Speaker 1: Well, I grew up in Red Oak, texas, a little town about 30 minutes south of Dallas, and I, from like kindergarten to halfway through sixth grade, went to a small Christian charter school named Life Charter School.
Speaker 1: And in sixth grade we transferred out because my sister she had some learning issues at the time and the school wasn't really meeting the needs that she had, and so they transferred her.
Speaker 1: My parents took her out and put her in Red Oak High School, which was the public high school nearby, and I decided that I wanted to go to just because, right, let's go ahead and change that right.
Speaker 1: It was not the best decision.
Speaker 1: So my parents take me out and they put me in Red Oak Intermediate School.
Speaker 1: Back when, like, intermediate school was a thing.
Speaker 1: It was fifth and sixth grade and then you had seventh and eighth and then you had high school.
Speaker 1: And so I remember my first day extremely vividly.
Speaker 1: I remember going to the counselor's office.
Speaker 1: I remember walking down the hallways that felt a little bit more like a hospital or like a mental asylum, like school hallways typically do.
Speaker 1: And then I remember walking into the cafeteria with like just that janky, like school pizza smell.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Y'all remember that at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, and I sat down at a table that had some people that I thought looked friendly and, to my surprise, as I started to try and join in in conversation, I learned a lot of cuss words that I did not know existed, like did not know they were in the vocabulary, had no clue, they were a thing, it was like F-bomb every other word.
Speaker 1: And so sweet little sheltered me, you know, said exactly what anybody would say, right, I was like hey, guys, I don't know if we should really talk like that.
Speaker 1: And they looked at me about the way you would expect them to look at me.
Speaker 1: And one kid goes well, why not?
Speaker 1: I was like well, at church, they tell me that you're not supposed to cuss.
Speaker 1: And the other kid was like yeah, you know what, you're right, I'm going to stop cussing.
Speaker 1: No, that's not what he said at all.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 1: He said well, that's dumb.
Speaker 1: He said I don't go to church and I don't believe in God.
Speaker 1: In fact, my dad tells me that I shouldn't ever let anybody tell me what to do.
Speaker 1: And in that moment, sheltered sixth grade me realized that me and this kid had completely different beliefs about the world that we lived in and our role in it, and there were a lot of people out there that had completely different views of the world than I did, and, whether I realized it or not, those beliefs shaped what he and I thought was right or wrong.
Speaker 1: Why am I telling you this tonight?
Speaker 1: Well, because whether we realize it or not, that statement is true for every single one of us.
Speaker 1: We all have something we would call a worldview, a way that we understand the universe that we live in and our place in it.
Speaker 1: It's how you answer these big questions.
Speaker 1: If you're taking those, these are good questions to write down.
Speaker 1: One where did we come from?
Speaker 1: Are we just the result of random chance, one in a million odds, or were we intentionally designed?
Speaker 1: Two who am I?
Speaker 1: Am I just another animal?
Speaker 1: Am I a mammal, a clump of cells product of millions of years of evolution, or am I made with unique value and purpose?
Speaker 1: Why am I here?
Speaker 1: What is life about?
Speaker 1: Is it about survival, right, just make it to the end.
Speaker 1: Is it about pleasure, about self-fulfillment, living your best life?
Speaker 1: Or is it about something greater?
Speaker 1: How should you live?
Speaker 1: Who or what decides right and wrong?
Speaker 1: Who gets to write those rules?
Speaker 1: What happens after we die.
Speaker 1: Is it just the end, the lights cut off and that's it.
Speaker 1: Or is there life after death?
Speaker 1: So again, those five questions, if you're taking notes where did we come from?
Speaker 1: Who am I, why am I here, how should I live?
Speaker 1: And what happens after we die?
Speaker 1: And whether you realize it or not, every single one of you has answers to those questions, and those answers are shaping how you live right now.
Speaker 1: And the reverse is true how you live right now also shows what you truly believe.
Speaker 1: The answers to those questions are not just the right answers that you know you're supposed to say to your parents, your friends, or to your pastor or small group leader at church.
Speaker 1: Your life will show those answers.
Speaker 1: Your life will show what you think about the world around you, about what you think about your role, what the purpose of life is.
Speaker 1: Your actions show that.
Speaker 1: And so here's the important thing to know about worldviews they're not all created equal.
Speaker 1: In the world we live in today, it's popular to say something and claim that truth is relative, meaning that we can all believe whatever we want.
Speaker 1: Right, you do you, I'm gonna do me, I'm gonna live my truth, you're gonna live your truth, and everything works out great, but it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: I've told the silly story a bunch of.
Speaker 1: If my truth is that I can fly like a pretty little butterfly and I jump off the Tower of America, it's like how's that gonna end?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit the reality of gravity splat, and that's example.
Speaker 1: But when you start to actually think about how this plays out in everyday life, it starts to become really, really important to know you believe the right things.
Speaker 1: Because if your worldview is that you don't need anybody, that you can protect yourself by keeping people at arm's length, you can live that way, but you will never know the joy of being fully known and fully loved.
Speaker 1: You will hide because you're afraid of being exposed, because you're afraid that if anybody knew the real you, they would reject you.
Speaker 1: But by hiding you'll be robbing yourself of the very thing you are known for love, fully known, all your junk, and loved anyways.
Speaker 1: You might be safe, but you'll be alone.
Speaker 1: Or if your worldview is that the goal of life is to be as happy and comfortable as possible, you might get little glimmers of that here and there, but that happiness is going to wear off and sooner or later that high will fade and you're going to be left empty, chasing the next thing.
Speaker 1: Or if your worldview is that you have to earn your worth through your performance, whether it's grades, sports, looks, money.
Speaker 1: You can live that way, but eventually you will fail.
Speaker 1: You will hit the reality check of failure.
Speaker 1: And what then?
Speaker 1: Your identity is going to crumble and you'll be in this constant state of anxiety because what you tried to find hope in, vanished.
Speaker 1: And so the point here is not all worldviews are equal.
Speaker 1: They will not all take you where you want to go.
Speaker 1: In fact, all of them, other than one, will take you somewhere you don't want to go.
Speaker 1: So the question is which one is right?
Speaker 1: Well, my argument tonight is that the book, the Christian Bible, is God's word, and it reveals the perfect truth about where we come from, who we are, why we're here, how we should live and what happens after we die.
Speaker 1: That the Bible is not just some ancient, dusty book, but instead it reveals everything about God and everything we need to know about the world that we live in.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is, even though a lot of us are familiar with our Bibles, we're not familiar with its answer to those questions.
Speaker 1: What I mean by this is we might know that the Bible has a bunch of cool stories David and Goliath or King Saul, or you might know Noah's Ark, this big flood and all these sorts of things.
Speaker 1: You might know some stories about Jesus, maybe even a parable or two.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, the Bible is so much more than just a collection of stories and a bunch of rules on what to do and what not to do.
Speaker 1: And that's what brings us to the new series that we're going to be starting this fall and that we are introducing tonight.
Speaker 1: Tonight's a little bit different.
Speaker 1: We're just introducing it, we're not diving in yet, and the series that we're going to be walking through this fall is titled Eden, because we're going to be walking through Genesis, chapter 1 through 11, because those first pages of the Bible, those first 11 chapters, tell you so much about those important questions.
Speaker 1: And I truly believe that how you understand Genesis 1 through 11 will unlock how you understand the entire rest of the Bible.
Speaker 1: If you understand those few chapters, so much more is going to make sense.
Speaker 1: And if you don't understand those chapters, on the other side you're always going to have a little bit of confusion as you read your Bible, because on the surface, the beginning of Genesis kind of seems weird right, I'm talking snake fruit, cain and Abel, like dude kills them over some veggies and some sheep and like.
Speaker 1: Then there's this like Noah's Ark, really big flood and animals two by two and there's really tall tower like what's going on.
Speaker 1: But it actually tells us everything we need to know about those big questions, and so we're going to jump into this series next week.
Speaker 1: But with the little time that we have left, I just want to walk through three things that, as we study the book of Genesis, I want to keep in mind, and this is also good for how you study the Bible as a whole, and we're going to move through these really quick because we're going to small groups here in just a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: First point Genesis is not trying to explain when the universe was made or exactly how God built it, not saying that it doesn't have true facts about those things.
Speaker 1: But that's not the primary point of Genesis and it's important to know because a lot of times when you read the first part of the book of Genesis in your Bible, we get hung up on the creation account.
Speaker 1: Right, was it in six days?
Speaker 1: How long ago was it made?
Speaker 1: Were there gaps between the days how long is a day?
Speaker 1: And really the reason this happens is because the Bible's creation account doesn't seem to line up with the one that you might have been taught in school.
Speaker 1: And look, I could spend a lot of time going in on all sorts of evidence to believe the Bible's creation narrative, and there's a lot of evidence and facts to back it up and a lot of reasons to doubt what the current scientific consensus is.
Speaker 1: But even to get into that argument would kind of miss the point of what Genesis is about, because Genesis is not trying to give you the little details and the nuts and bolts of how God created everything.
Speaker 1: That's not anything.
Speaker 1: That's not the aim of the people who wrote it, and when we read a book we have to pay attention to the aim of the author and what the purpose was.
Speaker 1: In fact, a good chunk of the first part of Genesis is poetry, and that doesn't mean it's all symbolic, but it does mean that it's trying to show you something that's beyond just stats and facts.
Speaker 1: We don't want to read Genesis like we're reading a textbook, and when you do, you're going to get confused, you're going to get frustrated because you're trying to find answers that aren't there, not that God doesn't know, not that God doesn't have, and there might be a lot of things that you can pull from that, but we want to focus on the main thing.
Speaker 1: So then the question is what is the main thing?
Speaker 1: The second point is that Genesis is trying to explain the meaning and the purpose behind the universe.
Speaker 1: It's not trying to explain when it was made or how it was made, but it's showing us who made it, what the world is really like, why everything you look at exists and how we can know God and understand our place in everything that he made.
Speaker 1: And, as you see, there's things that are at surface level might make sense, but they're deeply symbolic about how life works.
Speaker 1: Even today, as a teenager in Bernie, texas, like I will read Genesis 1 through 11, like the Lord really opened my eyes to these chapters recently and I read them now, and this is my favorite part of the Bible because it's so accurately describes life.
Speaker 1: It just describes it in a way that we're not necessarily used to.
Speaker 1: It has the answers to the fact that God made the universe, he made everything in it, he gave it order, he created it to work a certain way, he called it and made it good, and he made us, in his image, to be his statues, visible representations of an invisible God, to have a relationship with him that leads us to reflect him in the world around us.
Speaker 1: And sin comes in and it breaks that relationship and it's the cause of all the hurt and pain and suffering and death that you see in the world today.
Speaker 1: But then, even in that moment, god already had a plan to mend it, to make it whole, to wipe every tear from every eye and to bring us back into the relationship with him that we were made for.
Speaker 1: That is the point of Genesis, and when you understand that, it gets a lot easier to let the rest of the details work themselves out.
Speaker 1: And then point three Genesis was not written to you, but it was written for you, and you could actually substitute literally any book of the Bible in this point, because the Bible was not written to a 21st century teenager in Bernie Texas.
Speaker 1: They were written thousands of years ago.
Speaker 1: All of the books of the Bible were written thousands of years ago and they were written to a specific audience, meaning when they were writing, they weren't like.
Speaker 1: How is Gillian Slayton going to understand this?
Speaker 1: And Bernie Texas.
Speaker 1: One day they were writing to actual people who had actual life circumstances and things that they were going through.
Speaker 1: You ever wonder why, like, every metaphor in the New Testament is about farming?
Speaker 1: Because they were farmers.
Speaker 1: That's what they understood.
Speaker 1: And so when there's metaphors and illustrations and things being used, it's communicated in a way that would have made sense to the original audience.
Speaker 1: And so what happens is sometimes we come to the Bible with our own assumptions, with our own understanding of ways, and it's different than it was thousands of years ago, and we kind of unconsciously think, oh, I'm smarter than these people.
Speaker 1: Right, they don't really know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Like they didn't even like know about like space and stuff, and like they can't they don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: But to do that is to completely miss the point, because God decided to reveal these truths through these people at this time, and he did that on purpose, and they're going to communicate it in a way that's completely different than we might understand it.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that the truth that they're communicating is wrong.
Speaker 1: It's just explained differently.
Speaker 1: Think about it.
Speaker 1: That's why you don't see gravity or the solar system spelled out in detail in Genesis, because the guy who wrote Genesis didn't have a grasp of all of that.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean what he was saying wasn't true.
Speaker 1: That's just not how he'd explain it.
Speaker 1: Just like we love all the scientific details, that's not how they thought or communicated.
Speaker 1: And so we have to do our best to come to it without our own assumptions or biases or anything like that, and ask okay, let me put myself in these people's shoes and read it like they read it, and then take that meaning and apply it to our lives, because it was for you.
Speaker 1: All of scripture is God-breathed and good for teaching, rebuke, encouragement, like it is God's word for us.
Speaker 1: But there's a little bit of work for us to get to understand that meaning and we'll do that every single week.
Speaker 1: But just have that in mind.
Speaker 1: And so we're about to close.
Speaker 1: Tonight's a little bit different.
Speaker 1: We were just introducing this series and just setting the the stage as everything like dinners and all that sort of stuff kicks off down there.
Speaker 1: Next week we're going to jump in straight up with creation.
Speaker 1: I'm super excited, but we're about to go to groups.
Speaker 1: But real quick, I just want all of us to practice.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and close your eyes, take a deep breath, relax.
Speaker 1: It's been a long week.
Speaker 1: I just want you to close your eyes and think.
Speaker 1: What is your worldview?
Speaker 1: How would you answer those questions?
Speaker 1: Where did you come from?
Speaker 1: How did we get here?
Speaker 1: Like humans not like you specifically, but human humanity how did we get here?
Speaker 1: Who are you?
Speaker 1: What is your identity?
Speaker 1: Why are you here?
Speaker 1: What were you made to do?
Speaker 1: What is the point of life?
Speaker 1: Is it to just go through school and get a bunch of grades, try to graduate, make a lot of money so you can retire at 38 or Gulf Shores or wherever?
Speaker 1: Or is there something more to life than the rat race that we're all on?
Speaker 1: How should you live?
Speaker 1: Who decides right and wrong?
Speaker 1: Is it you?
Speaker 1: Is it your mom, your dad, your teacher?
Speaker 1: Is it the God who created everything?
Speaker 1: And then ask yourself think about all the answers you just gave.
Speaker 1: Is your life saying that you're lying about those answers?
Speaker 1: How would your life, your actions, answer those questions?
Speaker 1: Because you can say that you believe God determines right and wrong, but if every time you're given that choice and you want to do what's wrong, you do what's wrong, that says you might have a different view of things and there's grace.
Speaker 1: But grace means repentance and turning from that.
Speaker 1: And so, look, I know that in a room this size, not every single one of you is a follower of Jesus, and if you're not, I want to talk to you here for a moment.
Speaker 1: I am glad you are here.
Speaker 1: Keep coming back.
Speaker 1: Jesus loves you right now, even as you may not have anything to do with him.
Speaker 1: God is good, he cares about you.
Speaker 1: He wants a relationship with you.
Speaker 1: In fact, he wants a relationship with you so much that the way he decided to make a way for that relationship was to send his son to die for you, and he is glad you are here.
Speaker 1: You are not an outcast.
Speaker 1: You are not looked down upon.
Speaker 1: You are in good company of fellow sinners.
Speaker 1: There are just those of us who found grace and forgiveness and healing and hope in Jesus and are now his children, and that invitation is open to you too.
Speaker 1: And so maybe you showed up tonight.
Speaker 1: You're real skeptical about all this.
Speaker 1: Just show up, just keep asking questions.
Speaker 1: We're going to walk through what the Bible says about all this stuff this week, next week, and so just come, taste and see, learn with an open mind.
Speaker 1: It's the least that I can ask of you.
Speaker 1: We'll play games, we'll feed you stuff, we'll have fun.
Speaker 1: The only thing I ask in return is that you just have an open mind, test out what we learn about what the Bible says, and I know if you do with an honest and open heart, you will find it to be true and to be life.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, lord.
Speaker 1: God, we thank you so much for tonight and the opportunity to be here, worship you, gather together.
Speaker 1: We love you so much and we thank you for your word.
Speaker 1: And we just pray right now, over these next few weeks, as we walk through this series on Genesis 1 through 11, that even now, you would prepare our hearts and our minds to do business with you, to ask the tough questions, to be vulnerable and honest in groups, to tear off the facade that we all live behind in this town and to just come here open-minded, open-hearted, to see what you might have for us.
Speaker 1: And, lord, that we would leave here tonight and every week closer to you, looking more like you, and that we'd see the miracle of salvation.
Speaker 1: Lord, that we would leave here tonight and every week closer to you, looking more like you, and that we'd see the miracle of salvation.
Speaker 1: Lord, we pray a big prayer because we believe you can answer them.
Speaker 1: But, lord, that even by the end of this series, every unsaved soul under the sound of my voice tonight will be saved.
Speaker 1: Lord, we pray that you'd save as many as you desire, as many as can God.
Speaker 1: We love you, we praise you, we as many as can God.
Speaker 1: We love you, we praise you, we pray all these things in your son, jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: We love you.
Speaker 1: Guys, let's go to groups.
Speaker 1: Those rooms are going to be up here on the screen.
Speaker 1: I know we have some new classes and such, but these are going to be our rooms.
Speaker 1: Find your teacher.
Speaker 1: If you have any questions, go ask either me or Andrew or one of the leaders.
Speaker 1: I promise Aaron that was there is.
Speaker 1: Thank you.