SEP 8 2019 | Dive Into Life S1E4 | Life – Camera – Creation

Sea Change Church · Dive Into Life · "Life - Camera - Creation" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · September 8, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hi everyone, my name is Lori Ellis and I'm married to Olin, our music man. I'm part of this team, not in singing or playing, just in a support system because they're so good. Love these guys. But I also represent a new group that has lots of experience and wisdom, and it's the adventurers that Drea just mentioned, 55 and over. We will always have great fun, fellowship, and food, so stay tuned for our future plans and sign up if you're interested.

All right, now let's get to God's word. I will be reading Romans 1, 18 to 25. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over to their sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator, who is forever praised. Amen. The word of the Lord. Thank you, Lori. I'll be in that venture group in about five years, and I'll be there. Until then, we also, and the adventurers are welcome, are starting an outdoor activities group. So I have got my icon pass. Could you move that fan, because it's going to blow my paper off, if you would.

I've got an icon pass. We have got other leaders in the church that are going to be doing snowboard and ski days. Looks like there might be even some skydiving, hikes for those that just want to hike. Looking for someone to start a softball team. So we're just going to get out there and do it and have fun. I wanted to call mine adventure group, and then they came and took it, right? So now I can't call it. So now we're outdoor activity.

Boy, that sounds awesome. Outdoor activity. Lord Jesus, we want to praise you, God, for your goodness, that your word would come alive today. That the spirit of God, the very spirit of God that flows from the heart of God, who sits upon the throne in heaven, like a river, would rush between these pews and would give us understanding in a practical way that says that you love us. We love the word, and it is true, and we love how you speak to us through it.

And whether we like it or not, we want to accept it and believe it. And we just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. This is one of those smack you in the face verses, right? This is one of those like God kind of saying everything. He does this in the Bible every so often, like, come on, dummy, figure it out. Like, that's how I perceive it. Now, maybe he's not saying that, but this is one of those verses that kind of just makes you sit back and think.

And one of the things God is saying is, if you just open your eyes, don't be a fool. He actually says that here. If you just open your eyes and look at creation, it is undeniable. Now, you can deny it if you want, but it's undeniable. And one day when you stand before me, even without sending Jesus, even without sending the Holy Spirit, even without having the Bible and all these things, there will be no excuse for you to say that there was no God.

There will be absolutely zero excuse for you. Now, that's really, really interesting because God is saying through a thing called natural revelation. Or babies. So, amen to you. Thank you so much. When the Bible speaks, when God speaks, he speaks through a number of ways. Now, if you went to seminary or if you read on the internet, you would know that one of the primary ways that God speaks originally is through a thing called natural revelation.

This is what this verse is about. It means that you go outside and you can look into a fox's face, if you don't get bit, and think to yourself, wow, that's incredible. How did all that come together? You look at the stars. You look around and you will see God screaming to you as the oceans sing regular praise. Imagine if you could harness the sound of all the oceans right now in every wave. The sound of it is inspiring.

It's awe-inspiring. And what God is saying through natural revelation is, I exist. But God also knew that he wanted something more intimate than natural revelation. And so he came and introduced himself to mankind in a divine revelation. So you have natural revelation, then you have divine revelation. And he introduced himself as God, but that still wasn't as close as God wanted to get. So he sent himself as Jesus, that we might see everything that God is like, as the scripture says, in the person of Jesus.

But that still wasn't close enough. And so he sent his Holy Spirit, that those who believe in Jesus, that spirit could now indwell those that believe in him, that believe in his work on the cross. And you become the temple of the living God, where God's very spirit indwells you. And now you are intimately connected with God until we reign with him in eternity. This is his plan, but it starts with natural revelation. I want to say that natural revelation or creation is one of the most practical tools that early believers, up until probably 150 years ago, and many branches still do today, believe is an integral part of mature Christ following.

That if you are a discipled Christ following believer, like Jesus with his disciples, where did he regularly take them? He would take them into the wilderness. And so one of the things, especially as urban believers, that we have oftentimes missed, is seeing spending time in creation alone or with others in creation is an integral part of a mature Christian spiritual tool belt. And one of the things I realized this week when my life needed a filter was I needed to get out into creation.

Now, I don't know how many, don't raise your hand, but how many of you, you feel like you need a filter? Wouldn't life be better if it came with like a filter? You know? That the world has so many things it is pushing at you. People's attitudes, you know, things in the media that are said. Just looking around, I saw a lady on Girard Street yesterday, and somebody had their dog in the back of the car, and the windows were rolled down, and the lady went to the mailbox, and it looked pretty innocuous or pretty innocent.

And one lady across the street started yelling at her, saying, Your dog's in the car! You've left the windows down! And started screaming at her. And the lady said, I'm just going to the mailbox. My windows are, the dogs are, you should never leave a dog! And across the street, and I walked into Pete's to have my coffee, and I was like, wow! And I just, the energy of it, just, I was like, I just need to get some of that off.

Have you ever felt that way before? Or you see something on TV, I can't watch commercial. Our football season starts today, officially, right? I dare you to watch the commercials and not feel slimed. Like, the commercials are gnarly, you know, as you watch it. Hollywood loves violence. Matter of fact, get a little checkbox, and every time you see an AR-15 or a gun, just put a little check by it, or every time a gun is shot, see how many checks, watch all the commercials, and see how many checks you can come up with.

I kept with, like, I think, like 37 one time, 38. That's a lot for a football game. And sometimes, life needs to come with a filter. How do you filter this stuff out? Watching people, when you're not even, you know, you're watching TV, you're just hoping to sit down for a little British baking show, and next thing you see is some graphic violence on the screen. How do you filter this out? Well, there's a lot of ways to filter it out.

There's worship, and hopefully you're worshiping Christ. There is reading the Word of God. There's spending time with other believers. There's thanksgiving. But one of the primary ways that I really wanted to bring back to the table for you to reconsider, and some of us already do this, but it's to get out in God's creation and to hear from Him. On Thursday, I told the staff this week, we had the most productive week as a staff, and as a volunteer staff as well, that we have ever had in the five and a half, six years that I've been here.

I just looked around, and I thought, man, we got some stuff done this week. Like, people were grinding. We had one air conditioner in that one little tiny office, and I walked in at 10 in the morning. Actually, it's 6 in the morning when I got to work, because I was there, and then I left and came back. And four or five of the staff and volunteers were huddled in the cold room, and they were just grinding, and I didn't want to mess it up.

They were just grinding and working hard, and just everybody was going after it. And Harry's been at camps and taking kids, and it's just awesome to see the spiritual mechanism just happen. But at the end of the week, I was tired, and it was great work, but I needed a filter. So I told my wife, I didn't tell her. I asked her. I said, do you mind if I go to Big Bear for 24 hours and just get in creation? She said, I think you need that.

Get in the car and go. So I jumped in the car, and boom, I was up there. And I got to tell you, what I found once again is that creation works when it comes to filtering your life. If you take a creation with worship, and you take some of the other tools that God has given you, and you get into creation, go to the beach, jump in the water, there's just something about being in creation. So this is a very practical message.

It's not incredibly theological. Actually, it is somewhat. But it is a challenge to you to make sure that when you're in creation that your eyes are open and you're not missing what God is doing, and to bring creation as a viable tool back into your life to help you follow Christ in a better way. Creation is that filter. And so one of the things I find is when I'm out on the trail or when I was sitting in the forest this week or out there is one of the first things that always comes up on my radar, and it reminds me, the world is bigger than me.

And that I am not the center of the universe. And that is one of the things. And so what I would ask you is, is your mind in a place, is your soul in a place, are your emotions in a place currently where you've become the center of the universe, even of your own universe? And it's hard not to. One of the best ways to become ultimately neurotic is to continue to think about yourself on a regular basis. We've been talking about this life series about getting your fruit to market.

The first two weeks are about God as a tree, and God's, excuse me, life seen as a tree. And once again, as you read about life in the Bible, God is using all this agrarian language. He's using all this. And it's so easy as modern believers who are connected to electronics on a regular basis to get lost and to miss that. What is interesting is as we have gotten away from creation and gotten closer to technology, how our hearts, minds, and emotions are breaking correspondently, I think that's a word, in correlation to when that had began to happen.

So once again, just as a practical tool, where are you using that? How are you experiencing God in creation? If you look at your notes, first thing you're going to see is this. Creation was the Bible before the Bible existed. That is true. The Bible is replete with so many verses that talk about God in creation. I just binge listened to the book of Job. I don't know if anybody has done any binge listening to the Bible.

I encourage you to do it. Just hammered through it. And I have come to love the book of Job. I used to be terrified of the book of Job. Don't read it because God's going to mess me up if I read it. And I don't think that's how a loving God works. Sometimes he just wants you to read the Bible, and it's not all about him using it to mess your life up. So I listened to it, and I have come to love the book of Job. It is such a great book.

Especially, it all builds to this climactic part where Job is like, God, speak to me. I need God to speak to me. And then his friends, they come, they sit shiva with him, which is a Jewish term to come and sit quiet when someone's in suffering for seven days. But after those seven days, they start unloading on him. And they're like, you did something, bro. And he's like, I didn't do nothing. And they're like, that's pretty much sinful that you say that.

You know you did something. And here's God, and you're rebuking God. And he's like, no, I want to talk to God. I want to talk to God. The cool thing is, is in chapter 38, God shows up. And there's this really young guy that talks, and God basically starts by saying, who's this idiot who's talking about stuff he doesn't know? And so I really like that part. So start with chapter 38, but build up to it. And when God begins to talk about his reality in the book of Job, he pretty much just gives a rundown of creation.

He pretty much is like, who set the stars in their place? Who knows where the snow is in that storehouse? Who does this? Who does that? And it's all about creation. It just comes alive. If you want to have just this powerful God talk straight out of God's mouth, go to chapter 38. And so what I realized as I was binge listening to the book of Job, that God is all about creation. And God wants you to expose yourself to creation.

And if you are feeling contracted, if you're feeling compressed, one of the best things you can do is to get out into the original Bible, which is creative revelation, which is creation, and to get out and to experience those things. Once again, things will begin to expand. John Muir. And I'm reading a book right now. I'm reading Rockefeller's biography right now. It's called Titan. Get it on the audio. It's like a 37-hour listen, but if you double up the time, you can listen to it pretty quickly.

It talks all about this oil giant who ended up with his philanthropy doing all types of amazing things to bless the world. I mean, part of Yellowstone, I believe, and all these things that he helped. But kind of what they did with the oil at the time was kind of ruining creation as well. And John Muir was basically a foe of what was happening. And perhaps you've heard of the Muir, John Muir Trail. And he was an ardent Christ follower.

And he really pushed for being out in creation and experiencing God in creation. Look up John Muir. He has a bunch of writings. And he is mentioned in this Rockefeller book. And one of the things that he said when he was out in creation was this. He looked around. He says, this is creation. All that is going on today, only men are blind, mankind are blind to see it. They cannot pause long enough to go into the wilderness where God has provided every sparrow enough to eat and to spare.

And to contemplate for even an hour the wonderful world that they live in. This is powerful. This is in the 1800s where John Muir is saying they can't even pause for a moment. Imagine if he was here today. He'd be tripping. You know what I mean? He'd be living in a cave at this point. John Muir was this amazing believer. He was out there a little bit too. You know, he'd go sit in a tree for like 24 hours, you know, just to feel what it felt like to be like a tree.

I get that. That's a little further than I'm asking you to go. But you need people like that. You know what I mean? You need the fringes in order to keep central for the rest of us. And he speaks about this. And in this he says, to contemplate for even an hour the wonderful world that they live in. You know one of the things that I realize when I'm out in creation? Is I kind of tend to think everything's going to be okay.

Everything slows down. And I began to look and I thought, God, you're in charge. Everything's okay. And all of a sudden all my fears and worries and concerns. Because if you were living in mankind's, you know, meat churner of news that we push out and all the dreadful things that are going on. You actually will walk into creation and think God is in charge. And you look up at the stars. It's impossible to look at the stars as he screams out to you from the stars, I love you.

What God says to me over and over again when I go out into creation is I love you. I created this for you, for your creation to have dominion over and to experience me as you walk. It is a creation where you can experience me. So what you're going to find then is something that we know. And this is in scripture. That creation, as it says in the notes, and mankind are intimately tethered together. And as mankind goes, creation goes.

Now, there's a lot of arguments right now about all types of things that are happening in the climate. And people are discussing why and how. And they're taking readings of carbon data and all these things of why it would happen. The Bible is pretty interesting in that it says that even when man isn't destroying creation, which we have been really good at, especially since the industrial age. I was just up in the sequoias.

It is so sad to see what happened in the sequoias, to see the clear cutting and those things that happened. And believers in the 1800s were totally some of the activists that were saying, do not destroy creation. But as we look at it, we see that even without all the scientific data, that creation changes because of man's sin. Now, this is an interesting take in that most nonbelievers will think you're crazy. Okay? So there's that verse I talked about last week where I said, you know, I'm a fool and the world will think this is foolish.

I totally get that this seems absolutely foolish. But if you read the Bible, the sin of mankind, and not even the sin of destroying creation, because that's a sin. What did God say? Have dominion over and rule over creation. Don't destroy it. So if we're going to go out like Rockefeller's group did and dump 80,000 barrels of gasoline into a river in Pennsylvania every single day to the point where the river lit on fire, that is sin.

FYI. And so when we destroy it, we destroy the world and we sin. And as believers, we really need to be looking at creation and doing everything we can to help creation. But the scripture also says, is even when man isn't destroying creation physically, the sin that they commit will affect creation. Now that's interesting. Just sin. Okay, so Adam and Eve, as we'll see in a moment, you see that they commit sin. And what happens to the ground?

The ground becomes cursed. I will say that a lot of the destruction that you see on earth or some of the things that are climactic are happening because, as the Roman says, because of the sin of humankind. One of the best, and part of that sin is destroying our world. We want to be a church that is very active. And as we get more margin, as we grow, as we get more volunteers, we're going to challenge you to continue to be a church that takes the environment very seriously.

And how can we do that? But we also want to take human sin seriously. And one of the things as believers we have to understand is that sin, the way, that the sins besides destroying the planet affect the planet. The Bible's replete with this. If you look, obviously in Genesis, you see that the ground was cursed. If you look at Sodom and Gomorrah, what happens? Fire rains, whether it was from a volcano or whatever, fire rains because of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.

If you go to Egypt and God uses plagues, once again, God is using nature to punish people because we are intimately tied to it, because creation, we are the lead of creation. We are intimately tied to creation. And God has used it throughout the Bible. As a matter of fact, when you get to Revelations, Revelations, once again, God uses the creation as a punishment, as his wrath against the sin of mankind. Now this is, I get this is not a popular position, okay?

So if I go up to UCSD's science department and I start talking about this, they're gonna be going like, I totally get that. But the Bible says it over and over and over throughout the Bible, hundreds of places, if not thousands of places in the Bible, where God says, I created you, I created that, you are the apex of creation. As you go, creation will go. And I would believe that if mankind got their hearts in right with God, you would see a changing in our environment.

I do believe that. I believe the Bible says that specifically. You can argue that from a scientific perspective with me, but if you wanna come to me with your Bible verses, I would be more than happy to have a conversation on at least what the Bible says. I tend to have staked my life on the Bible, so I believe it. Now what, let me tell you what I'm not gonna do. I am not gonna go when there is some natural disaster, okay, and go with a sign and say, nope, screwed it up, you didn't follow God, this is what you get.

That, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not that guy, okay? I don't know why things happen, and never can I say that this happened because of this. Now in the Bible, when you see it in the Bible, and the Bible says it happened because of that, then I can say that happened. But in my time, I will never do that. But what I will do is continue to preach repentance, and continue to steward and care for the earth, and hopefully we become a church that does that.

So I want you to know as a church, this is something we wanna take important, and we wanna make and be serious about. Let's just look at these things. Mankind is God's supreme creation. Excuse me, let me go to verse 18 first from this Romans passage. This is a hard verse, isn't it? Isn't this a hard verse? Like you don't start here with your friends when you're sharing about Christ, right? This is not, FYI, for evangelism, you're just looking at me today, it's all good, I still feel good.

When you're having evangelism with your friends, don't start here, okay? Maybe start somewhere softer like Jesus loves you. I'm gonna preach it anyways, I don't care. Verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Ouch! That one hurts, makes us uncomfortable. Everyone's real quiet today, right? It is uncomfortable, but it's something we need to understand.

That's one of the reasons, one of the best things you can do for creation is preach repentance and take care of the earth. Genesis 126, God said, let us, this is what makes man different than creation, why some people say we're all creative, we're all connected, we're all connected intimately the exact same way to the rest of creation. Not true. According to the scripture, God made man a little bit different, mankind, men and women, a little bit different, that he made them with one characteristic that was a little bit different than something that reflected God's glory, something that shows his divine nature and invisible qualities, which is one of my favorite verses, Romans 1.20.

He says that he made them in what? His own image, that he took a scoop of himself and just dumped it in there in a way that was completely intimate, that was completely different, that set mankind apart from the beast, that set mankind apart from the rocks and the stones and the stars. And God said in Romans 1, excuse me, Genesis 126, let us do what? Make man in our own image. What a cool idea. Don't you like when you have good ideas?

Love that idea. After our what? After our likeness. And let them have what? Now this is something he probably shouldn't have done. Gives them keys to the Ferrari. Do you remember Ferris Bueller's day off when Cameron takes the car? This is a bad call, right? Because man's messed up. But God, in his intimate wisdom, is like, I trust you. You know, when I was a playgrounds monitor for basically an on-campus dad, I did that from kindergarten to fifth grade with my daughter and every single Friday.

And one of the things I found is when a kid would kind of rebel and, you know, one of the things is kids like appropriate discipline. And so I said, you're not playing today. And I said, well, you're not gonna get to play the game because you pushed little Joey. Little Joey doesn't have it. You can come back next week. And I'd come back the next week and I'd expect little Timmy, who pushed little Joey, to say like, I ain't talking to you, old man.

I don't wanna play your game nowhere. You know what they would do? If you're a teacher, you've probably seen this if you've done this. They'd come right to me. And they'd hang out. Sometimes they'd even wanna hold my hand. And I'd be like, dude, I just disciplined you last week. What are you doing back here? And there they are over and over. It happened over and over again. You know what I'd do then? Bro, you're captain today.

What? Yeah, you're the captain of the team. You're gonna be the captain of that. Ah, I watch kids transform when you give them responsibility. That's why I wrote a book for parents called Give Your Kids the Keys. Don't let them rent their faith from you. If you're a parent right now, do not let your children rent their faith. When they doubt their faith, let them doubt their faith. One of my daughters spent a year and a half doubting if God was real.

Very painful for me. Let her do it. Because I realize I'd rather have them doubt when they are in our camp than out on somebody else's campus without that insight to go back onto. And both of my daughters have some very strong faith. As a matter of fact, they continue to tether me up and shore me up sometimes. Dad, can you not say that? That really bothers me. Okay, sorry. We listened to 1940s music yesterday. I love it.

Got serious radio. Listen to the 1940s station. And my daughter Lily goes, you know, I love this music. You know why, Dad? It's wholesome. I thought, drop the mic. Find another high schooler in all of the state who used the word wholesome in the last two weeks. I was like, yeah, this is wholesome. Da-da-da-da-da. Doing some jazz hands. Wholesome. Creation is wholesome. But creation, it says, he says, have dominion. He gives it dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

And some of the theology, it says, well, this earth is, Christians say, this earth is passing away so we don't really need to care about it because there's a new one coming. I'm not in that camp, FYI. I want, you know, I want to care for creation and I want to think about how I'm creating and the things I'm doing and I think there's a great data out there about how we can do that. There's a book about fast fashion that just came out.

The average person wears a piece of clothing in America seven times before you throw it away. In China, it's three times. The microfibers now, they said that it's raining plastic microfibers in the Rockies now from clothing that is being destroyed or worn or different things. It's really crazy, all this stuff that's going on. So yesterday, as we went to Target and did a little clothes shopping, I just kept thinking to myself, do I really need this?

You know, thinking through all these things. I'm not going to get neurotic about it, but how are we caring for creation? This is something, you know, as I look at Kim over there, Kimberly, and we went to Israel, the Jews are into creation and they are really into making Israel come back alive, which became a wasteland, which was prophetic and now they are beginning to replant that whole area. It's amazing to see the groves and as you go there, the life, come back to a place that Mark Twain said was a desert wilderness.

We believe it was prophetic, but as God brought them back, once again, prophecy is coming alive and that place is coming alive and becoming verdant once again. Put yourself out in creation. Make the place you live as much as you can. Fill it with creation. Fill it with plants. Fill it with life. Fill it with things that you can experience God. I know this is just a practical talk. I know this isn't like mind-blown stuff, but it works and don't we want to feel alive?

As we come in for a landing here on this creation, we want to feel alive. Creation is still stained with the original curse. This is the thing. Christ has broken the curse, but if you choose to live under the curse, it is still available for you if you choose to live there. Christ has broken it. The reason we know this is because Paul says right here as he speaks in this scripture that God still has wrath. Now Christ satisfied that wrath.

Isn't that interesting? Why would we continue to have a spanking if it has been paid for? Because we want our own way. I believe as we continue to sin, as we continue to give in to sin, especially in the church, not taking holiness, not taking virtue. Somebody said to me today on the way in, virtue is difficult. I thought, that's a great line. Virtue is difficult. And if we're going to see revival as a church, we need to show revival in these ways and in our hearts.

He said in Genesis, curse is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. That curse has been broken, but if we want to continue to live in it, we can. Life is found in creation, and creation, as I've already said in the notes, is a powerful tool in this toolbox of a mature Christ follower. Get into creation. I'm a surfer, not very good, but when I go into creation, I want to experience creation, and I need to stay away from certain places and certain surf breaks that when I get there, I'm just angry because I want to experience God in creation, or I need to go out there with a different attitude that I want to bring Christ to that place.

when I said, you know, recently, when we show up somewhere, we want to show up with something to offer. It's interesting. I go sometimes surfing to find life, but I don't show up with any life, and when I get out there and somebody gets in my way or they yell at me and say, get out of the water, old man, or whatever it is, I just get angry, and I get angry because I had nothing to bring to the table. We want to have fruit that we are bringing to market, and when you go to get life somewhere, you are bringing life with you.

is life on offer in your life? Do people see, when you come walking around the corner in your neighborhood, do you think most people think that person has, there is something different. They have a life. Why do you smile so much? You know, it is unpopular to be happy today, right? It's unpopular to be happy. Being melancholy and hating your life is a thing. FYI. And it is to tell people, if you were to go, and I've said this multiple weeks, if you walk in somewhere and someone says, how you doing?

You know what? The world's amazing. I think there's so many awesome things going on in the world. My life right now is great. I'm so blessed. I just, and you just kind of just go, I'm not saying how great you are, but just like, life's blessed. It's amazing. And I just love life. People are either going to be angry or think you're stupid or weird. Like, it's like a weird thing to like be happy today, right? Now, all the advertising tells you to be happy, right?

You're supposed, this is, you're all supposed to walk around like this all the time and get toothpicks, you know, just keep your mouth open. But if you actually put it into practice and you actually walk into some place with joy, people are going to think you're whack. And they're going to say, you know what? This is the thing that's actually happening. Are you unaware of what's happening in the world? You being happy makes you complicit because there is stuff going on in the world today and you are unaware and if you were aware you would not be happy, you'd be what?

Angry. And angry is cool. Angry shows that you have woken up to all the things in the world and that you are just ticked off and you are going to change it. I'd say one of the best ways to change things is to have joy. To walk in, yeah, there are some difficult situations in the world. We have our missions week next week. Every month we are going to let you know about the things that are happening and how we're trying to change it.

Whether it is to bring these new menstruation cups to Africa so girls can go to school or to work on the Pregnancy Resource Center or to bring gardens with a purpose around the world. There are things but when we show up we don't have to show up ticked off. Here's the thing, Christians, that we need to know. God has enough anger without yours. As a Christian, you actually don't need to be angry with something. You can just be in agreement with God who is angry about that thing and then show up joyful and make a difference about it.

I want to encourage you to do that. The world, the whole thing is if you are ticked off right now then you are alive. I've got to say anger doesn't bring life. Anger doesn't bring life and it destroys our communities. Can we show up and agree that this needs to be changed without being ticked off? This is what we want to do as a church. One of the things the Lord told me and a specific word to me and to this church is one of the only ways to continue to be relevant as Christians is to do things in the world that matter that people can't deny.

Where they look like we are doing with Plant with a Purpose are so many of us. I'm so proud of our missions partners. Christine Denning will be speaking next week. She is over in Africa doing powerful work. Do not miss that. I know some people if Adam doesn't speak I don't show up. Let me just tell you don't miss Christine Denning next week talking about what we're doing in Africa. You can show up knowing a crisis and make a difference.

That was a side note but I encourage you to do it. Life is found in creation. Job 1, 2 through excuse me Job 12, 7 through 10 as they speak and Job is a book about creation. It says but ask the animals. They will teach you. That's a smack in the face isn't it? It's like you can't figure it out? Go ask your dog. He'll tell you. Does God exist? The Bible is awesome. It says so much no wonder people hate the Bible. It's just so awesome but if you submit to it you're like yeah dude a donkey can talk to me and I can learn something you know like Balaam had an ass you know and it spoke to him and it could see the angel when he couldn't.

We are without excuse the scripture says. We are without excuse but I laugh when I read the Bible it's just funny but ask the animals and they will teach you or the birds in the sky and they'll tell you or speak to the earth and it will teach you or let the fish in the sea inform you which of all these does not know the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

God is alive. God has breath. We have got to be bringing life and breath to the table. Not focusing on ourselves and our own problems over and over. Getting out and realizing that you are not the center of the universe and to create a church that I look one of the things we said in the elder meeting is we have to raise our profile here. Not that hey we're an awesome church come listen to this and come to sit in the service.

No. Our profile that we are making a radical difference in the world and doing it with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts. And when they throw us to the lions one day like they did in the first century that we will do so singing like the martyrs did in the past. That we are not angry that God is angry we understand God's anger at some of the things in the world we don't have to be angry we can show up with joy agreeing with his anger but going out as missionaries of peace and of consolation to the world.

That's the message. Romans 1 20. God shows us for since the world since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities so things that you can't see his eternal power go stand at a mighty raging river we just why do we take kids out why does Harry take kids to the river? Because we want them to experience God get them away from their computer to show them something they can't deny. Why do we take them out at middle school camp to look at the stars and as one kid we looked at the stars we said what do you see there and that God created this to let them experience something beyond a screen and as I showed one I told you a shooting star came across the sky and I just felt like the Lord said to say to her that was specifically for you.

It's powerful what God has there. His eternal power his divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse. excuse. You know I've just gone back to some very simplistic arguments when I talk to people sometimes I just say I don't know why that is what about this? I don't know but God's been plain to me I look into you know I look into the the stars and I just know that didn't just happen it has to have a divine creator well what about I don't know I just look and I can experience the power and then here's the new argument I love I just say because I feel it I just feel it feelings are really big today in our culture so one other thing I just say I just feel it that's just how I feel well what about I don't know I just feel it you know I mean God just proven to me I just feel it whatever I feel there it is I've just gone back very simplistically I've just gone back very simplistically well what about this what about these people shouldn't these people get to do this I said you know I don't know I just don't think everyone gets a happy ending this day according to what they think their ending should be I don't know what do I know you know I just don't know the Bible says this can I just believe the Bible I'm just a foolish idiot anyways no matter what I say to you but I look around and I see God and we're going to show God on the streets we're going to show God in Africa at this church we're going to show God in Israel we're going to show God in the streets of PB we're going to show God in La Jolla we're going to take our Bibles where we go like I said and we want to give people access ask the question why do you read that book of foolishness sit down I'll tell you why this is the example of Christ over and over again two verses and we're done Matthew 4 1 then Jesus was who led by whom the spirit into the wilderness when was the last time the spirit led you somewhere I mean come on be honest like you actually thought okay the spirit told me to get up and go to this place when was the last time if that hasn't happened in a while start asking him to lead you places when I was in college I was doing my homework at 2 in the morning I was new to this Christian thing at least you know I'd done high school had just gotten sober I was like by the way I'll have 30 years sober on Tuesday which is awesome no booze I was gonna go back to where I passed out in the gutter in front of club A and take a picture of it maybe I'll lay back down there this time and just take a picture like this and I was there and I was like fired up and Jesus was showing up like super powerfully because I needed something radical because drugs were super radical so I needed something as radical and Jesus said okay I'll give you a season of that so I had this really radical season and we were in AIDS hospices and we were all the trees you see going into Ocean Beach those palm trees we planted them as a group and all kinds of cool stuff was happening but I was 2 in the morning and the Holy Spirit just spoke to me now I wouldn't I just got this thought that said go speak to Gabe and I said okay where's Gabe and I saw a picture of him in my head just a picture at the cafeteria it's 2 in the morning and Gabe was a guy at church school so I get on my skateboard and I go up the hill and skate to where I thought Gabe was guess who's there crazy Gabe okay and Gabe's girlfriend and they were sitting there and I had I'd read the Bible some but I'd been binge reading the Bible like at that point I was like reading through the New Testament like every other week I was like powering I was like didn't have coke anymore I didn't have meth and so I needed something and the Bible was a great replacement so I was using a lot of that not leaving campus because I was afraid to leave campus and I began to speak the words of God and all of a sudden the Bible began to flow out and I literally quoted probably three chapters of the book of Romans and I'd never memorized it now I gotta say it's crazy right boo cuckoo I get it UCSD sorry no I don't wanna hit bang on UCSD Grossmont College some students over there stop it and God just came alive and the spirit led me there you can say I'm crazy I saw some crazier stuff out in the streets God began to do that begin to ask God to lead where is the spirit leading you maybe it's to another country maybe it's somewhere but you begin to ask spirit where are you leading he will lead you he won't maybe speak to you the way he spoke to me but you'll know spirit of God led Jesus out into the wilderness and maybe he's leading you into the wilderness where is God leading you Luke 5 16 but Jesus often withdrew to a lonely place and prayed it doesn't say that the spirit led him this time just said that he did it it was part of his normal agenda to head out so sometimes the spirit will lead you and other times maybe you can just lead the spirit no we can't lead the spirit okay that's bad theology but we can just say God I don't know if you're telling me to do this but I think it's good practice I'm gonna go hang out on the beach at 5 in the morning and I'm gonna watch the waves and the sunrise actually I'd have to turn towards the other side to look at the sunrise nonetheless and I'm gonna experience you this is creation this is life this is who we want to be C.S. Lewis Chris C.S. Lewis says nature gave the world glory a meaning for me he was an atheist I still don't know where else I could have found it he says as he was looking for God that in it he found the eternal power of God the divine qualities it says the invisible nature of God nature gave the word glory a meaning for me I still do not know where else I could have found one and when I look for glory in the world I see man's glory and it pales in comparison to the rising of the sun it pales in comparison to a storm and to the wind and to the waves I don't know if you've been out in the ocean I was out at Wind and Sea last year when they were calling it Windonesia because it was 80 degrees in the water and it was triple overhead and massive and I went out there and I kind of sat in the channel and just I went and I paddled into the middle and I got hammered by the not hammered but just by the waves and I just felt the power throw me around it was awesome just to get wrecked awesome to be in that power God's glory is there it is there and it's available to you and let me just say if you get out in it this week I believe God wants to speak to you I believe God wants to tell you not only do I love you intimately not only do you have incredible worth not only is everything going to be okay but I have something I want to do with you I want to partner with you and if you just sit down for a moment like John Muir says and listen to my spirit I will draw you together and we will begin as a church to link arms and walk and not only that run and change this world as a group as a church and as the army of God amen let's stand