, I guess you could say. And he calls him home and he tries to get Uriah to go home to his wife and clean his feet. Remember from Ruth, right? If Uriah can go home and sleep with his wife, David can say the baby's not his and it fixes it. This is easy. But Uriah is too honorable to do that. He will not sleep in his own bed while the army sleeps in tents. Again, where is King David sleeping? Right? It's really a shame chapter for King David.

So he doesn't sleep with his wife. So David instead sends him back to war carrying a letter which he gives to the general and it says to make sure you put him where the fighting is worst and when it breaches up and he gets surrounded just leave him there so that he dies. David murders him. David murders him because now he can't get away with what he wanted to get away with.

Nathan's Parable

And then God sends a prophet, Nathan. And Nathan knows this king. This king was a shepherd once, a boy in a field who would go after a lion for the sake of one lamb. And Nathan tells King David a story. And he says this:

"King, there were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. And the rich man had very large flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except for one small lamb that he had bought. And he raised this lamb, and she grew up together with him and his children. From his meager food she would eat. From his cup she would drink, and in his arms she would fall asleep. She was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. So instead, he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for his guest."

Do you hear how Nathan described this lamb? People back then loved animals just like we do, obviously, right? She ate from his own plate. She drank from his cup. She fell asleep in his arms. She was like a daughter to him. Nathan's not in a hurry. He's building this lamb up in front of the king one detail at a time, right? Until you fall in love with her. And then the rich man could not bring himself to touch his own flock. So he saw the poor man's little lamb and he took it. He saw and he took—hidden inside the prophet's story.

And King David responds as you'd expect. He's angry. He's furious. He erupts. His blood is boiling. The shepherd's blood inside of him. No. So, did I put it in here? David was infuriated with the man and he said, "Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die because he has done this thing and shown no pity. He must pay four lambs for that one lamb."

And Nathan replied to King David and said, "You are the man. You're it. You are the man." The king hands down the verdict on the rich man in the story and Nathan lets it sit for a second and then in four words he pulls off the mask.

The Pattern That Runs Through Everybody

Eve saw and took. Sarah took and gave. Achin saw and took. And David, the best we had, saw and took. And this pattern, this pattern runs in everybody. It would be very convenient for us to leave the pattern in the Bible. That'd be nice to stay there, but no—this is our pattern, too. Nobody's strong enough or anointed enough or loved enough by God to be immune to this. And so the Bible as a whole from Genesis on is asking one question as this repeating pattern happens over and over again in every story in multiple contexts. When will it stop? Who is ever going to stop it?

The anointed authors of the Bible did not weave this together just to show off how smart they were in connecting stories together. They did it because they wanted to trap the reader. They wanted to catch the reader, right? They wanted you to look up and ask the question and be like, "Wait a second." And realize the story is about you.

The Trap of Jonah

Like how Jonah ends. This whole time you thought the story of Jonah was about a prophet who hated his enemies and hated the idea that God would ever love someone he wants to die. And at the very end of the chapter, God asks Jonah—or the book, he says, "Hey, is it okay with you that I'm God? Is it okay with you that I can give mercy to who I want, no matter how dumb they are? Is that all right with you? Can I show love to the person that you hate? Is that good with you? I mean, I'm just God. That's the tone." And that's how the book ends. It's never answered because the question is never answered by Jonah because it was never really asked to Jonah. It was asked to the reader. It's asked to you. Is it okay with you that I'm God? It's a trap. A literary trap.

And this is the same. They saw and took. They took and saw. They saw and took. It's a familiar pattern in every one of us. Every one of us. The beast is crouching at Cain's door. That beast didn't die when Cain died. And every time it shows up, it usually doesn't show up looking like a gnarly beast. The serpent has never once in history walked up to someone and said, "Hey, would you like to be destroyed today?" All he says is, "Did God really say?" Sometimes he'll say, "You've earned this." Or sometimes the serpent will say, "Look how shiny that thing is. Don't you want to just take it?"

The Question for You

And so the application for this, just like it always has been for the readers of the Bible, is what are you looking at right now that you are two steps away from taking? What are you looking at right now doing what Eve was doing? Man, that's pretty. I bet it'll give me this and that. It'll make me feel this. It would do a lot of harm for someone else, but that question is always a hard one because you already know what that thing is. You don't even have to list them. You already know. And every time we crack the door and we feed the thing that's right outside of it, we come away a little bit smaller, a little bit less resilient, a little bit less human now, allowing an animal to have dominion over us.

You are the man. And so am I. Thousands of years of image bearers, and not a lot of them had a very good track record of breaking that pattern, right? And that's when the New Testament comes along and we have people like Paul that takes this concept and they give some encouraging insight.

The Last Adam and the First

Paul says in his letter to Romans, "For just as through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so also through one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Through one man, that is Adam. One man reached out and took what was not his, and the crack ran through every single one of us. But Paul says there's a second one man, a last Adam. And I want to show you how he broke the pattern. Because he broke it using two verbs, the same type of verbs in Matthew when Yeshua's eating. He says, 'As they were eating, Jesus took the bread, blessed, and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, Take and eat it. This is my body.'"

Now just that line, quite the contrast from the garden, right? He took and he gave. She took the fruit and she gave it to her husband. It's the same verbs, same order. But now look at what is in his hands. See, in the garden, the woman took what was never hers to take and she handed it to a man beside her. Consequence being death. At the table here, we have the son took what was his all along, his own body, his own life, and he handed it to men beside him as life. The first Adam took and gave death. The last Adam took and gave himself.

The Two Words Made Clean

And then we listen to what he tells them after he hands his life to them in the form of the bread. He says, "Take and eat." Those are the two words the serpent conned us with in the garden. Come on, take it. Eat it. Reach out and grab it. It's like Yeshua is walking over there and picking up the two words from Genesis 3 and he just wants to hand them back to us clean like, no—this is how it's supposed to be. Take this and eat this. Only now it's not theft. It's a gift. Now the thing in your hands was put there by one who loves you. You do not have to grab anymore. You do not have to live in that animalistic survival mode anymore. You can trust.

And the whole premise of the cross is that we have hope and trust in God now because we see that result and we see the power of the spirit reaching through that. That's why God never tore down the statue. You know, when you overtake a dictatorship somewhere, what's the first thing that people usually do? They take the statue and they bring it down, right? Saddam Hussein, such. That's what you do with an idol that's cracked or messed up. But God didn't do that.

God Covering the Takers

Remember back in the garden when the images first became a little cracked after the fall. God knelt in the dirt and he made clothes for two people who had just broken his world and he covered them with his own hands. They just wrecked his entire creation. And he makes them clothes to cover them, to cover their shame. And he's been covering the takers ever since. And when he walked the earth, he sat down and he ate with the worst of them. Every single person he broke bread with had stolen fruit on their breath, and he knew it, and he ate with every single one of them.

When Cain was confirmed a murderer, God comes down and he puts a mark on his head for protection because somewhere in God's justice system, there's still room for mercy, even though we don't see it.

The Pattern Can Be Broken

And so with all of that being said and the hyperlinks and all the cool Bible stuff and the application behind it, I guess the real thing I want to impress with you is not only go home and read your Bibles because they're really awesome. The Bible is amazing. The story is amazing because the story is about God and you. But also I want to encourage you: you don't have to walk out of here this morning pretending you are not one who saw and took. You are. We all are. You just have to stop reaching long enough to open your hands and let him put something else in them. Take, eat, come to the table of the one who never had to break the pattern. It can be broken. Let's break the pattern. The Bible clearly is telling us it can be broken through one more powerful than us.

The biblical authors through all these hyperlinks are telling you that they see you, that they know you, and they're saying that you don't have to be in this place anymore. They're saying God has sent a way to break the pattern once and for all. He's answered that question. And it comes down to accepting why you were created. Accept it. You were created to rule. You were created to be the crown of creation under God, to be the image bearer of God Almighty.

Accept Your Kingship

And when you say, "God, I am ready to take upon myself this vocation fully and I accept the kingship of Yeshua in my life to do it," and you say yes to what the Holy Spirit is ready and waiting to do, that's when rebirth happens. That is when the kingdom of God starts to appear right here, right now. But it has to start with you realizing who you were meant to be to begin with. Who did God create you to be? Because a lot of times we see and take stuff because we think we're not who God created us to be. We think that we are not deserving or we're not lovable or we are broken or we are messed up or we have a track record or we are not worthy of any attention from a father like God. No, the first step is realizing what you were born to be. That is the image of God and carrying that image forward. And once you accept that through the kingship of Yeshua, guys, that's how the patterns start to become broken.

Walk Forward

So I don't know where you're at today. I mean, you're here, but if you're broken, if you're tired, if you're ready to rise up and start walking forward, there's no special ritual you need to do. There's no special song that needs to play for you to be able to do that. There's no special prayer really. It's just you making the decision to get up from where you've been stuck struggling and start walking forward in a renewed status as the image of God, son of God, remolded, repaired, and reborn through the blood of Yeshua.

That's the recipe. That's what it comes down to. So we're either going to be who the king has said we are or we're not. And that's the question we need to ask ourselves.

Worship and Decision

So with that being said, please stand as we conclude services with worship. And during this time, you can worship with us. You can sit in your seat, you can stand, you can pray, you can meditate. If you need prayer today, we have two prayer warriors on either side of the stage that you are welcome to just walk up to and they will pray for you related to the message or not, something going on in your life.

The Altar

Maybe you are carrying something around today that you'd like to leave here today. Maybe it's getting cumbersome. It's tired. Maybe there's a change that you know that you need to make and you want to make it symbolically today, guys. This spot right here, we call it the altar. It's symbolic, but it's still powerful. And you're welcome to come up and kneel there and just place whatever it is symbolically on that altar. And when you stand up, you're acting out the first step of saying, "I'm walking away from that and I'm walking into my future." Amen.

Closing Prayer

Helen Mako, our father, our king. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together today on this Shabbat. And we thank you that we can look at your word and see the power behind it and see the patterns behind it. But not only that, Father, to see the message of the love of Jesus, the love of Yeshua, and what it has for us and how it can repair all. It can heal all, it can restore all.

Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit that you claim is within us now, the same spirit that raised Yeshua from the dead would be active in that area in our life that we needed active and that we would do something that maybe we haven't done fully before and trust it. We thank you, Father, for your love, your mercy, and grace. We thank you for being that good, good father. In Yeshua's name we pray. Amen.