Inspire

Guest (Female): Aloha and welcome to the Inspire Church podcast. Whether you're on a walk, driving to work, or just need to hear a fresh word, this is your spot to get inspired, challenged, and equipped to live a faith-filled life. Each episode, you'll hear powerful sermons straight from our weekend services that speak into your life, your leadership, and your legacy.

Before we dive in, do us a favor, hit that subscribe button, leave a review, and share this with someone who needs a word today. And if you want more resources like Pastor Mike's newest book, "Blow Your Mind", head over to MikeKai.tv. All right, let's lean in, open your hearts, and let God speak through this message.

Mike Kai: Awesome. I'm ready to get started with this brand new series. It's called Journeying Through the Bible. That's why that very important our new class is called Equip. Our new Equip class is getting going from the milk to the meat of the Word. So is this Bible series. This is why we're doing it.

I'm going to pray and then we're going to get right into it. Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus. We thank you for your presence and your power that is here today. We give you all the glory, the honor, and the praise. Help me to preach, God. Help us to see what I've never seen before. Help me to see it the way you see it. Help me to say what I never meant to say.

Would you tailor-make this message for each person, but would we still stand in awe of you? That we would see you throughout this whole message. God, we praise you. We love you. In the mighty name of Jesus. Everybody say, amen. Can we thank the Lord, everybody? Hallelujah. Can we welcome the people in Overflow and the people in Mililani? Welcome them, everybody. Mililani's joining us today as well. Thank you, worship team. We'll see you guys in a few.

I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter one. As you're turning your Bibles to Genesis chapter one, we are taking a 27-message series. Most series are four weeks or six weeks. Every now and then there will be an eight-week series, but this one is 27. We're not going straight through 27. We're going to break it up with a family and marriage series, a financial series, and different kinds of series in between.

Today, I really want to talk to you about the biblical literacy of our church. I just feel like the hunger is there. People are ready. Mike, if you can give me the big picture. If you can give me the treetops because if we're going to study Genesis one, two, and three today, if we're going to understand Genesis chapter one, it would take me a whole month to preach through Genesis chapter one if I really wanted to.

If I wanted to preach to Genesis chapter two, I would take a whole month to preach to Genesis chapter two. If I wanted to take Genesis chapter three, it would take a whole month to go to Genesis chapter three. But the time that I have with you today, we're going to take 30 minutes to go through Genesis chapter one, two, and three. Because if you understand Genesis chapter one and you understand creation and how God used the Holy Spirit, then you can understand Acts chapter one or Acts chapter two where the Holy Spirit came like a mighty rushing wind.

The same Holy Spirit that blew like a mighty rushing wind in the upper room in Acts chapter two is the same Holy Spirit that created when God spoke and breathed the life breath into Adam in Genesis chapter two. So if you can understand how God created man in His image, only male and female, then you totally get Romans chapter one on how God speaks about creation and men and women in Romans chapter one.

Genesis chapter one, two, and three is the biblical foundation for our faith on what we read and what we understand and what we have come to know and love as the Word of God, the Bible. In Genesis chapter one, verse one, if you turn your Bibles with me there, I love this. It says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and empty and darkness covered or hovered or brooded over the deep waters and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters."

I love this because what we begin to see is God is creating. God's beginning to create from the get-go from the very moment when He began to speak, He began to create. I don't have time to go through all of Genesis chapter one because we'd be here longer than we actually can be here, but I can tell you this. In Genesis chapter one, He creates. Day one, He separates light from darkness. There was already darkness and He separates the darkness from the light.

Darkness is the absence of that light that creates darkness, and God spoke light and then it lit up the darkness. Day two is sky and water. He created the sky and the water. Day three, He created land and plants. Then on day four, the sun, the moon, and the stars. Day five, the fish and the birds. Finally, on day six, He created animals and He created people. God is not the creator of chaos, but He actually creates order out of chaos.

He is the creator God. He is the one. When He begins to create, the Bible tells us that next He creates human beings. In Genesis chapter one, verse 26, it says, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our own image. Let us make human beings in our image.'" Who is God speaking to? It's the Trinity that's speaking. It is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit saying, "Let us make man." He is the creator. He is the uncreated one. He is the ancient of days. That's His name. He is the everlasting God.

My grandson, when he was with us during the Christmas break, he gave me this. I reached into my pocket the last time I wore these pants and I pulled it out. He gave me this little baby Jesus. It reminded me of him. It was in my pocket, so I took it out of my pocket. I just facetimed him before I came to church and said, "Can you pray for Papa, please?" He lives in Portland with his mom and dad and he prayed for me over Facetime.

I remembered he asked me and I might have told you, you weren't here maybe that weekend that I told you. I wanted him to ask me any question. I said, "Why don't you ask Papa any question? I want him to think that I'm the smartest man he's ever met." He's eight years old and I told him, "Tell me, ask me any question, any question you want to ask your Papa." He said, "Papa?" I said, "What?" He goes, "Who created God?"

That's a great question. I said, "Listen to me. He is the uncreated one. He is the alpha, the omega. He is the first and the last. He is the ancient of days, the everlasting God." He looked at me like, "Wow." I love it because He is the uncreated one. It says, "Let us make man in our own image and to be like us and they will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock and all the wild animals of the earth and the small animals that scurry along the ground."

So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God, He created them. Male and female, He created them. No confusion. Then verse 28, then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground." Then God said, "Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals and birds in the sky and all the animals that scurry along the ground. Everything that has life."

And that is what happened. Then God looked over all He had made and He saw that it was very good. I love this because when I gaze at the vastness of the heavens, when I reflect on the intricate design of the human body, every cell, every heartbeat, and the unique digital code of the DNA that sets each person apart. When I think of the intricacy of our planet's ecosystem, the symmetry in nature, the universal instinct across all cultures to seek and worship something greater than themselves. When I consider the mind's incredible capacity to reason, to imagine, and the sheer miracle of a child's birth, there's simply no other conclusion to draw except that there is indeed a creator, the God of the universe. And my friends, that is only in chapter one.

My friend, Pastor Dudley Rutherford, one of the greatest preachers I know and a great friend, he gives this analogy. He said when people ask him if he thinks that God exists, he goes, "Well, let's just logically put this together. Let's use our minds and logically look at this." He took off his ring and he said, "Here's my ring. I bought this ring in Jerusalem at the bottom of a hotel basement. They custom made it just for my size, for my finger, for my ring, and I gave it to them. About five days later, I picked it up and it's got some Hebrew scripture on the inside, laid with silver on the inside, laid out with gold on the outside."

Someone had to have created that, right? Yes, of course. Do you think I had to go in the back and make sure that someone was doing it to inspect, to make sure that it was actually a creator that was doing this? No, and I didn't have to. I just showed up, I paid for it, walked out, and I'm wearing it here today. He said if I were to take off this watch off my wrist and I were to ask you, do you think that this watch, made in Japan, that someone actually put this watch together that was made in Japan?

You probably think that there is a creator of this watch and there's somebody in the back, but I just ordered it on Amazon and it showed up at my door about five days later. Then I opened it up and I knew that somehow there must have been a watchmaker. He says your phone is a lot more complex. Your phone is a lot more complex than your watch. Would you say that your phone was made in China or wherever this phone is made? It says Cupertino, but it's actually in China.

And you were actually to figure out that this very complex phone that's actually stronger than the very first aircraft that made it into space, more powerful than that, that was actually that someone is over there in China putting these pieces together on an assembly line. Do you think I actually had to go over to inspect it to make sure that someone is actually creating this or did I just take it when I walked into an Apple store and believe that someone had created the phone?

He says, take your body. So now let's take your body and your body is a lot more complex. Would you agree that your body's a lot more complex? Absolutely. Do you think that after looking at all of creation and looking at all of humanity that somehow, some way I can take God's advice that behind this is not just creation, but there is a creator? I wanted to say to you today that I believe that when God began to bring everything together, when God began to speak order out of chaos, the ultimate creator.

Number two, as human beings are the pinnacle of His creation. Human beings. That's why let us make man in our own image. Babies. We were all once babies. We were all once a fetus. We were all through the birthing canal for nine months and here we are today. I said last week we should slap on nine more months to our lives because we were born from the moment of conception. When we look at all the intricacy of how God knitted us together, our unique DNA code for each person, there is no person just like you. There is no duplicate of you.

Do you know that Satan cannot create? The devil can only copy. He can only counterfeit. We're going to meet him in Genesis chapter three or Genesis chapter two. But when God begins to create, the Bible says that now if God, man is the pinnacle of God's creation, the Bible says that He made us a little lower than angels in Hebrews chapter two, verse seven. Just a little lower than angels.

When we see that God, all the creation that God has put together, that God spoke things, "Let there be light, let it come into being." Then the Bible says in verse four of chapter two that this is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. And then when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. I find grains interesting, but I find no wild plants. I like that. That means there were no weeds.

There were no invasive species. There were no coqui frogs. I'll take it at that. There were no wild vines that are growing that are covering over everything that we have. There were no rhinoceros like boar-eating palm trees and coconut trees that we hardly have any coconut trees anymore because of the invasive species. We have everything here. Then the Bible says for the Lord God had not yet sent rain to earth to water the earth and there were no people to cultivate the soil. So God's not going to throw grain on the earth if there's nobody to cultivate it. God's not going to waste His time on something that cannot be taken care of.

Anyway, moving right along. So there was no rain yet. Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. For the Lord God had formed the man from the dust of the ground and He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils and the man became a living being, a living person. I love this. Did you know that there are over 250,000 plants and fruit that God created for us to eat?

Did you know that when God created the first man, He created him out of dirt? If you can trust Him in Acts chapter two, you can trust Him in Genesis chapter two. Same Holy Spirit, He doesn't change. Hebrews says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He doesn't change. When I look at this and I go like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. That He takes the original first man and He forms him out of the ground.

Did you know that the earth's crust, all the elements of our body, from phosphorus to oxygen to calcium to sodium to potassium to magnesium to iron, all of this put together found in the human body is actually found in the earth's crust? When God took the dust of the ground and the clay, the dirt, and He formed Adam, He made a sculpture out of him. That's what he was and he was down. He had to put him asleep. How He put him asleep, I don't know, but I think it was kava. It had to be kava. I don't think it's ganja. I think it's kava.

He puts him into a deep sleep and forms him out of the dust. If you've ever seen someone give their last breath on earth, when that breath leaves, when that breath of life is gone, that body, that loved one is a shell and eventually it's dust. God created from the very beginning. He created man out of dust. Then the Bible says that He breathed the breath of life into the man. He breathes into him.

I didn't wear this on purpose, but this is not my shirt but my cousin's company. Aloha. Right? You saw that. Aloha. Aloha in the Hawaiian, face to face. Aloha means face to face. Ha means breath. I'm not a Hawaiian linguist, but I'm telling you, I thought it was only hello, I love you, goodbye.

Face to face. Same thing, the same thing that God does to Adam is the same thing what our name means. The way that we greet people. That's why Polynesians, when they get together, they go forehead to forehead, nose to nose, inhale, breathe out, ha. And God breathes the first breath of life into him and he awakes. He comes to life. God puts him in the middle of the garden.

The Bible says and then in verse eight, "Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east where He placed the man that He had made. And the Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground, trees that were beautiful and produced delicious fruit. And in the middle of the garden, He placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." A river flowed through the land and four rivers and beautiful.

Then verse 15, "That the Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it." But the Lord God warned him, "You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die." And the Lord God said, "It is not good for man to be alone. It's not good."

On a kingdom man level, it's not good for a man to be isolated. It's not good for a man to not have accountability. It's not good for a man to not be in community. But also it's not good for man to be alone. So God said, "Let's make a helper suitable for him." So the Bible says and so the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and the birds of the sky and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

The man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, but all the wild animals. But still, there was no helper just right for him. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. That's the kava effect. While the man slept, the Lord God took one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening and the Lord God made a woman from the rib and brought her to the man.

Do you see this right now? That the first woman, the first human being God made out of dust and the first woman God took from his rib. God begins to create the first man and woman. How do they know we didn't come from primates? Because you're too good-looking to come from a primate. I would never look like a monkey. What are you talking about?

What is this amoeba? All of a sudden this tadpole kind of thing made it through the primordial soup and somehow this little one, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, and all of a sudden popped out some arms and no longer a tail. Now he's got legs. The survival of the fittest and Darwinism and all of a sudden the adaptation of the species and the domination of the best species and all of a sudden here we are human beings. No. It takes more faith to believe that one than to believe this.

That's for those of you going to college. All you guys going to college, go and you watch your woke professor try to change your mind. Don't let them change your mind or his teaching assistant. Little minions. Anyway, I'm going to help you out. Now watch this. He brings her up. Then the first thing that he says is, I don't know about you, but if I've been looking at animals all my life, male-female, I don't get it. And all of a sudden, there's only one of me.

So God puts him into a deep sleep, takes out the rib, closes it up, takes a woman, creates a woman. All of a sudden he wakes up and this is what he says. He says, "This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh." I don't know about you, but I would be yelling if I saw the very first woman. If I was Adam, I know I would be. Imagine me first time closing my eyes, wake up, see Lisa Kai right there. I don't know, but I'd rewrite this. I'd say, "My babe, my boo, you're finally mine. Because all along I was one of a kind." I just made that up on the spot.

Then she will be called woman because she was taken from man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked and they both felt no shame. That is just Genesis chapter two. There's so much to unpack on Genesis chapter two.

In Genesis chapter three, number three, God has given mankind free will to love and obey Him. God has given mankind free will. That's why there's two trees. God's not going to program you, "Yes, Lord, we love you." Just like you wouldn't want your wife or your husband programmed, "Yes, honey, I will do the dishes." Some of you would like that, I can tell some of you would like that.

But this love is because I want to, it's not a have to. And I follow God because I want to, not because I have to. Here's where obedience is the key because now up until this point, Adam's got the life. He's got fellowship with God. It's just him and God. He's got an incredible job. He's a botanist, veterinarian, he's all these things. He's got the best job, the best boss, and now he's got the best woman with him. He's got it all.

And the enemy comes in and snakes his way in. Then the Bible begins to tell us and we find it in Genesis chapter three. It says in verse one that the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?" "Of course we may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden," the woman replied. "It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said you must not eat it or even touch it because if you do, you will die."

God didn't say you can't even touch it. That's where it began right there. Verse four, "You won't die," the serpent replied to the woman. "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it and you will be like God knowing both good and evil." Do you think God was trying to protect him? Absolutely. But I'm going to put the choice in the middle.

In verse six, "And the woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and the fruit looked delicious. And she wanted the wisdom that it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it too." At that moment, their eyes were opened and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden and so they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man and said, "Where are you?" He replied, "I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked." "Who told you you were naked?" the Lord God asked. "Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?"

Watch this. And the man replied, "It was the woman you gave me. We were good, God, it was just me and you. We were so good and you thought I needed a woman. It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit and I ate it." The Lord God asked the woman, "What have you done?" "The serpent deceived me," she replied. "That's why I ate it."

And the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than the animals, the domestic and the wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring." The word is enmity. "And he will strike your head and you will strike his heel."

So when we look at this, the fall of man in Genesis chapter three, there are four things. Number one, conflict. Conflict between human beings, conflict in the world. Number two, curse. The ground would be cursed, the land would be cursed, and so you would have to work the land harder. You would sweat by your brow. Childbirth would be painful. Wasn't supposed to be, but now it is. Number three, chaos. There will be chaos in the world. There will be chaos between their both their sons, Cain and Abel, which we will not get to study, but we will look at it. Cain kills his brother Abel. The fourth one is corruption. Corruption now enters into the world, corruptive seed, corruptive everything.

But when we look at this, the Bible tells us this most important phrase that I read to you is verse 15. It says, "I will cause hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring and he will strike your head and you will strike his heel." In other words, the enemy will strike the heel, but the Savior will step on his head.

So now the rest of the Bible, the rest of this is God's eternal redemptive plan to bring man back to Himself. The enemy deceives and tempts us to sin. Number five, the rest of the Bible is God's relentless pursuit of redemption for all mankind. When I look at Genesis chapter one, one thing I wanted to leave you with, that the name God, Yahweh, God's name, appears 41 times in chapter one. 41 times. The most God-centric chapter in the Bible. It's powerful.

When I look at everything that God is doing, that God is setting up the plan from Genesis all the way to Revelation, Old Testament and New Testament, seeing a bird's eye view. I want you to come every weekend. I'm asking you to get into a connect group. I'm asking you to open up a Bible, get a Bible and read it. Don't just take the treetops, but read it. Let this be the year of something powerful that happens between you and interacting with the Word of God. That the logos would literally become the rhema, the revelation that God has for your life and for your future in Jesus' name. Amen.

This message is really important for people in their mid-teens, late teens, early 20s. For junior high, high school, young adults, this is where you're probably going to end up going to college somewhere. And it's hard to not to find a non-woke university. I'm telling you, they're going to do everything that they can. The whole college university thing will come against you anyway because you're alone. You've gone away, away from your parents, you get that freedom and then you get that liberalism of economics and history and English and literature all coming at you will get you to question the existence of God.

If you can question that, you will question the goodness of God. And if you question the goodness and the existence of God, you will even question your need for God. And that's why you've got to get this and I want you to have this. This is so important. We're not trying to hold you back. My mom and dad are so strict. Yeah, exactly because the world's crazier than it was when they were in it. A lot crazier. Like people literally are stalking you online. It's crazy stuff.

So get this into your heart. Take responsibility for your faith and never let this go. Don't let anybody talk you out of it just because they're in that part of their life and that status. It doesn't mean that God confounds the foolish and He makes the foolish wise, the foolish things of this world wise. So that's what I wanted to share with you guys here today. Was that good today? Thank you. Praise God. Can we thank the Lord, everybody? Awesome.

The whole plan of Genesis one, two, and three is to draw people to God. The whole Bible is about bringing people to their creator, to the original design, bringing everybody back to the creator. I don't know who you are, where you've been, what you've done. I don't know what's happened in your life, what road that you've traveled, but you're here. You're online, in Overflow Mililani. God's got a plan for you, a wonderful, amazing plan for you that He set in motion from the day that you were already conceived. He set in motion for you to come to Him because He loves you and created you and He is your creator.

No matter who you are, if you want to give your life to Jesus for Him to become the Lord and the Savior of your life, the redemptive plan is the blood. The redemptive plan is a Savior and His name is Jesus. If that's you at the count of three, I want you to raise your hand in this room here today. I want everybody to close their eyes and bow their heads with me, please, and I'm going to lead us in a prayer to surrender your life to Jesus. Right now, I want you to get ready. Close your eyes, please, bow your heads and we're going to pray.

One, He will never let you down. Two, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Get ready to raise your hand at the count of three if you want Jesus. Here we go. One, two, three. Put your hand up if that's you. Mike, that's me. At least 61 hands. And two in Overflow. Can we thank the Lord, everybody?

It is no coincidence that most of the hands went up were definitely under the age of 18. Moms and dads, good on you for bringing your child to church. But keep on coming. If you can't go on a Sunday, go on a Saturday because this is going to ground them in for life.

I want everybody to repeat after me, especially the 61 people that raised their hands. Everybody say, "Jesus, today I give you my life. And I thank you for dying on the cross, shedding your blood that pays the penalty for my sin. I'm yours from this moment forward. You are my God. I'm born again. The old is passed, the new has begun. I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus, created to serve you and to bring you glory in Jesus' mighty name." Everybody said, amen. Can we thank the Lord, everybody?

Guest (Female): What a powerful word. Come on somebody, if that stirred something in you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it, rate it, and let us know how God is speaking to you through these messages. We believe your best days are ahead and we're honored to be part of the journey. For sermon notes, leadership tools, coaching resources, and more, visit MikeKai.tv. Stay inspired, stay planted, and stay ready because God's not done with you yet. Until next time, God bless you and aloha.