Ep 019 || Out of Chaos into Order
In this episode, Derek and Brandon kick off a new series exploring the Book of Genesis and what it reveals about the very beginning of God’s story with humanity. Starting with the opening chapters of the Bible, they unpack how God created the world, what it means that humans are made in His image, and how quickly sin entered the picture and disrupted God’s perfect design.
As they walk through the themes of creation, purpose, and brokenness, the conversation highlights powerful truths about God’s nature—that He is powerful, creative, kind, and deeply invested in His creation. Even in a world that feels broken, Genesis shows that God had a plan from the very beginning to restore what went wrong.
This episode also reminds listeners that every person has value and purpose because they were created in God’s image. No matter your past or present circumstances, God desires a relationship with you and invites you into His greater story of redemption.
Join us as we begin this journey through Genesis and discover how understanding “the beginning” helps us better understand who God is, who we are, and the hope available to all of us.
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Well, what's up, Pando family? Excited to be back with you this week. The Six Weeks Move series is now in the past. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that series and enjoyed those podcasts that we got to put on the Pando app with our senior pastor, Kyle Eidelman, and several others on staff. And then the podcast that we actually got to do last week with Matt and Bree, part of our... That was a fun time. It was fun. Part of our recovery team. My name is Derek. This is Brandon. We're both on our SE Online team here at Southeast, but Brandon, we are starting a brand new sermon series. Yes. Yeah. We have started this week. Overarchingly, it's a 20-week journey through the book of Genesis, so we'll go into July on that. We're going to start in this first book of the Bible, just spend some time diving into that. But this very first series is a six-week series. We're going to walk through up until, I think it's up until Abraham, this beginning of the Genesis story in a sermon series titled, I mean, fittingly enough, In the Beginning. Right. And we're going to talk about these very first steps into the biblical narrative, how God creates, how He begins this story of what's going on in this earth, and what He wants to do throughout history to bring His plans to fruition. Love that. So one of the things that Carl talked about in his sermon, if this is the first time that
you guys have heard Carl Kuhl, I'm sure that you enjoyed hearing him preach. He's our executive pastor here at Southeast, and preaches several times throughout the year. But, Brandon, for those that may not know, Genesis is the very first book, you know, in our Bibles. And so tell us a little bit about just kind of some common knowledge things about Genesis that's helpful to know. Yeah. So Genesis has some of the most famous stories, I think, in the Old Testament. Very well-known accounts, and even people, I think, who just kind of have a cursory knowledge of the Bible can look in Genesis and find stories they recognize. It begins, you know, at the very beginning with, this is how God creates the world. And we get the story of the six days of creation with the seventh day of rest, how God spends the first three days kind of forming the heavens and the earth and the seas, and then days four through six are spent filling those things. He fills the sky with the stars and the heavenly bodies. He fills the seas with the fish, and then the land with the animals. And finally, the creation of man and woman kind of being the pinnacle of creation as he places them in the garden and shares his image with them. Then we get a little bit deeper into Genesis. It doesn't take long for things to go wrong, right? God creates everything, and it's great. The refrain of Genesis 1 is always, God saw it, and it was good. Like everything's great. It's running the way it's supposed to. Creation is functioning the way God designed it to function. And then it's three chapters in that everything falls apart. And Adam and Eve, they sin against God, they eat the fruit of the forbidden tree after being deceived by the serpent, and as a result they are cast out of the Garden of Eden, and as a result creation is thrown all out of whack, right?
There's now this separation between God and man, between God and His creation, and so as a result, creation is not going to run the way that God designed it to run anymore. And it's really quite interesting if you look at it from kind of a broad narrative structure of the human story, right? There's this idea that God created things to be one way, and they're not that way. And I think that's kind of an idea that we all wrestle with, that we all kind of feel a little bit in our souls and deep inside, like, hey, I'm not who I'm supposed to be. Things aren't the way they're supposed to be. There's kind of that gnawing sense, I think, that we all have, that something isn't right with our world. And Genesis 3 explains it. It says this is exactly what's going on. This is what has happened to our world, that sin and division has entered into the picture and separated us from God. So then the rest of the story of Genesis, the rest of the story of the Bible, really, is what happens because of sin, and then what God is going to do about it. In Genesis 3, God gives them this promise that, hey, one day, this deliverer, this descendant of the woman is going to come and crush the head of the serpent. He's going to undo what sin has done. He's going to restore the world. And so we begin in Genesis to see how God is going to do that. We get some pictures of his salvation. One of the most famous stories in Genesis is the story of Noah, right, in Genesis 6-7-8, the story of this world-wide flood. blood, which is an interesting story, you know, it's, I've heard multiple people comment on the fact that we, we set it up in like children's nurseries and things like that. Like, oh, like my kids had a Fisher Price, uh, little people's set of Noah's Ark. And then you think of the story, it's like, God is wiping out the world with a flood. Like this is not... Yeah. We think of it, no pun intended, in a very watered down, watered down way. No
pun intended, but we do, right? We kind of soften the blow of what that actually was. So yeah. And so we get this story of, of Noah's Ark and then, you know, everything, the whole plan of, of God, I think we, we really see it come into focus. I almost said like, we, it gets started. It doesn't get started. We, we, it comes into focus for us in Genesis 12, uh, when God calls a man by the name of Abram, uh, who, who becomes Abraham and tells Abram, I'm going to bless you. You're going to be a blessing. And it's through you that I'm going to bless everyone. Uh, and so we see that whatever God is going to do, it's going to involve the descendants of this man named Abraham, who goes on to have a son named Isaac, who goes on to have a son named Jacob. Uh, and Jacob, uh, as we get later into Genesis, his name is changed after an encounter with God and he becomes Israel. Uh, and he's the father of the Israelite nation. So, you know, we, we see the beginnings of this story. We see, you know, once we get to Genesis chapter 12, the story largely becomes the story of Abraham and his family. Like you get the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then Jacob's son, Joseph, who goes into slavery or sold into slavery by his brothers into Egypt. So, you know, it's really, I think Genesis, as Carl pointed out, the, the word means beginning. And I think that's the easiest way for us to think about, like, this is the beginning of the story. This is the beginning of God's relationship with men and bringing about salvation into this world to fix what went wrong at the very beginning. That's so good, Brandon. And that's such a great summary of where we're going to be for the next 20 weeks, right, as a church. And it's why, you know, we hope that, uh, you guys will, you guys and gals will be able to jump in with us and do this Panda exclusive podcast each week. It'll be Brandon and I, we'll have some other people from our recovery team in here talking about the sermon. Uh, but Brandon, you're right. We, we're going to get to learn about, um, the beginnings, right? The beginnings of the heavens, of the earth, of, of who we are, right? Of who we were created in the image of, uh, and really, you know, we're going to learn about what the, the origin of sin, what that was, what that situation was look like, and we'll kind of give us an understanding of, okay, well maybe this is kind of why I am the way that I am. Um, and at the same time, show us how great that chasm is between us and the Lord, that divide between, um, the original intention for the relationship that we were supposed to have with God, but because of that sin
in our life, it has created this massive, uh, this massive chasm, this massive canyon, and ultimately down the road, why Jesus would need to come. Yeah. And Genesis shows us like how quickly sin escalates, right? Like you go from this first act of disobedience in Genesis chapter three to Genesis chapter four, uh, is when Cain kills Abel. Like you get the very first murder, like four chapters in, and it's just, it's very striking when you see how it's not things escalating. It's more like them going down hill. Yeah. Yeah. Deescalate. That's a good way to say that. Actually go down the slope and then you, you know, it's not six chapters later, you end up with the story of Noah and God having to, you know, flood the earth because the, the wickedness of men, I think it, you know, every inclination of their heart is always wicked all the time, is what Genesis six says. So we very quickly, as we wander away from God, like things go off the rails pretty quickly. Yeah. Well, and, and I mean, honestly, like even thinking about, you know, Noah and, you know, God eliminating the entire humanity on earth, except for these people on this boat, like you would almost think like, okay, like that's where God, uh, like he could have just ended everything. Yes. Right there. Right. But he, but he kept a remnant, right? He kept a remnant, and I think that's going to be, you know, something we'll see all the way throughout Genesis, but especially in Scripture. Um, so I want to kind of veer us back to, to Carl's message on Sunday. Um, you know, and just kind of ask you a question, a personal reflection question on some of his points and which one jumped out to you. So there were four things that Carl talked about on Sunday. He said, as we kind of read this first part of Genesis, that number one, we learn, uh, well, really first off is to ask that question, what does Genesis one teach us about God? Right? And first off, my first inclination is that what a great question to ask, no matter what Scripture we're reading, right? It's not always that what we're reading in Scripture is, uh, it's, it's not always about us, right? But it's always pointing to God, right? So what does Genesis one teach us about God? one teach us about God? Well, number one, God is powerful. Number two, God is creative. Number three, God is kind. And then the reminder at the end was that in the midst of all of that, that we are loved. And so, Brandon, for you, what were, like, what was one of those, or maybe a couple that you're like, you know, like, as I was listening and rereading my Bible, like,
like, that really hit home with me? Man, I tell you, I thought he built such a phenomenal case for the existence of God and who God is looking out at his creation. You know, I think those kind of middle two points was where I really was thinking about things in terms of the creativity and the kindness of God. Because you just think about the wild variations in our world, right? Like, you think about, we don't have an earth that is comprised of, like, one biome, right? Or just one kind of environment. It made me think, honestly, of the Star Wars movies, right? Where every planet you go to, everything is the same on that planet, right? Like, Hoth is, like, everything is ice, or you have a planet that's all city and things like that. And God did not create a world like that. You know, we have mountains, and we have valleys, and we have Kansas, and we have, you know... Shout out, Kansas. Shout out, Kansas. We have deserts, and we have swamps, and all of the... Even just in our own country, right? Like, we have just wildly diverse areas of the country. And I think that's just a testament to God's creativity. Like, he could have just set us out in, like, a field, an entire planet, a field, and we're like, okay, figure it out. But he gives us a land that is just so varied and so amazing that we can go see, and enjoy, and wander. And even the creativity we see in the different animals that we continue to discover, as Carl pointed out in his message, you know, we continue to find new things in this creation. And that just blows me away to think, like, God created something at the very beginning and put it there to be like, hey, when they find this, it's gonna be awesome. Like, this is gonna be great. And I just think it's a testament to the fact that God delights in creation, right? Like, it's not just, oh, I have to get through this. I have to make... God is delighting in making different things and enjoyable things. Carl talked about the kindness of God there. And you think about that, that even in our world, when you get beyond all the processed artificial foods that we make, right? Sure, yeah. Like, even in this creation, there are some really cool things. Like, God could have given us, like, paste, like Hussein's side on paste. It's like, no, here are apples, and here are grapes. Yeah, that's a good point. And here are oranges, and here... Like, all of these... God could have made us eat grass,
like livestock, but it's like, no, I'm gonna build things into this creation that are enjoyable, that are delightful, that they will look at and be like, oh, this is great. Like, everything... You think about this world and the things we find here, there are so many things that seem to be just designed for us to discover and even continue to create on our own, right? You think about our planet kind of naturally producing things like oil, and thousands of years after the events of the Bible, we're like, hey, we should build engines that run cars and machinery, and we can use this oil to do it. Like, it's just amazing to think how creation seems to be built for us to utilize, to create and expand the human civilization. Yeah, and I mean, honestly, when I was hearing him talk about that, we take it for granted so many of the times, and I think maybe that's what hit me when he was talking about that is that because so many of those things are just normal to us, and they can become mundane, and we don't think about it, I think that really challenged and convicted me of even talking about the senses that we have, like things we're able to see and perceive or touch or feel, the different textures or the different smells or colors or whatever it is. God has created these things for us to be able to enjoy, right? And I think within that, God is kind in the midst of all of that, because we know, and I think we've all experienced that we live in a world, what we would believe right now is we believe in a world that we live here on earth, it's just...it's broken, right? It's broken, it's full of sin, it's a result of sin, is that there are so many things that happen now and are the way that they are now as a result of what we see starting at the beginning of Genesis with Adam and Eve, and deciding to disobey the Lord. And we've kind of picked up the baton and run with that in a lot of directions, if we're being honest. But I love that, that God has created all of these things for us to enjoy. And I especially love... I love how Genesis just walks us through all of these different things that God is creating, and then reminding us that, and God saw that it was good. Yes. Right? And God saw that it was good. And so one of the things, even like, you know, talking about enjoying creation and all of
the things that we get to experience, is that it's clear from what the Bible teaches, is that we as human beings are different from other things that God has created. And there's... And I think as we listen and read different things in our world, there's some contrasting views to that, of like, well, humans are just... They evolved from this species, or we're just a result of this. But what Scripture teaches is that we were created in the image of God, right? But what He also says is in, let us make man in our image. So what do we do with that? Because that can... That may be a small word that we see, like, in our image. So if we're talking about God, but then Scripture's telling us that God has said, let us make man in our image, what does that mean? Well, you know, it's interesting, because we would look at that... You kind of look at it at the very beginning of the Bible, and you're like, well, who is it that God is talking to? Right. Like, what is going on there? Is it kind of the royal we, you know, or things like that? But it's really, you know, in the New Testament that that comes into sharper focus for us. You know, in John chapter one, John mimics the beginning of his gospel after the book of Genesis, just to kind of almost rewinding the tape, right? Like, let's go back, and let's talk about what happened here. And so John sees that when God is saying that, let's make man in our image, that he's already existing in Trinity, right? We talk about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that God already has this community within himself of the Spirit. And in fact, we see the Spirit in Genesis one, right? Genesis one, I'd say three or four talks about the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. So John kind of replays that in John one, one through five, and says, in the beginning,
the Word already existed, speaking of Jesus as the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. John very poetically and straightforwardly and beautifully paints this picture of, hey, everything that was going on in creation, Jesus was already there. And he was already working, and he was already bringing light, and he was already illuminating. And I think Carl brought that out on Sunday, just the idea that God's plan to save us is not an afterthought, right? Jesus is not plan B. Jesus is, he's there, he's ready to go. He's there at the very beginning of creation. And in fact, Paul backs this up, let me flip, Colossians chapter one, Paul kind of riffs on this same idea, talking about Jesus' role in creation and what he has done. Colossians 1.15 says, Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created, and is supreme over all creation. For through him, as an agent of creation, for through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. So that Jesus, at the very beginning, like when we use this phrase all the time that comes out of Revelation, Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. Like he's the beginning of creation, and he's everything that it's going towards, right? So we get this, Genesis gives us this hint, like, hey, there's something more to this God than we can imagine. And I think it's interesting when you think about some of the creation stories that were going around in the Middle East in that time, some of the creation stories of other cultures even, that every other creation narrative has the account of gods at war with each other,
right? Like you think about the Greek creation myths and the Egyptian creation myths, where you have gods like Zeus in Greece, or you have gods like Osiris in Egypt, that they're fighting with each other, and the creation is born out of this war. And it's only the biblical, the Jewish Christian account of creation that backs up and says, no, no, no, like creation is born out of this community God already has with himself. Like creation is born out of a place of love and God wanting to share his image with us. And I think that is a... I mean, that's the creation story we all want, right? We have this... sort of thing in us, particularly within our day, that this idea of like, well, we're here to love each other and take care of each other. That's a very Jewish Christian idea, that the world exists and is born out of this community that God has. I love that, you know, and what it does is that... I mean, Carl spoke to this too, and gave us a couple of scientific examples of, like, hey, the universe hasn't just always existed, right? There have been some specific scientific evidences. Is that the right plural? Evidences that point to a beginning, right? A beginning. Even was it the people with a satellite or something that they could hear kind of... Cosmic background radiation. Yeah, they could hear that radiation that was buzzing off of that. And I think we just continue to see as... It's funny enough, as much as people who don't believe in God will use science to try to disprove God, oftentimes we continue to see God through science, which is super unique, and that's something that just increases my faith personally. I'm like, okay, sure, like, let's research it. Like, let's research it, let's look at it, and still ultimately points us back to the hand of God. But I think back even, you know, when we... Some of these words that we have here in Genesis that we shouldn't skip over, that I want to make sure that we bring to light, again, no pun intended, is that it's not like when God... So let's set this up. So it's not like God himself. So you have God the Father, you have Jesus the Son, you have the Holy Spirit that has existed before anything, right? Before the heavens and the earth. And God decided to create the heavens and the earth. Well, what they didn't do is that they didn't just say, okay, let me go pick up a hammer, let me go pick up some nails and some lumber,
and we're gonna build this thing, right? Right. Let's go to Lowe's. Right, let's get some... Let's go to the heavenly Lowe's. Yeah, let's get some plans. No, like, He spoke. Right. Like, He spoke. And so, like, why is that so significant when we think about God's power? Yeah. Because I think sometimes we kind of just, you know, blow past that sometimes. Yeah, I mean, well, even if I had the materials, like, I couldn't build anything, right? Like, I'm gonna go build a fence. That's gonna be a mess. God doesn't just go pick up the materials to do that. He creates the materials out of nothing. You know, everything comes out of existence just from the word of His mouth. And I think it's interesting when you look at, it's in verse two there, that the earth was formless and empty. In the Hebrew language, it's kind of a rhyming, a sing-song way of saying it's tohu wabohu, formless and empty. Say that again. Tohu wabohu. Tohu. Tohu wabohu. Tohu wabohu. Okay, everybody catch that? Yeah, it's kind of a sing-song way of saying that, formless and empty. But what it means, it's like really hard for us to understand. Like, it just talks about, like, a chaotic nothingness. Like, there's nothing there, but what is there is just all messed up. Like, there's just, there's nothing there to make anything out of. And God speaks creation out of that, and starts to bring form to things, and starts to, you know, the building blocks of life start to come into focus because of what He does. And I think, you know, it's just so fascinating for us to even, I mean, if you could rewind, if we could rewind the tape and start to think back about, you know, the universe just kind of, you know, we know that it's expanding. If we replay it till it just keeps contracting and contracting and contracting till it finally reaches that point where there's nothing there. Like, God creates everything out of nothing. There's absolutely nothing there at that point. And it's interesting, you talked about science kind of pointing this out. You know, one of the ramifications of Einstein's theory of relativity, I believe it is, one of the ramifications of that is that space, time, and matter are all coexistent. And what that means is that they can only exist together, right? So if there is space, there has to be something to fill it, and there has to be time that's passing among it. So that means, like, before God created anything, there was absolutely nothing. There was no space. There was no time. I see, yeah.
There was no matter. Absolutely nothing. And so, in order for God to create the way He does, in order for God to speak those things into existence, He has to be a God who is outside of those three things, who has no space, who has no time, who has no matter, who's nothing physical like we understand it. And it's fascinating, because I don't think we can wrap our minds around that. Like, we're not talking about the nothingness of a dark room. We're talking about the nothingness of absolutely the absence of everything. There's no time. There's no space. There's no matter. There's nothing. There's not even a space to be filled. There's not a room. Right, yeah. room. God creates the entirety of creation and the place that it exists in. Like, it's just, yeah, it's mind-boggling when you think about it. Oh, it is. It is because even within, and I even think of, like, I would think of my own limitations of, like, even if I had that type of power to just speak and for things to exist, gosh, I don't have, I don't have that, like, I know that Carl had mentioned, like, we are all creative because we're made in God's image. I do believe that. Right. But with the specifics of animals and even snowflakes, or the peacock, or food, or smells, or the stars, or the universe, like all of these things, and even, right, this stage that we have called Earth that is tilted on this perfect angle, this perfect axis, so that the Sun will hit us just right, so we don't either burn alive or freeze to death. Right. And yet we can have these seasons that rotate through each and every year, and weather, and all of these different things, it just blows my mind, right? And what we learn about God is that, like, He's intentional, and He's specific, and He's creative, and yet one of the, if not the, greatest part of His creation, I don't say that just because of us, I say that because I feel like Scripture leads us towards that, is humans, right? It's mankind, it's being made, like, He made us. Nothing else. He made us in God's image, in His own image, in their image, and that we can take great pride in that, right, in a very good way of knowing that no matter who we are, what we look like, what language we speak, that we are made in God's image, that He knit us together in our mother's womb, that He has numbered our days, even though what
I think Psalms speaks to is that our days are nothing but like a mere breath before the Lord, that it just, you know, does Scripture also speak to one day for us, or a thousand days for us, to a day for the Lord, and I'm sure that's even a microcosm of the truth, that that leads us to believe. But, you know, Brandon, kind of as we close here, you know, I want to go back to Psalm— actually, would you read Psalm 8 for us? That was something that you had talked about earlier. It's a Psalm that King David wrote, just speaking to the idea of who God is in creation, and I want to land on a verse in that for us to close. Okay, yeah, Psalm—I said chapter 8, but it's Psalm 8—David writes, Oh Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth. Your glory is higher than the heavens. You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you set in place, what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them. Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority, the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, and the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims in the ocean currents. Oh Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth. I wanted to go back to the NIV there, it kept wanting to creep out there. Sure. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name. Right. Anyway. But yeah, I love that, because you see there at the very end, like David is very specifically thinking about creation there, right? Because he talks about the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, everything that swims in the ocean. That's Genesis 1 language, right? He's going back to say, hey, like, think of all of these things that God has created, and it's the image that he's given to us exclusively, right? That we live in the image of God, and at the end of Genesis 1 he gives the man and the woman the very explicit command, you know, that you have charge over all the wild animals, and I guess that's in Genesis 2, and tells them to form and fill the earth in kind of the same way. So, you know, you think about
just the vastness of life on this planet, you think about the vastness of the size of the universe, and you know, the fact that we, I mean, we can't even travel across it. You know, the universe is so huge, and yet it is us. It is mankind that's made in his image. It's us that he shares that with, it's us that he gives that authority to, and I think, I mean, that's just incredible when you stop and think about it, that of all the things God has created, of all the precision he has put into creating the seasons and making sure everything runs and the way it's supposed to, and you know, stars on the other side of the universe are doing what they're supposed to do, like God knowing all of this stuff, that he takes the time to bend down and stoop and to know us personally, right? To have a relationship with us, to send his son to die for us so that we can have a relationship with him eternally. Like it's no wonder David stands there in all of that. Like, what is it? What is it about us that you would even bother to want to know us in that way? I love that. And as we wrap up, you know, this episode of this podcast, I think that's the encouragement, you know, that we would like to share with you is that, yeah, like obviously talking about God's power is really cool. I don't know about you. We like to be able to talk about that. We like, you know, just to be able to let our minds go of how great our God is, how powerful he is. But don't miss what Brandon just said. Like, what makes the gospel so special
is that through Jesus, God would step in to our mess, right? To not just be with us, but to live the life perfectly that we couldn't live, to die on a cross, the death that actually we deserved, and then to rise again so that we would be able to do the same with him, right? And I'm so grateful for that. And one of the things that Carl mentioned was that because God is creative, we can't expect each of our stories to be the same, right? Like, Brandon's journey is different than mine. Mine's different than his, and ours is gonna be different than yours. God's gonna answer prayers for Brandon in a way that's unique to him and in a way that's unique to me and for you. And so even though you may be looking at your life right now and you're like, you know, I've tried following God, I've tried following Jesus, but he's not answering my prayers in the way that he's done it for this person or this person or this person. Well, what I would tell you is that probably makes you normal, right? It would probably make you normal. And that, yeah, I feel that too. I think Carl, who preached this last weekend, would understand that as well. But our encouragement for you today, Pando family, is that there is a powerful, almighty,
creative, and loving God that created all of this out of nothing. He existed before any of this began, and this is a result of his creativity, his heart, his inspiration, and yet he wants to have a relationship with you, right? And that's why this whole idea of why did Jesus come, right, it's because he loves you. He loves me. He loves Brandon. But Brandon, any final thoughts for our Pando family as we head out? Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, I think you just said it so well, just to recognize that there are times in life, I think, where we can feel we just don't know what our purpose is, and we just don't feel like, what's the reason I'm here? And I think Genesis 1 answers that. The first words are, in the beginning, God. Like, it's not in the beginning, you. It's not in the beginning, us. It's in the beginning, God. And the purpose we are here for, the reason we are here for, is for him. We're here because God has put us here. We're here because God wants to know us, and we won't find our purpose. We won't know our purpose unless we know him.
That's so good. And that purpose remains, whether you are incarcerated right now, whether you're in prison, or whether you're not, right? Whether you have parole coming up, or you don't. That purpose remains, no matter what you look like, what language you speak, and where you live. But Pando family, from Brandon, from myself, for our crew behind the camera, all of us here at Southeast, thank you so much for diving in and being a part of our church family. We'll see you next week, where we'll be talking about week two of this In the Beginning sermon series. But until then, peace and blessings, and we hope you have a great rest of your week. See you next time.
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