3.012 It All Starts Without Form, and Void

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose you this day whom you will serve.

How many of you have never tried to do something new because you just knew you wouldn't be good at it? Perhaps a look at the Creation in the Book of Genesis could help us all out with that one just a little bit. We're reading this week an interesting set of readings.

So hold on as we go through this. We're going to read Genesis chapters 1 and 2, Moses 2-3, which will be like mirroring Genesis 1-2, and Abraham 4-5. So while we're reading chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, it's actually Genesis, Moses, and Abraham as we get into this week.

Now, let's set the stage for what we said at the beginning of this podcast episode. Welcome to the episode. You've got an opportunity to try something new, but something inside of you says, "No, you're not going to be good at that, so don't try in the first place." Have you ever experienced that?

Perhaps it was trying a new sport, maybe a new musical instrument, maybe it was public speaking for the first time, whatever it may have been. I think we all had an opportunity to try something new, and sometimes we've leaned into it, and sometimes we've shied away from it. I think the Creation story can help us out with this and add a little bit of extra light for each one of us out there.

Our verse for today is going to come from Genesis chapter 1, verse 2. Genesis and Moses are going to mirror each other a lot. I'm not going to reference both of those verses, but you may see the Moses verses or you may see the Genesis verses as we go through this week.

And that's fine. I want you to be able to link those as you study them on your time. Let's take a look at Genesis 1:2.

As we learned here, this is the classic, you know, "In the beginning, God created." That's the beginning. That's Genesis 1:1. But then we see this in verse 2.

It says, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Now I wanted to take a look at these three words that we hear describing the beginning of the earth here. It's without form, it's void, and darkness is upon the face of the deep. Doesn't that sound a little bit like trying something for the first time?

If we were to just use a sporting example, for example, your body does not have the form needed to accomplish the sporting task. Maybe it's a baseball swing, and you're holding the bat, and you just feel super awkward as you're swinging. You have no form.

It's void. Maybe the void is that you don't even understand the rules of the game. You've never been explained how things happen inside the game.

And darkness is upon the face of the deep. That darkness is your understanding of all the things needed in order to accomplish the good of the sport or the musical instrument, or whatever it may be. Now I'd like to bring this in on a spiritual lens for a second.

How many of you have shied away from spiritual study or scriptural study for the same reason? You just feel like you're not good at it. Maybe as we get into the Old Testament, you're sitting here saying, "I don't know about reading the Old Testament.

There's some pretty nasty words in there that I just don't understand what they mean. Or there's sentences and paragraphs that just go on and on, and I don't have a clue what it represents." Maybe you felt that last week as you were reading inside the Book of Abraham a little bit. Then we want to add the second half of this verse and see if it helps us in our own pursuit.

It says, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." How many times in the scriptures can you think of the Spirit of God bringing light into a situation? We're going to be bringing life into a situation, bringing an amplification of good in all that it does. You see, my friends, as we get started on new things, it's okay.

We're going to have no form. We're going to be void of understanding. We're going to have darkness in our lives.

We're not good. In fact, a mentor of mine, John Maxwell, says, "Look, you're never good the first time." Right? "It's just a fact that we don't know how to do something until we start to do it, but that doesn't mean we should shy away from it." And so the message I get out of this is, let's invite the Spirit of God into whatever it is we want to try the first time. Let's see if the Spirit of God can move upon the face of the waters in our lives.

So as you dive in, perhaps it's scripture study, perhaps it's understanding the Old Testament. Let's ask for the Lord to be with us in the study. And yes, could you ask the Lord to help you out in your sporting, in your musical instrument study, in your school studies, in your work studies?

I don't care whether you've been at a job for 30 years or you're just figuring out life in school for the first time. We can invite the Lord into our lives to help move us in the direction of expert execution. That's an exciting idea to come right off of our first verses inside of the Book of Genesis and a beautiful idea when it comes to the idea of Creation in our own lives.

That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith, and let's be savory salt. We'll be here tomorrow, and we hope you are too.