The Other Genesis

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

And we'll let all the kids be dismissed to children's class. It's it's my ongoing joke, but I'm not ashamed of it. Even though I don't necessarily subscribe to the eschatological view that includes the rapture, everyone gets zapped out. I get a kick because this is exactly how it would be like if left behind was a thing like after we prayed for the kids and there's just no one left. There's just so many empty seats. And so it's I love it. I love that God has blessed this community with so many children. It truly is our foundation. So Shabbat shalom everybody. Welcome to Founded in Truth Fellowship.

U just going to dive in today. Last week we were in Revelation. And this week we're going to go to ancient Babylon. So welcome back to the image bearer series. Where we've been trying to read the Bible inside the world it was actually written to. Because sometimes knowing what everyone else was saying at the time the Bible was formed helps you finally hear just how radical of a book it was. And so and so this morning we're going to start out kind of placing us in the timeline of being in the Babylonian exile. And this is the time when after Israel has been free from Egypt, they go into the land.

They build up. They're going to build the kingdom of God and be the lightbearers of the world. And they don't they build an empire just like the one that they were freed from. They end up enslaving people to build God's temple. The temple to the God that freed slaves. Everything was back was backwards. And they used their faith in God to justify it which I know we have never seen throughout history or today. But as a result God sends of course the northern tribes they get taken out by Assyria and then Judah the Babylonians come in they raise Jerusalem they destroy the temple and who they don't kill they take captive into exile and they are exiled all the way out to Babylon.

A Child in Babylon

And so I would like for you to imagine that you're you're a kid maybe 9 or 10 years old and you live in Babylon about 2600 years ago give or take. But you're not Babylonian. Your family got here in a long column of other people and a long line, soldiers on both side as you walked for 600 miles away from your homeland. You were born in Judah and now you live in the capital of the very empire that took it from you. And at night you hear your parents talk about home, where they came from. They talk about Jerusalem, Zion, the city of gold, right? They talk about the temple on the hill and the God that used to reside there with his glory and his name was Yahweh.

And they tell you about Abraham and they tell you about Moses and the sea and the plagues and how God just absolutely broke Egypt in half to rescue and redeem his people and get them out. Your dad builds them up, the stories with such passion as if they matter a lot more than even you can comprehend. And then the sun comes out and you get out of bed and you walk outside and Babylon is stunning. It is one of the greatest cities on earth. It's gorgeous. There is actually a main road. It's a processional street that's widened and it runs through the middle and it's lined with glazed blue brick with animals imprinted on them marching along the walls.

There's a gate so big you could fit a house through. And at the center of it all there is the great ziggurat. This great multiaceted architectural tower that is just massive as it finds its way to heaven. It's a literal tower of Babel stepping up to the sky. And beside it, there is a temple to Marduk, the god of Babylon. And his house is huge. It's enormous. It's packed. There are priests there and there are smoke and incense and there's so there's festivals with the king actually partaking in them personally in the street in front of his house taking part. But you're God's house. Your God Yahweh Zavote the Lord of armies.

His house is a burnt pile of rock 600 miles away. And so one night as a child, you got to ask. You're seeing everything and you hear the stories, but you just have to ask. So say, "Dad, dad, I have a question. Did their god beat ours? And he looks at you for a second because what do you say? Like what do you say? I mean having a zealous bold faith is one thing, but this man has seen things that would probably pierce through the deepest anchors of our beliefs. He watched Jerusalem burn. He saw things that he will never tell his daughter about. Things that make him thankful that somehow against all odds his daughter is sitting here asking him questions in Babylon and at least they're alive and at least they're safe.

And so the dad takes a deep breath and he gives her an answer that probably does not feel like an answer at all. He says Elohim, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Okay, that's that's nice, Dad. But Marduk's temple is still standing and operating, and it's it's pretty nice at night, the lights, and it's pretty cool. And I would imagine the dad would grin because he knows what his daughter does not know yet. The sentence that he just said is not a retreat from Babylon. It is the declaration of war against everything Babylon has been teaching his daughter, indoctrinating her with.

And this dad is about to teach his little girl how to become a revolutionary without ever picking up a sword. He's going to teach her how to live inside an empire without letting the empire tell her who God is, who she is, and what the world is actually for. But if we're going to understand why that phrase, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If we're going to understand why that is such a dangerous answer, then we first need to hear the story that this kid has been surrounded by and taught every single day by the culture around her. Because Babylon has an answer to that same question that she asked her dad.

It has propaganda it wants to infuse into the minds of the next generation. And Babylon's answer has a big and mighty temple. It has the priests. It has a king. It has pretty spectacular festival. And once a year at the biggest festival in Babylon's calendar, the story at the heart of the identity of this empire is recited before a statue at Salem, an image of Marduk, the chief god. And this story was not just some ancient boring tale. This story told Babylon who they were. Their god was a champion. He won. He always wins. Their god was king. King overall. And wouldn't you know it that his city, this city just happened to be the greatest city in the earth.

Babylon's Creation Story

Marduk bless Babylon. This was Babylon's creation story. It's their genesis. U we've come to call this story the anuma alish which is the first two words in acadium of how the story starts when on high. And so I'm about to tell you the story the creation story of Babylon in my own way. But is everybody still good? That was really that was a lot. I apologize it's dense. But hopefully it's hopefully I got you. The Bible has so many things to say to us that are so empowering, that are so uplifting that we miss because we don't always read it like it wasn't written a second ago to us.

And so, this is a story that's proclaimed at the heart of the city when this little girl is growing up learning and being influenced by all of it. Right? So here's the story. Ready? So in the beginning, before the sky, before the land, before everything, before anything had names, there was lots of water. There were two different types of water. And both of the waters, both groups of water, were personified deities. So they were gods. One was Abpsu. It's the fresh water. And the other one was Tamat, the seaater, the chaos water, the deep. Right? And the waters would mix together in a type of way that was u the water would mix together and then little gods would be born out of it.

Yeah. And the young gods that came forth from this water mixture, man, they were loud. They were loud. They were annoying. And the older gods got really annoyed by him because all they wanted to do was sleep and chill out. And but all these little then they just won't shut up, always bugging them. And it came to the point that the older gods were so like annoyed they started to resent these little youngsters, all their music and everything. And so they actually had discussions like, "Let's just kill them. I mean, it's an option, right?" So they go back and forth. No, there are kids. We can't do that.

Back and forth, right? But this starts a war in the heavens. Loud little kids and old folks. I love history because people are always people. People are all the same in any generation. The only thing that's changed is technology. I'm I'm convinced of this, right? That's why these ancient stories, we can actually relate and like laugh a little bit about them because it's like, "Oh, yeah. I get I mean, I get it. Devil's not going to take nope. You So things escalate with this war because Absu ends up getting killed. And then Tamat's general kind of incites her a little bit and she gets mad and she raises up an army and now she's ready to fight.

And so on one side of this battlefield, you have Tamat, the sea. She is the personified ocean, the deep. She is pure chaos in the most terrifying sense. And even the biggest baddest gods on the other side don't want to touch her, don't want to fight her. There's no way. But then you have this young guy that comes up. His name's Marduk. And he's like, I want to I can take her. Just young zeal. Good. Good job. Marduk. Marduk is where we get the name Morai from. By the way, it's a pagan name, right? So Morai and Esther, Ishtar, and Marduk. Because remember, Esther is a book. It's a story about how God can do what he wants, the way he wants.

Yeah, if you've read Esther, you know what I'm talking about. It works through mysterious ways. But before they let them white, let them fight, the gods have this little council and they pull Marduk in there and they're like, "You need to prove yourself before you go and represent us." And this, you know, like here, they set up this constellation and they say, "Hey, let's see how powerful you are. I want you to speak words and see if you can make it disappear and reappear." And so he does this magic trick where he speaks words and this disappears and it reappears. And then they're like, "Okay, well I guess you can go and fight.

You're you're approved. You've been vetted. We needed to audit you, right? The word works." And Marduk says, "Fine, I'll fight her, but if I win, I am the king. I am the king now. I'm not one of the kings. I'm it." And they all agree. So then Marduk and Tamat, the chaotic deep, they fight and Marduk comes in and man cames out comes out of nowhere with his first move and throws a net on the water. Got her right. Made her really upset. So she begins to open her mouth, maybe to consume him. Ra, right? But then he has like a bag of wind that he pulls out and he throws it at her. So he shoves this hurricane straight down her throat.

The story says that the wind was so forceful, it calls it an evil wind. It was so forceful that she could not close her lips. So, yeah. So, you're getting a visual. You're getting the visual of like this huge Godzilla monster water monster thing with their they're trapped in this net, but also the mouth is stuck open because of the wind force going through and into her belly and she's starting to fill up like a Looney Tune or something. It's Babylon, right? They have good stories. And while she is pinned down or her mouth is pinned open, he pulls out a bow and he draws a bow and he shoots this arrow through her and it's like this huge powerful it's a Dragon Ball Z like Kamehameha arrow and it says that it split her in the middle and it slit her heart. Oh wow. And she died. We should make a movie. Yeah, that would be great.

To what degree. so she's dead and then he throws her corpse down and he stands on top of it. Now he's the victor. So that's that's part of the story, right? And then he takes her body and he cuts it in half. It describes it as being like he sliced open a fish to dry it out in two different parts. So he cuts her in half and then he takes one half of her and he stretches her over everyone's head to make the sky. And then he takes the other I don't know what word to use, the other part of her, right? And he lays it out on the ground to make the ground. So this is this is Babylon's universe when you're standing on the corpse of a dead god.

And up there is also a dead god. And he puts like this locking mechanism up there to keep it secured. And he also posts a guard up there just in case it tries to fall down. They need to keep track and make sure it stays up there. I dig it. And then the gods crown Marduk and they say, "Thank you so much. You're doing a great job. Welcome to kingship. We're going to build you this big house. And we're going to put this big house in a city and the name of the city will be called Babylon." Okay. Tada. Like that's the it's Babylon's origin story, right? It's pretty cool. I mean, for like an action movie, I guess.

But that's what the that's what this kid grew up like that's what the kid is up against. That is how the national propaganda of Babylon works. Because the kid can walk outside and see the story like I'm living in the city. There's the temple. There's everything's here. Marduk fought the sea and won and got a throne and a temple and there's the temple. Yeah, of course Marduk won. So, that's part of the story. And that's not the bad part of the story of Babylon's Genesis. That's actually the fun part. Obviously, the bad part of the story is what comes next. The bad part of the story is the part of the story that the first part of the story got everyone excited about to be able to receive the second part of the story which was all about who they were as people, who they were as Babylonians.

Made to Carry the Gods' Work

And so the story continues after Marduk wins, he does something else. He decides that he's going to make people now. Mankind doesn't exist. And the reason why he wants to make people is pretty significant. Because in Babylon's world, the gods do all the work, right? I mean, it takes a lot to keep all this stuff going that the gods in Babylon would do. I don't know the whole I don't know. But Marduk doesn't think that God should work anymore because why should we, right? Resting should be our thing that we do and we should we should make someone else work. And so he's like, "Ah, we'll make some human beings."

And so he's going to create humanity and he's going to impose all of the work that needs to happen in the world onto mankind to make them basically their slaves so that the gods can kick their feet up and be relieved. I promise this is relevant. Hang with me. So they drag out the prisoners from Tamat's army and they found the general that they feel is responsible for inciting him and they and they take his blood. They draw his blood from him. Execute him I guess. And then they mix the blood with the clay and they form little molds out of them and they make human beings. And yeah, they create mankind so that upon them and I quote the English translation, upon them shall the services of the gods be imposed.

The yoke shall be carried by them so that the gods may be at rest. So you exist so that heaven can rest, can kick their feet up. You were created to be slaves to the gods. You work, you produce, you labor. That is who you are and that's all you will ever be according to Babylonian origin stories and myth. Yeah, if I was evil and I ran a country, that's probably exactly what I would tell people, too, right? Your value is only found in what you can produce. Think things Yeah. Some things don't change, huh? But resting, that's for the gods. Sweat, that's for man. So, the kid comes up with one question.

Did their god beat ours? And Babylon has an answer. And then and then Babylon's thrown in something for free that he didn't even think about to ask, right? Not only did we win, but this is who you are now. This is your purpose in life. This is your only function. You're a father with no city, no temple, no army, and no way out to find some type of refuge from this argument. This empire is pushing on your family and your daughter is asking you whether any of it was ever real. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That is the other Genesis. Everybody in the world had a Genesis.

We know that an origin story. Everybody has an origin story about where all of this came from and what people are doing here. Babylon had one and it was the loudest one on the planet. And that's where Genesis 1 comes in because the defeated people who lived in Babylon had one too. And before we dive into Genesis 1, I want to restate something I said I think a little bit at the beginning of the message. I just want to make sure our focus is in the right place, especially when we approach Genesis as a whole, but specifically the first few chapters. Because when I grew up, some of the churches that I was a part of, they hyperfocused on Genesis to be an answer book.

An answer book. It really wasn't a story that we would learn anything from. It was just like that's security camera footage and this is the answer book for questions like how long is a day or how old is the earth or what about the fossils, right? And these are great questions, don't get me wrong, but I want to ask a more edifying question when we approach Genesis here. And that question is not what does Genesis mean to someone arguing about science. I think the better question to ask is what did Genesis sound like to a family living in Babylon in the shadow of that ziggurat and the temple with that other story ringing off the walls of the city.

Again, it's so easy to forget that we are not the only people in the history of God that this book meant something to. And it's easy to forget that although the Bible was written for us, it was not written to us. Because when we approach Genesis 1 with this in mind, there are a lot of things that will come alive. It's a pun. So, here's the other Genesis. This is the response that the father begins to tell his daughter as an answer to her question in this story. And it is in Samuel. We're going to skip the images. Here we go. Genesis 1 and 2. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

A God Who Only Has to Speak

Now, the earth was formless and void. Darkness covered the surface of the watery depths. And the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Same opening as Babylon. Dark water. Nothing formed yet. But where's the war? There is no war in this Genesis. There's nobody on the other side that's mad and wants to kill everybody. There's no annoyed old gods. In Babylon's story, the deep is a goddess with an army and the gods are terrified of her. In Genesis, the deep is water. It's not fighting anyone. It can't fight anyone. In fact, God's spirit is hovering over it in the context in the Hebrew is like a bird on a nest just sitting on our nest.

And then God says, "Let there be light." And there's light. That's it. He just says it. Just says it. Like Babylon has to stop their story in the middle of it and have an audition for Marduk to make sure that he can like speak things. Make the constellation disappear. You know, prove your mouth works. Okay, good. Now you can No, Genesis never once stops to prove that God's word works. It just works. Every time over and over and over again in that chapter, God opens his mouth and a piece of the universe shows up. The cosmos simply yields. See, Babylon needs a battlefield. All empires do.

All empires need an origin story that begins with a fight, a resistance, a revolution, a war. Look at us. We proved how mighty we are. Genesis just needs a sentence. It doesn't try to prove anything. Do you see how Genesis is quickly could become a form of resistance to the enemy? To the exiles in Babylon. This is this is anti-propaganda for Jewish kids in Babylon. And it keeps going and it almost becomes comical because in Babylon the sun and the moon are major gods. Okay? Shamash and big names. They got big temples, everything. They got their whole priesthood, career priests, everything. And when Genesis gets to day four of creation, it doesn't say their names.

It doesn't say any names. It just says, "Do we have here?" Yeah. And God And God made two great lights. The greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. Oh, and there's some stars, too. The big light and the little light. Like, that's what you get. They're not gods, guys. They're light fixtures that God just installed in the ceiling. I love that. And the stars, like Babylon read stars like the news, right? This is how they dictated all their stuff and they get their priests and all the people and they look at the stars and they do all this stuff and it's a big deal.

It's the foundation of the myth, the will of the gods and the stars and Genesis gives it like a few words at the end like it almost forgot. I mean, as well as the stars. He made those, too. It's not even a It's not significant. Why would you ever think it was? It's not an accident. Day five, one of my favorites for a lot of reasons. I wish I could go in we could talk about this more, but so God created the large sea creatures, every living creature that moves and swims in the water according to their kinds. He also created every winged creature according to its kind and God saw that it was good.

Sea Monsters on the List

So that word there for large sea creatures is taninim. Tenimm. And it's the Hebrew word for sea monsters, not octopusai. Octopuses. Octopusi. It's not those. It's not whales. Like these are these are myth level monsters that we see scattered throughout the Bible and they're also introduced in myths of their neighbors. It's the Leviathan, right? It's the terror of the ancient imagination, the thing that's in the deep that the stories say gods have to raise armies to fight like Tamat or Yam in Psalm 74. And Genesis puts them on day five in between the fish and the birds. It's on the list, right?

The sea monsters that Israel's neighbors have entire stories trying to fight, they're God's pets. And God saw it and it was good. The monster your empire builds its whole theology around defeating our God just makes them. This is no big deal. He thinks they're kind of cute. Yeah, he thinks they're kind of cute. He just going to put him in there with the fish and the teneim tenim. And then the Bible does one more thing with it. And this is in this is Psalm 105. Here is the sea vast and whole, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both large and small. There are ships that move about and Leviathan.

Would you form to play there? The Bible has an attitude towards religions that would seek to oppress its people. It has a big attitude towards them and it's pretty awesome when you realize that right when you read between the lines. So you were formed to play here. Leviath the apex predator of the ancient world. Like Leviathan is not something that's just in the Bible. It is in Babylon. It's in the Canaanite myth. It's all over the place. Different people called it something different. Big dragon, right? Big dragon. And in Israel's worship music, he's out there splashing around because God likes to watch him splash around and play.

Imagine being the child in Babylon as your dad sits down and begins to tell you the story of your God. Because you have to remember the Bible as we have it today was not formed during this time. The exile is what pushed the Bible to become formed. The Old Testament to become formed how we have today out of necessity. We need to take all of the stories and all of the parts of the law that we have and all of the parts of the stories that we have written down and we need to standardize it so that our children don't forget who they are. It's a big deal. That's the reality. That's the reality of the Bible.

And it's awesome and it's beautiful and it makes sense and it's still just as Holy Spirit inspired as it was before. But yeah, imagine dad telling you this. The universe Babylon showed her is shrinking one by one. Marduk did not beat Yahweh. Marduk was never in the conversation. Now, if you're a bit if you Yeah. If you're a nerd, there's probably something you probably there are places in the Bible where God does fight sea monsters. And so, I know some of you probably already know that. It's like, wait a second, you said. Psalm 74. See, oh, do we have Psalm? No. Did we not do it? I'm gonna find it.

I'm not going to find it, but that's okay. Psalm 74 is a Hey, hey, thank you, sir. Psalm 74. Here's what it says. Now the context for Psalm 74 is it's a psalm of lament crying out to God. The temple has been destroyed. The sanctuary has been burned to the ground. And the guy writing is just kind of sitting in the rubble of all the devastation asking God, "Where are you?" And then right in the middle of it, he says this. He says, "God, my king, is from ancient times performing saving acts on the earth. You divided the sea with your strength. You smashed the heads of the sea monsters in the water.

You crushed the heads of Leviathan. You fed him with the cre You fed him to the creatures in the desert. You opened up the springs and the strings. You dried up the everflowing rivers. The day is yours also the night. You established the m the moon and the star sun. You set all the boundaries of the earth. You made summer and winter. After Marduk defeated Tamont and she was on the ground, he got a big mace and he dragged it over to her body and he raised it up and he crushed her skull. He smashed her head. Skull crusher. Right. Skull crusher. They had that too. And so this is Yeah. A divine king, the sea, chaos monsters, crushed heads, waters put in their place, sun, moon, and stars established, boundaries of the earth.

Psalm 74 Takes the Trophy

Israel knows the imagery of their neighbors and they appropriate it here in Psalm 74. That's my hot take. They appropriate it. They take the imagery that everyone else in the world knows and they turn the whole thing around. Okay, you guys want to tell stories about a God who conquers the sea and crushes heads of chaos monsters? Fine. Our Yahweh did it. Ours did it. You want to talk about a king who establishes the sun and the moon and sets boundaries on the earth? Yeah, that wasn't your guy. That was ours. It's so bold. So bold. Israel's poets take the trophy from Babylon and they hand it to Yahweh like it's nothing.

And what makes this even better is where the guy is sitting when he says this. The temple's been destroyed. It's in rebel. The empire has won. They've been defeated. At least that's what it looks like. And sitting in the wreckage, he takes the creation imagery of the world around him and he appropriates it and he says, "Nah, my king is from ancient times. He's still in charge. You didn't win. I may be confused and I may be hurt and I may be grieving, but you didn't win." We could take lessons from the boldness of faith of ancient Israelites that have been through some junk. The Psalms scattered with them.

But there's another layer to this as well because Israel had a sea story too. Not just poetry about some primordial sea. Israel had a story about God splitting an actual sea and people walking through it. And what comes out on the other side of that sea? Slaves walking free. Freedom. And that's the difference. The God of Babylon conquers the sea, right? And then enslaves humanity. He gets a crown. He gets a throne. He gets a temple. He gets a capital city named Babylon. And everybody becomes his slaves. Israel's God splits the sea. And what comes out in the other side is a m a nation of brick layers who are not brick layers anymore because nobody owns them.

Same kind of imagery but completely different. God. One uses his power and people become his servants. The other uses his power and slaves walk free. And so about a thousand years later after this time period there is a mighty storm like no one had ever seen before. Violent storm that hit the Sea of Galilee. And it was it was scary enough at the time to frighten professional fishermen. And when this is occurring, Yeshua is asleep in the back of the boat and they wake him up screaming right now. Remember everything that it took from the stories that we've read. A net to throw over, an evil wind out of a bag to throw, an arrow, a mace to crush, an entire war, and a demonstration that was had you had to audit to prove yourself to think, are we even going to support you?

And Yeshua got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Silence, be still." And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. Done. Done. This story impacted ancient cultures even in the first century. Far removed. There was nothing like that. You don't just do that. But he did. We have the next verse. And they were terrified and asked one another, "Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him. Who then is this?" Those of you who know Genesis 1, who is this? Did their God be ours? No, not even a little. But here's the thing. Babylon and Genesis do not have their biggest fight about the sea.

The Real Fight Is About You

It's not about a sea monster or Tamont. It's not about Leviathan. It's not about the sun and the moon. Their fight. It's not even about how the world was made. Those are the interesting parts of the stories. Their biggest fight in both stories is about you and who you are. Babylon told this kid two things. Babylon said, "Our God one." And Babylon also said, "Here is all a person is. It's blood and clay. It's a labor unit in the workforce. You were made so somebody above you doesn't have to work anymore. And you're only useful and of any value and have any worth in your identity based on what you can actually produce.

Now listen to the other genesis. The genesis of the defeated ones in Babylon. My slot. Jason, would you please turn to Genesis 1:26? We were fighting each other. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth." So God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female. God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth in our image."

The saleem of God created as God's image. In the ancient world, an image of a god is a statue in a temple or it is a king. It is royalty. That's the language. It is the one who stands in for the God and carries his authority around with them. Yes. And Genesis takes that title, the title of royalty, the royal one, and hands it to humanity, male and female. There is no one guy or person on top. Not the emperor, not the president, the people. The people. She's standing in Babylon. Babylon conquered her country. Babylon burned her temple. Babylon marched her here. And Babylon can make her work.

And Babylon can call her a captive. And Babylon can tell her where to live and what to carry. But Babylon does not get to tell her what she is. Amen. Because there is a man in this city who wears a crown and everyone bows when he goes by. And the empire says that this man is the image of the gods. And there's a kid on the back street in the immigrant quarter of Babylon. And Genesis says those are both two royal human beings equals. Yes. She's not part of a labor force. She is not blood and clay poured into a mold to carry someone else's chores around on her back. She carries the image of the king that Babylon thinks it beat.

And then after Genesis 1, we turn the page and of course, as you would guess, there is Genesis 2. Genesis 2 is interesting because it has a few different details, differing details in Genesis 1. But the story flows straight into it. It's neat. And it gets really personal. So, we go from this really like macro view like the camera zooms in to the micro view. And Genesis 27 says, Genesis 2:7 says, "Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being or a living soul." Dust, not a dead God's blood, dust and the breath of God.

The First Full Day Was Rest

And now we count the days. Creation 1 2 3 4 5. Humans don't show up until day six. So what was the first full day a human being ever experiences? If they were created in the middle of day six, what's the first full day that they get? Seven. What happens on day seven? I don't Their humans first whole day was a rest day. First thing, no, we're going to take a break first. That's a lot of work, you know. A lot of work putting you together. Yeah, you take a break. Their first whole day, they had not built anything. They had not planted anything. No harvest, no city. They didn't invent anything.

Adam hadn't developed a resume. They had produced literally nothing. And the first thing on the calendar for the human race is a blessed day off with God. This is dangerous in Babylon, guys. This is dangerous. It can be dangerous here, too. Amen. World doesn't want to accept that. No trial period. Didn't have to prove yourself. You know, 30 days to show us what you can do and then we might hire you full-time. It's so interesting how when we introduce ourselves and we're trained this way because we live in an empire. Empires are all the same. Hey man, what do you do for fun?

What's your favorite color? What's your favorite movies? What things are you into as far as like hobbies and stuff? Do you like to knit? What's the most joyful thing you've ever done in No. Hey, what do you do? What do you do? What? 8 to 12 hours a day, what do you spend your time doing? I don't care about anything else. Right? And that's not true. But that's just how what they're asking is I want to learn more about you and it's acceptable to identify you with your work. And so what do you do? That's usually the first thing that we conversation. And we do want to learn more about someone, but that's how we were trained, right?

Yeah, you are not what you produce. You are royalty according to the scriptures of our God, according to the other Genesis that this little girl would have been being taught in the story. And boy, how loud that is in Babylon in any empire. Because there rest is the thing at the top of the pyramid. Rest is what the gods get. And the entire reason you exist is to make their rest possible. Rest is the one thing that is structurally impossible for you to have because you're the one holding it up for everyone else on top all the time. And Genesis says the very first thing God ever gave a human being was rest.

Babylon says you are what you make. And Genesis says, "You were made before you made anything." And if Babylon's whole system runs on gods who invent people so they never have to work again, then what is the single most impossible thing a god could do? Like the one in the movie, what would break the entire machine? It would be a god that serves. That's it. That unthinkable. Unthinkable. In that world, it was not just unlikely. It was it was a it was a glitch in the system. It's categor. It's you can't do it. It's an error. Gods don't serve. That's the whole point of having people.

Remember? And then here comes Yeshua. Here comes Yeshua. And I want to be careful because I don't want to it would be easy for me to like make him into a Marduk with better stats, right? No, no. Like the strongest guy in the divine in the divine cage fight, right? No. It that would be missing everything completely. He is not a bigger version of Babylon's God. He's a different kind of God entirely. And you find that out by watching what he does with power once he has it. God puts on skin and he touches people no one else will touch. He cooks breakfast for people his for the guys who ran out of him.

He sits on the beach and cooks him breakfast. He gets down on the floor with a towel and washes feet which is in that culture that job was given to the person of least status. Mark 10:45 says Mark chapter 10 verse 45 he says for even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The king does not make disposable people to serve his comfort. He gets down on his knees and serves them. Which brings me back to that story written on that tablet, the Anumalish, create primeval man that he may bear the yoke of the gods, the yoke, the burden. And then in Matthew 11 28-30, it says, "Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I am lowly and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come to me all who are weary and burdened. Who's that? Who's he talking to? He's talking about everyone who's still living in Babylon story. Everyone who's still living in Persia story. Everyone who's still living in Greek story. Who's living in Rome story? Who's living in America's story? Who's living in. He's talking to you. He's talking to you. Everyone who is still carrying a burden that they were told they exist to carry.

Babylon says the yoke goes on you so that heaven can rest. And Yeshua says now take my yoke and I'm going to give you rest. It's easy. In Babylon's story, heavens rests on your back. And in this story, you're invited to rest on heaven. Because Shabbat is not a rule we keep to be difficult. Shabbat is the day you put your body where your theology is. One day in seven, you stop on purpose. With things unfinished, email is going to sit there. The project is going to take a little break. Pause. The list isn't going to get done. Not like it normally does. And guess what? The world keeps turning without your help.

Oh, how does that happen? How is that possible? And God stays God. And you find out that even though you stopped producing, you are still his. That's the whole point. Babylon says, "Rest when your work is finished." And God says, "Rest because mine is." So this week, I invite you to do it out loud. When Shabbat comes, say it at your table where your kids can hear you. We're stopping. We're going to do something different. We're going to chill out. We're not going to do what we do every other day. We're going to do something different today. And that looks like a lot of different things in a lot of different ways for a lot of different people.

It's all a journey. But the thing is acknowledging that the work is never finished. But that's not why I'm here. I get to partake in the rest that God has given me because he loves me and this is why I was created. And so take the one thing you can't put down on Shabbat. Everyone has something. It could be the phone. It could be your side project. Set it down on purpose as a form of worship and pay attention to how hard it fights you. That fight is Babylon losing its grip on you. That's what it feels like. This is uncomfortable. Yeah. Move into freedom. Move into freedom. You are not a brick. You are not some unit measurement of labor.

Brooed up so that someone else upstairs can rest. That's the devil's system, also called corporate America. You cannot be laid off from being an image of God. You can't retire out of it. And guess what? You can't fail out of it. You can't get sick out of it because you did not you did not produce your way into it to begin with. Sorry. You're stuck. You're stuck. That's okay. Amen. God made you. He crowned you as royalty. He invites you to rule or allow him to rule through you. Be the image that you were made to be. Every person you meet should be experiencing some form of the presence of God.

Whether it be God's humility, whether it be God's mercy, whether it be God's love, whether it be God's joy, whether it be God's empathy and connection with another human being. Every single person you meet, oh, it's a big job. Every single person you meet should be experiencing some form of the presence of God because that's what images were made to do. Every step you take, you should be claiming for heaven in a world full of hell. That was Jesus. That was the entire ministry of Jesus. Everywhere he went, he brought heaven to earth. That's what we're called to do. So, put the bricks down. Amen.

Guys, we went in a lot of historical stuff on the YouTube channel. At the bottom of the description, I have a lot of resources and books that you can guys can check out. A lot of information. And so, if you wanted resources from that. But with that, I'd ask you to please stand as we conclude with worship today. And I don't know where you're at today. I don't know if this message resonated with you or if you're going through something completely different this week that may have nothing to do with the message, but I want to let you know that during this time at the end of service, we worship or we can pray or we can meditate and we have a prayer team on either side of the stage.

And I invite you if you need prayer today for any situation that you're going through or someone that you're going through, you can walk up and we'll pray for you. We also have a symbolic altar here and it's it serves a singular purpose. It's symbolic and it's symbolic for a reason because a lot of times people carry stuff around with them for so long and they don't realize how heavy it gets. But then sometimes we're in the place of God's house, they realize they don't want to carry it anymore. They want to let go. They had the key to the latch the whole time and they're ready to unlock it and set it down and walk away.

And so if that's you today, I invite you during worship, make that step. Walk up, kneel down, symbolically place something here, knowing that you're declaring to yourself and to God that the step that you're going to take next is going to be different. It's going to be a step moving forward. We will support you in that. Alina Meno, our father, our king, father, we thank you for this opportunity to come before you today and learn about your word. And may your Holy Spirit, which the scripture says is inside us even now, and it's the same spirit that res that raised Yeshua from the dead. Father, I ask that Holy Spirit would allow us to feel the authority and the power and the royalty and the purpose and all things that we were created to be.