And the journey will continue for at least a little while longer. Warehouse 414 is displaying the art until the end of the month and you can still bid on the art until February 27. All proceeds go to this incredible program – Circle of Friends that is connecting special needs teens with other students to make their high school experience a positive one.

The Origins Sermon Page

The Story of Origins, Part 1

The Story of Origins, Part 2
Origins: Earth
Origins: Humanity
Origins: Sin
Origins: Murder
Origins: Redemption
Origins: The Nations

I admit that ‘selfish’ is a strong word but I really can’t think of a better one. In humans, this extreme focus on self is called narcissism. And let’s be honest…it never goes well. If I really lived that way all the time, got what I wanted, when I wanted it and how I wanted it…it would be as close to hell on earth as I can imagine. How many times in my life have I been thankful that I didn’t get what I want? How many times has it turned out that what I wanted and how I wanted it would have ended up killing me?

But God functions this way – wanting to be the center of our life, always and forever. He wants us to have what He wants and how He wants it. So what’s the difference? It’s obvious that the difference is that God is good…all the time. Goes back to starting our theology in Genesis 1, not Genesis 3. He’s selfish because that’s what is best for us all. Anything other than God in the center of our lives is death, mayhem. Impossible to miss that in the first 11 chapters.

It’s also impossible to miss how complicated God is at times. This is a comfort to me, honestly. Growing up hearing the simple explanations of God and His word not only left me hollow but unsatisfied. This simple understanding led to some incorrect conclusions about God. Every story in the first 11 chapters has the temptation to be understood in simple and wrong terms. “God confused the languages because humanity was becoming more like Him and He wanted to stop that.” Well…okay but is that it? I mean, really…God has a complex thinking that there is a chance we’ll evolve and His job will be in danger?

There is always more to the story, more to God’s response than just the obvious. And that’s a good thing. It means that God is deeper, truer, and larger than I am or what I can imagine. And that’s exactly the kind of God I need at my center. Not the Tin Can, “Everything Will Be Alright In The Morning” God that my youth rebelled against.

The Tower is testament to this. You can hear my full rant on this here, but suffice to say that every response of God will be more than just judgment, more than just reaction. It’s full of His protection and provision as well…even when I can’t see it at first.

The artwork is by Lisa Peterson. Every culture and language originated out of one ‘hand.’ The colors and the pageantry of all the different worlds and how the most unifying feature of any culture is its language. Modern linguists are fascinated how all the different languages have similarities to each other.

In the end, all these cultures will be reunited. They won’t lose their distinctiveness or their flavor. Their unifying feature will no longer be their language or their color, but Jesus himself. We get a glimpse of this in Acts 2. The full picture will come later. Lord, hasten the day.

Noah’s story is NOT a kids story. Every children’s bible I’ve ever seen has it in there with cute little pictures of bears, elephants, and giraffes. I’d love to know how many kid books have been written on Noah. It has to be the most retold story in scripture.

As I stated this past week, I’ve yet to see a kid’s story deal with the 3 core difficult pieces of this story. Who exactly were the sons of God? What does it mean that God grieved and was sorry he had made mankind? By destroying the entire human race (save Noah) and the land animals, Did God call into question His goodness?

The Flood can be interpreted in two very different ways. It was the reaction of an angry, hurt, disappointed God. That mankind deserved this and God wanted a do-over. Somehow the killing of all of those people and animals appeased him. The rainbow stands as his apology of sorts that He won’t ever do it again. Noah somehow was the best of the worst and was ‘saved.’

Or maybe the Flood was just God bringing to the forefront the natural consequences of the choice humanity was making at that time. If the end game of all sin is death and something innocent dies with sin. If the utter reality of all sin is the ambushing of the human spirit and soul, God just brings the inevitable to the forefront with as little suffering as possible – relatively speaking. If every inclination was evil, death was the conclusion. The Ark then becomes a story of redemption.

How we view the story really hinges on how we view sin. Is it as bad as scriptures say it is or is just a flaw, a minor bother? Is sin really deadly or more of a nuisance?

Sherri was our artist for these pieces. Sherri has both learning and emotional disabilities that make expressing herself difficult. Art has given her a venue to show the rest of us what she sees and feels.

The idea that sin is out to ambush Cain…on purpose…with no remorse…to destroy him…that’s disturbing enough. That’s reality though, a reality I’m afraid that so few of us take seriously. Sin’s end aim for humanity is to kill and destroy. I learned in the Army that ambushes weren’t designed to have survivors and the best way to deal with ambushes was to avoid them all together. It’s hard at times to see my sin in this light…but it is whether I believe to be true or not.

But God’s words to Cain that he MUST, he CAN master it are equally disturbing. I’m pretty sure Cain didn’t feel that way. I’m pretty sure I don’t feel that way at times. It doesn’t FEEL like we can MASTER it but it is MASTERING us. God’s formula of mastering it – ‘do what is right’ – sounds both so ridiculously simple and difficult. Just do it. Don’t do what you feel, do what you know is right.

There’s the not-so-secret formula for avoiding ambushes and spiritual transformation in general – do what is right in spite of how you feel. That was Cain’s downfall – and mine at times – he let his emotions win, not his mind. He felt downcast and rejected because his offering wasn’t accepted by God. It wasn’t accepted because he did not do what he knew was right. God gave him the chance to fix it. When Cain didn’t, Sin pounced. The pattern is there in my own life — the feelings trump the facts, God doesn’t get the last word and when God doesn’t get the last word, sin does and sin always kills something innocent.

The 7 hands (can you find them all?) depict the 7 deadly sins (can you name them all?). I like the idea of the hands. It’s our hands that carry out the directive…we put ‘hands’ to the thought. I think there is something deeper at work here as well – that is there are no faces. A face would make the sin more deadly and therefore harder to dismiss and rationalize. Without the face, we can blame others, diminish the seriousness, ignore the victims, fall into a false sense of security that maybe the deadly sins aren’t really deadly. They aren’t. It’s just easier to justify living with them without faces.

What is Cain looking at? His past? His future? Why is he even given the opportunity to look in the first place? Why did God spare his life? Was allowing him to live but outside the presence of God really ‘sparing’ him? Sure Cain got to live but not really live – a wanderer, constant fighting with the land, the mark a constant reminder of his failure, not able to reconnect with the lover of his soul. It’s another layer of disturbing – God doesn’t avenge Abel. Grace wins again? Yet Cain’s banishment is the definition of hell – living outside the presence of God.

The auction will start at 5.30 pm on Friday night but Warehouse 414 is going to extend the auction throughout the entire month of February. After Friday, the art will be back on display at Western Hills for our services on Sunday then back to Warehouse 414 on Monday for the rest of the month. On February 28, the auction will close and the paintings sold to the highest bidder.

There has been quite a buzz generating throughout the city about this. In fact, Warehouse 414 published the following article to their art followers:

Students involved in Circle of Friends were given a blank canvas and the opportunity to tell one of the stories of ORIGINS found in Genesis. All of the pieces are available for silent auction with all proceeds going to Circle of Friends at Washburn Rural High School. The following is an interview with Grant English lead pastor at Western Hills regarding this show:

The result of all of this? Stunning. Art has always inspired and provoked. With this project we also get to be a part of the healing.”

So if you are in Topeka this Friday night, come see me at Warehouse 414 and see these incredible pieces.