Genesis 9 - God’s Sovereign Restoration

Main Idea: God loves us in such a way that our natural response must be obedient worship.

GOD PROVIDES FOR OUR NEEDS (vs. 1-4)

GOD SAYS YOUR LIFE IS VALUABLE (vs. 4-6)

GOD HAS MADE PROMISES HE WON’T BREAK (vs. 7-17)

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Verses 18-29

Summary: Even though Noah was a righteous and blameless man, he was still a fallen and sinful human. His lack of self-control led to his family becoming fractured through the sin of his son Ham (see verse 22, then Leviticus 20:10-11 - a connection made especially clear in the NASB & NKJV). The child of this abusive, power-grab sin (similar to Absalom’s in 2 Samuel 16 and Reuben’s in Genesis 35) was prophesied to be subservient to Noah’s two sons, not to be their equal as a half-brother.

See Tabernacle Talk episode 4.15 on Leviticus 20 for a fuller treatment of this situation.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by YouTube)

We are continuing our study. We've been in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 1 through 11, for the past, let me see, I think this is maybe Sermon 6 in the series, if I remember correctly.

And we've gone through and saw how God has created our world to work. The fact that we did not go with his design, and instead, we chose our own way. We chose the path of destruction, but God loved us too much.

His desire to have a relationship with us was far too strong to leave us on the path that we chose that leads to nothing but condemnation and ruined relationships and a broken world, which I don't know if many of you know this, if you've looked

around our world today, it's obvious something's broken. And we are in desperate need of the God who wants to restore us.

Last week, we looked at the story that Scripture records for us in Genesis 6 through 8, looking at the account of the flood and of Noah, that God's justice demanded that there be punishment for sin.

But because of God's incredible love, anyone that wanted to could join Noah and his family and find safety, and that God kept Noah and his family safe, that even though, even as later in this chapter, chapter 9 would tell us, even though there was

imperfection in Noah and his family, God's not looking for your perfection. He's looking for his own. He's looking to give grace. He's not looking for who's worthy of it.

And today in Genesis 9, we resume the specific area that we were in at the end of last week. Now we find ourselves getting off of the arc with Noah and his family, and I am going to need some help from you kids. Are you guys ready?

Okay, I've got some things that I need you to hold for me, okay? All right, here's my wallet. Don't spend it all in one place.

These are very important, okay? You guys will figure out why later on, okay? We're going to do this today.

All right, now for you guys, I've got something very, very important for you, okay? You guys are super important. And if you guys don't have those items in like 5, 10, 15 minutes, then everything might explode.

I can't guarantee that, but everything might. So listen and pay attention, because when I call on you guys and they say, hey, I need that thing, I'm going to be ready for you guys, okay? Got it?

All right, join me in Genesis chapter 9. Oh, one more thing for you kids. So today I'm using this Kids Adventure Bible.

This is not because I could not find any other Bible. Maybe some of you that have been in my office might know I've got some other Bibles, but I'm going to be looking for the boy or girl that's paying the most attention today.

That is looking, got a couple questions at the very end of the message. And whoever does the best job, I'm going to give this Bible to.

Now, it doesn't get any special power because I held it any more than if I give it to any other person, but this is God's Word. And because it's God's Word, it is so important. It gives us all of the answers that we need for life.

It tells us who God is, what he thinks, and what he has done in our world. You guys have been learning something over the past couple of weeks in kids' class, and the question is, how do we know what God is like?

Can any of the kids tell me the answer? How do we know what God is like? By reading his Word.

He tells us what he's like. So today, if perhaps as you're following along in your copy of Scripture, if it doesn't quite read word for word, the same idea, this is a kid's Bible.

And so a few of the phrasings might be a little bit more kid-oriented than perhaps a regular adult translation. But I'm going to read through today's passage, Genesis 9 verses 1 through 17.

And then we'll look at what God's Word has to say for us today. It says this in Genesis 9 in verse number 1. Then God blessed Noah and his sons.

He said to them, Have children so that there are many of you. Fill the earth, the exact command that God gave to Adam and Eve back in Genesis 1.

Now with all of creation now being made new, the flood has washed away this old world that was filled with violence and death and devastation. And now God's saying we're going back to square one.

The mission that I had for you guys at the beginning, it has not changed. Mankind didn't thwart God's plan. God is sovereign.

His plans will be accomplished regardless. He says this. All the land animals will be afraid of you.

All the birds in the sky will be afraid of you. Every creature that moves along the ground will be afraid of you. So will every fish in the seas.

Every living thing is put under your control.

Now there's a couple of you in this room that have taken these verses to heart, and you go on some fishing trips, and you make sure that the fish know that they need to be afraid of you, or perhaps some of you hunting for deer, or some other things

that you know. Hey, if I make a noise, this deer is booking it. And here God says, I have placed mankind at the pinnacle of creation.

There is no animal, there's no fish, there's no bird that God views as more worthy of His care and love and protection and honoring than you. You are the pinnacle of God's creation, for reasons we'll get to in just a moment.

He says in verse 3, everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. I've already given you the green plants for food. Now I'm giving you everything.

And I know some of you in this room, and you are probably more carnivore than omnivore, and you are grateful for this word from the Lord that says, you can now eat all of these items. He says, but you must not eat meat that still has blood in it.

He says, you're not animals, you're not going to behave like animals. He says this in verse 5, I will certainly hold someone accountable if you are murdered. I will even hold animals accountable if they kill you.

I will also hold anyone accountable who murders another person. Anyone who murders a human being will be killed by a human being. That is because I have made human beings so that they are like me, that we are made in the image of God.

We talked about it back in Genesis 1, that from the very beginning with Adam and Eve, God created us in His image. It's a phrase that used to be used back in the ancient Near East.

Someone would talk perhaps about a little idol, that it was made in the image of the god Marduk or Baal. It was even said of the Babylonian kings that this king is the image of God. It's a little representation of that god.

And God says, whoever you are, whether you're a little kid or a not so little kid, God loves you, and you are His representation on earth.

That your intellect, your gift of language, the fact that you know right and wrong, and sometimes we misrepresent that even as we saw in Genesis 3, but all of those things, our consciousness, our creativity that we have, it is all a picture of our

heavenly father, the divinely, incredibly creative one, the one who is altogether righteous and perfect, and we're made to show the world what he is like. So God says, if a person is killed, I will require justice. There will be a reckoning.

Even if it's an animal that kills, God says on my justice scale, human life is valuable. Then verse number 7, he ends this particular section with the same thing that he started off with. He says, have children so that there will be many of you.

Multiply and become many on the earth. God says, I value humanity, and I love having even more humans to love. Then verse number 8, then God spoke to Noah and to his sons who were with him.

He said, I am now making my covenant with you and with all your children who will be born after you. Kids, do you know what a covenant is? It's like a contract.

It's a promise that God says, here's what I'm going to do, and here's what you're going to do. That's normally how a covenant works. But here in this passage, we see God say something very important.

He says, okay, there's going to be a contract. I'm going to have my responsibilities, and here's what I want from you guys. He says, I'm making my covenant, verse 10, I am making it also with every living creature that was with you in the ark.

I'm making my covenant with the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals. I'm making it with all the creatures that came out of the ark with you. In fact, I'm making it with every living thing on earth.

Okay, for some of you adults, maybe you have signed a contract before for a house. Maybe if you're real fancy, you've maybe even signed a big contract for your job.

God says here, I've got a contract that I'm signing with every person and with every animal, with everything that was on the ark. What could this promise, this covenant, this contract be? He says, here is my covenant I'm making with you.

Verse 11, the waters of a flood will never again destroy all life. A flood will never again destroy the earth.

God says the justice, the punishment that I met out, out of my love for people, out of love for this world that I've created, I'm not doing it again.

He says in verse number 13, or sorry, in verse number 12, God continued, my covenant is between me and you and every living creature with you. It's a covenant for all time to come. Okay, kids, you got to answer this one.

All time to come, is it ever going to end? If something is for all time, is it going to end? No, it's for all time.

And he says, here is the sign of the covenant I am making. He says, I have put my rainbow in the clouds. It will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Sometimes when I bring clouds over the earth, a rainbow will appear in them. Then I will remember my covenant between me and you and every kind of living creature. The waters will never again become a flood to destroy all life.

When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it. It says I will remember that my covenant will last forever. For kids and for the adults in this room, when God says he will remember something, it is not that he forgets anything.

Instead, God is saying I will choose to act based on my promise. So when God says I will remember my covenant, he says I will choose to act in accord with what I have said.

He says it is a covenant between me and every kind of living creature on earth. Verse 17, so God said to Noah, the rainbow is the sign of my covenant. I have made my covenant between me and all life on earth.

Now I want to mention one thing. Some people have looked at that passage and gone, okay, is the Bible saying that rainbows maybe didn't exist before God made this promise? And I thought of an illustration this week that I thought was apropos.

Here God's saying, whenever you see this sign in the sky that appears when there is rain, it will make you think about my promise.

I don't know if many of you are familiar with the old hymn from the 1980s, never going to give you up, but it has been my wife's ringtone for, I saw a couple of chuckles, the rest of you will get it later.

It has been my wife's ringtone on my phone for the past seven or eight years.

And though Samantha was not the original singer for never going to give you up, she was not featured in the music video as it predated her, even though she is not on the album cover.

Nothing about never going to give you up technically has anything to do with my wife. Every time I hear that song, it makes me think of her. And here God says, every time you see this rainbow, this sign appear in the sky, it's regular for rain.

He says, I want you to remember that I have chosen to provide for you, to care for you, to make you a promise that my justice is not going to come in the same way again. So those are our 17 verses for today. Let's look at a couple of these thoughts.

We'll be done. The first thought that we'll see today from verses one through four is that God provides for our needs. We could see when God says, I'm giving you food.

I am encouraging you to have kids, to fill the earth, to enjoy this new world, this new creation that I have provided for you. Today, God gives us breath and daily sustaining, even when we don't acknowledge him or forget him.

The Bible says that every breath that we take comes from the Lord. Every beat of your heart is a gift from Almighty God, because he loves you and he wants you to show who he is to the world around you.

Today, have you thanked God for giving you what you have? Have you thanked him for the breath that you just took, all the beats of your heart that are happening right now?

Have you thanked him for the clothes that you are wearing, the fact that you are in well enough health to be here today, for however you got here, whether from a friend or a vehicle or giving you legs to be able to walk.

Have you thanked God for providing for your needs?

One of the saddest things that we can read about in Romans chapter one is that some people that have known God, have known who he is, have read in his word about what he's like, they didn't worship him as God in their hearts, and they were not

thankful. Let's be a grateful, a gratitude-filled people. God provides for our needs, and he's given us far more than we deserve. I've heard my friend Myron mention many times, God could have made this world completely bland.

We could go downstairs, and every single piece of food could taste like a cucumber. And maybe it would give us nourishment, but it wouldn't have that life, that vibrancy. But God created our world with such amazing details.

You can look around this room at many of the different clothing items and shirts and see all the bright colors. God could have made this world in complete gray scale. He could have made our eyes so that we could only see monochrome.

But instead, he has given us so many amazing, incredible things to enjoy in our world. Are you grateful for what God has given? Then also, God has crowned us as the pinnacle of creation.

And while certainly even as we look throughout history, we can know that sometimes animals or fish or birds got the better of people. As a general rule, we don't have to be super scared when we interact with an animal.

They're way more scared for us than we are of them.

And God has said, hey, you know the largest mammal in the world, the blue whale, you look at the tallest animal in the world, the giraffe, when you look at all of the incredible things that maybe a Komodo dragon is able to do, just incredible killing

machine, God says none of those are made in my image. None of those are a picture of me in the way that you are. Maybe you don't feel today as though your life has much value. Maybe you can't do what you once did.

I want you to know that God still finds value in you. You are so much more than what you can do. You are so much more than what you have done.

You are made in the image of God. As such, you are his child by creation, and so much more so if you have accepted Christ as Savior, and through that new birth, you are his creation doubly so, both spiritually and physically.

But then we can also see that God provides for our needs, and he has done this for us here in the New Testament, not just with all of the things that we enjoy in life, but he's given us Jesus who came, who lived a perfect, sinless life, who died in

our place, taking the punishment that we deserved. He was buried and rose again from the dead three days later, and then ascended into heaven, and he offers forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration to God. God has given us Jesus.

Are you thankful? God has given us his Holy Spirit. If you are saved today, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.

Are you grateful for that? Are you paying attention to what the Holy Spirit wants you to do? Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth.

Are you listening to the voice of the Spirit? How does he speak? He speaks using the word of God.

Are you in the word, able to know what the voice of God sounds like so that when he speaks to you, you can obey? Not only has God given us Jesus and his Spirit, but he's given us his bride, the church.

Obviously, today, preaching to the proverbial choir, guys are here, but place an importance on the church. Why? Is it because you get more brownie points or something if you come?

No, it's because Jesus gave his life for the church, for the body of believers that would come together that perhaps might not have much in common.

As I look around, I think, Zoe, you probably don't have a whole ton in common in your life, maybe with Mr. Myron. You guys probably have some different hobbies, some different life experiences, but you are both in God's church.

This is a place that is not defined by any other likes or interests than that we serve one God. And as we worship, as we follow him, we are called to do so together.

That when we fall, when we're going through the struggles and the hard times, when we're fighting against sin, we're not going through it alone.

That we can have our brothers and sisters that would come alongside of us, spiritual leaders that would be able to help us in our journey, that we are not alone. God has not created you to be alone.

God has given us all of these wonderful things, and he's given us his word to help us through life. Do you realize that today many people are just going through life, going, ah, whatever your heart says, follow your heart.

Just do what seems right to you. Scripture says that there's a way that seems right to a person, but the end are the ways of death. We don't know the direction that we should go.

Scripture would tell us in the book of Jeremiah that the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. It says who can understand it? Today, don't trust your heart.

Trust the word of God. That what He has said, the way in which He instructs us to live our life, is for our good and for His glory. That it will bring about good relationships, relationships that are not tumultuous like those in the world.

But we are living life the way that God designed. With God providing for our needs, He doesn't just provide for us. He provides for us and gives us a mission.

So here, God tells Noah and his sons, I want you to continue on. Have more kids. I want you to go and multiply.

Fill the earth. Take dominion over creation. Bring about order in it.

And when God commands something, He provides for it. Zoe, I'm going to use you real quick. Actually, no.

Do you have my wallet now? Okay. There you go.

If I tell him, I need you to read this book. Why aren't you reading the book? Listen, read the book.

Listen, if I'm commanding him to do something, then there has to be a providing for. When God has given you breath and words and time and money, He expects you to use it. It is not just to hoard on yourself.

It is to bless others. It's to be kind to others. It's to help people who are in need.

It's to help those who maybe are going through life, and they're incredibly lonely, and they need someone who will come alongside of them and say, hey, God's given me some time. I'd love to spend some time with you. How can I encourage you?

How can I pray for you? God has given us money, not so that we would amass it all for our own wealth, but that we would care for the needs of others, that we would further God's kingdom.

When God provides for us, it comes with commands, invitations to action. So first, God provides for our needs. Secondly, God says your life is valuable.

We can see this in verses four through six when he tells us that whoever kills a person, the punishment, the justice, the reckoning, is that they would be killed because they are made in God's image.

First, you are valuable because you are made in the image of God. Okay, everyone that had a picture of me, all the kids that had a picture of me, bring it up real quick. Wait, wait, come on.

Come right here on this step. All right, now face them. So, they've all got little pictures of me.

All right, show them the picture. Some black and white. If they were to, and I'll have all of you guys do this, okay.

If they were to rip the picture, rip it. Oh, good, good, good, good. And if they were to put it on the ground right there and stomp on it.

Hey, there's some disrespect. Man, he really means it. He's got some aggression towards me.

Thank you, guys, you can take a seat now. When they do that, if it was not because I asked for it, but if I gave them perhaps a picture of me and they threw it on the ground and they stomped on it, it would be insulting.

If they ripped up something that I had given them and said, hey, like, I care about you guys. Like, let's say there's a Christmas card or something and my family sends it to you. You rip it up and you stomp on it, spit on it.

Be like, what in the world is wrong with you? We are made in the image of God. Frankly, the person that you hate is made in the image of God.

The person that is so easy to insult or malign or talk bad about is made in the image of God.

James chapter three would tell us even how we use our words, not just in killing as in this passage, but in the words you say, you can demean and destroy, rip up, spit and trample on the image of God. How are you using your words?

This week, how are you going to talk to people? How are you going to talk about people?

For us today, it means that even people that we strongly disagree with deserve respect, not simply because of maybe worldly status or title, but because they're made in God's image.

Do you talk dehumanizing about another person, maybe about a group of people, maybe about a certain political party?

The way in which you use your words communicates your thought on who that person is, but all of us are made in the image of God, and how you talk about people should always be tempered with grace, the grace of Jesus Christ, who, though we were his

enemies, though Ephesians 2 tells us that we were alienated, we were completely separated from God, heading down our own path, and yet Jesus loved us and gave his life for us. And if that's what he's done for us, then aren't we not to love and care

for and forgive and be kind to others? What God tells us to do in Ephesians 4 and verse 32, he says, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another. Does he say, because they deserve it?

He says, no, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. So you're valuable because you are made in God's image. You're valuable because Christ died for you.

I love 1 John chapter 2 and verse number 2, which says that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice, the repitiation, the completely satisfactory payment for our sins, and not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world.

1 Timothy 2 would tell us that there's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

He gave himself for everyone so that no one would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance, to turning from sin in their own way, to turning to worshiping and following Jesus alone. You're valuable because Christ died for you.

So perhaps for some of you younger kids in the room, maybe for some of you as you're maybe entering the workforce for the first time, or you're kind of wandering through life, and you don't really know if you have much purpose.

Maybe you're an older person and you wonder, okay, are all my best days behind me? Am I less valuable now because I can do less than maybe a couple of decades ago when I could do more? You're valuable, not for what you can do.

And you're not less valuable because of what you've done. God's image is still in you. So as a result, don't allow Satan to tell you that you are not worthy of the love of God.

Don't allow Satan to tell you that those in your life would be better off without you. It's not how God sees it. God says, you are made in my image.

You are precious to me. You are that Christmas card of me and my family, and I value you. And until the time when God calls you home, don't worry about if you need to call yourself home.

The Lord values you and he cares for you. Do this really quick. I'm going to have you come up real quick.

There's one last illustration of this point. Oh, just her. Okay.

What's your name again? Paige? Okay.

Everyone say hi, Paige. Okay. This is Paige, right?

Paige, put on the jacket. Okay. Is this still Paige?

Has this fundamentally changed who she is? Does she look less stylish in a 27-year-old man's clothes? Sure.

But she is still Paige for you. Maybe time feels like something that you've put on, and you wonder, do I have worth? Maybe this might be failures for you.

Unkindness, sins, cruelties, words ill-spoken, maybe even things like thievery. How could you steal Paige? Could be one of those things, and you wonder, has that fundamentally changed who I am?

I think Colossians chapter 3, where Paul tells the believers in Colossi, he tells them, hey, put off the things. Take off the clothes from the old man. He says, you're old nature.

And instead, he says, put on the things that belong to Christ. That who you are, regardless of what you've put on in your life, it does not fundamentally change who you are. You are valuable to the Lord.

Everyone give Paige a hand. God says that your life is valuable, and as a result, communicate the value of others to them. Here in church, you're going to be encouraged, you're going to hear that your life has value.

Out there in the world, not so much. Depression and anxiety and suicide has never been higher. You might be the only light of the Lord that some people receive this week, and you never know what someone's going through.

Shine out the light of Christ. You are the image of God meant to portray what he is like, what he thinks about people. Do so this week.

Show others their value. Then lastly today, God has made promises that he won't break. And we saw that from verses 7 to 17.

One thing that we can see from that section is that this world will end on God's timetable, not on ours. God has made a promise, and this is a expression of faith that we say what God has said, we believe.

Second Peter chapter 3 would tell us the way that God says this world will end. And praise the Lord, it won't end in frankly some people bickering and fighting and accidentally hitting a nuclear launch code.

It's not the way that God says this thing is going to end. Today, allow yourself to take comfort in the fact that God knows the beginning from the end.

There is nothing that takes him by surprise, and that you can rely and trust in him that no matter how crazy this world gets, it is not outside the sovereign control of our God.

Then I want us to see that God's forgiveness reaches past all of our sin. We don't have time to go into it. There on your handout, there's an explanation of verses 18 through 29.

But this next story details how Noah failed. He didn't exercise self-control, how his son Ham was wicked and didn't exercise self-control, but God didn't kill them knowing what they would eventually do. He gave them forgiveness.

He knew what they would do, and he loved them even through it. God has not abandoned his love for you because of your failures, because of your walking away from him, because of your insistence on holding on to your own way.

God still loves you and he forgives you. Can you extend that forgiveness to others this week? Refuse to hold a grudge, refuse to hold on to bitterness, realize that God has forgiven you for all of your sin, choose to forgive others.

God has promised that to those in Christ, there is no condemnation. I love Romans chapter 8 and verse number 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

If you are the Lord's, then today you can walk around in freedom. You don't have to worry about if God has abandoned you. No, He will never leave you and He will never forsake you.

God has promised us His Spirit will be with us until we are with Him. As Paul would put it in Ephesians chapter 1, that the Holy Spirit is the down payment. It's the earnest of our inheritance until God purchases His possession.

Until He receives it, then the Holy Spirit is with you. If the Holy Spirit is with you, then let's follow the admonitions from Ephesians 4 and 1 Thessalonians 5. Let's not grieve the Holy Spirit.

Let's not quench the Holy Spirit. Whatever God tells us to do, let's be faithful to obey. And God has promised a home in heaven and eternity with Him.

John 14, where Jesus says, I tell you, in my Father's house, there are many mansions, dwelling places, additions onto God's house. He says, if it were not so, I would have told you, I am going to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. If you know Christ today, this world is not the end. You've got a mission here.

You're the image of God. You've got purpose here. But you've also got a home that's coming.

Let every day be lived with abandon, knowing if I live, I'm living for Jesus. I'm accomplishing God's purpose in my life. If I die, I'm with him.

And what God has promised, he is faithful to accomplish. Zoe, you've got the wallet, right? Okay, Zoe, come on up.

God has made promises to us. And just mention a couple of the promises that he has. His promises need to be utilized and embraced.

Otherwise, they do no good. So God had promised to Noah, hey, be fruitful and multiply. I'm going to bless you and your family.

I'm going to make you able to have kids. There's going to be hope for your future. There's going to be all of these animals that will be under your control, and you will be able to have authority over nature.

But if he stayed in the ark, if he stayed in the boat and never got out, he would never know if those promises were true.

God's promises of eternal life, of restoration, of the Holy Spirit working, of a home in heaven, it only works if you embrace it, only if you utilize it. You've got my wallet. Open it up.

What do you see in there? Not that one, but those. We got just so everyone's...

I knew if I was giving it to kids, I should probably not include my actual money. So I've got a bunch of gift cards in here.

This wallet would do Zoe no good unless she actually took the cards out of the wallet and brought it to Weiss or wherever that place is to or used one of the little Visa gift cards. Yeah, unless you...

I know, unless you took it to Olive Garden, it's not gonna do you any good. Today, maybe you're here, you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. God loves you.

He has a plan for you. He realizes that we are all sinners, but he sent Jesus to die in our place, that the punishment that we deserved all went on Jesus, and all of Jesus' righteousness was placed onto our account.

But the Bible says that we have to accept that gift. Ephesians chapter 2 says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not from yourselves, it's the gift of God, not from works, lest anyone should boast.

Scripture says that the wages, the earnings of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans chapter 10 says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It says for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

If you have never asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, if you have never repented, turned from sin and turned to Jesus alone, today can be the day that you do that.

God has made incredible promises, but his promises are no good if we never embrace them. God has promised his Spirit. God has promised his working in your life.

Will you embrace it? He's given you his word with promises. He's given you his Spirit with promises.

He's given you a church family with promises. Are you embracing it? Are you allowing what God has given you to become a part of your life?

Thank you, Zoe. Today, God provides for our needs. God says that your life is valuable, and God has made promises that he will not break.

What will be your response today? We can either say, Ah, no, none of those things are true. Everything's just happenstance.

Everything's random chance. You can go about your life that way. Or you can choose to say, if my God has done all of that, I can't help but obediently worship and follow Him.