The Divine Crash

This weekend I had the joy of speaking to a group of nearly 50 teens at the Grace UMC fall retreat. The theme was Rewind and we studied the book of Genesis.We went all the way to the first chapter of Genesis and looked at what was written in the original Hebrew to see if after nearly 5,000 years it would still apply to teenagers today.

We opened every session with the traditional Hebrew prayer “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe who by your hands created the universe.”  Which I actually said in Hebrew and can be downloaded on the audio here (or on ITunes)

Friday night we spoke about Elohim.  Elohim is the God who is above all and who created everything.  When Elohim is used in Genesis this was a slap in the face to every other religion because it said that no other god was valid, only Elohim was God.  If Elohim created it all then everything else that we worship; spouses, boyfriend/girlfriend, grades, etc… were all created by God and as such are not gods but are point us to God.

Saturday morning we learned about what God created humans to do.  We are to rule over the world but the word “rule over” is Kavash which really means something to the effect of make better.  Yet all of creation has the ability to make itself better.  God created us with the ability to help make creation get better.  So then, when we serve others or help the environment or help the pets these are things that connect us to what God has created us to do.  When we serve the poor or the hungry we make the world better and that connects us to God.  God has given us each different talents and abilities and likes and dislikes and we can use them to serve.  Those things that we do that we lose track of time doing are the things that God has called us to use to make this world better.

Saturday night, we learned about “Tohu a Vohu.” The formless void. We understand this formless void. The Israelites wandering in the wilderness understood this and what we see in Genesis is that God’s spirit is right there on the surface of this and is about to do something brand new.  God is about to bring darkness to light.  How does God bring darkness to light today? Through his son, Jesus Christ.  In the light of the cross all the darkness, shame, sin, and guilt falls away and we are left with the creator of the universe calling out to us.

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Youth Ministry by RevBT