Episode 1651: Spirit in Partnership

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,651 of the Inspired Stewardship podcast.

Katherine McCord: I'm Katherine McCord. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others. Develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live your calling. Having the ability to recognize that diversity is power is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: But if we go forth and we grow and invite and teach and connect into relationship, we then partner with God, the Creator in God's creation to create alongside God as we create a little piece of the Kingdom of heaven. [00:01:00] Here on Earth. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that

Katherine McCord: you can impact the world.

Scott Maderer: In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Genesis chapter one, verses one through 31 and chapter two verses one through four, and Matthew chapter 28 verses 16 through 20. I talk about how the Trinity is and isn't biblical, but has the power to help our understanding. And I also talk about how we are called to act in [00:02:00] alignment with the creation and nurturing of our God.

Genesis chapter one verses one through 31 and chapter two, verses one through four says, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos and darkness covered the face of the deep. While a wind from God swept over the face of the waters, then God said, let there be light.

And there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day. And the darkness, he called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day. And God said, let there be a dome in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters.

So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome sky and there was evening and there was morning the second day and God said, let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear.[00:03:00]

And it was so. God called the dry land earth and the waters that were gathered together, he called seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said that the Earth put forth vegetation plants, yielding seeds and fruit trees of every kind on earth, that bear fruit with the seed in it. And it was so the earth brought forth vegetation, plants, yielding seeds of every kind and trees of every kind, bearing fruit with the seed in it.

And God saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.

And it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars and God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth. To rule over the day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. And God said, [00:04:00] let the waters bring four swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth, across the dome of the sky. So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves of every kind, with which the water swarm and every winged bird of every kind.

And God saw that it was good. God bless them in saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the birds multiply over the earth. And there was evening and there was mourning the fifth day. And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind, cattle and creeping things, and wild animals of the earth of every kind.

And it was so, God made the wild animals of the earth in every kind and the cattle of every kind and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make humans in our image according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

So God created humans in His image, in the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. [00:05:00] God bless them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

God said, see, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of the earth. And every tree with the seed and its fruit, you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life, I've given every green plant for food.

And it was so, God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning the sixth day. Thus the heavens of the Earth were finished in all their multitude. On the sixth day, God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.

So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it because on it, God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and of the Earths when they were created. Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 through 20 says. Now the [00:06:00] 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountains, to which Jesus had directed them.

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you.

And remember, I'm with you always till the end of the age. This last Sunday was in many traditions, what is called Trinity Sunday. This idea of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the what is called the Trinity. And when you think about it, it doesn't really explicitly appear in the Bible or not in very many places.

There, there was no. A prophet or message that said, let me tell you about God. As Trinity Paul doesn't write it, the epistle writers don't write it, and [00:07:00] there's no sort of sit down and say, this is the best way to understand God, and Godhead is through the Trinity. So maybe to some extent having something called a Trinity Sunday is a non-starter.

But the truth is there's richness in this. This thought of God as. Multidimensional God as more than one thing, or more than one part or deeper and more nuanced, then we can really grasp or explain, and I think of the Trinity as that sort of a, a bad approximation, a surface level understanding the best that we can grasp of the richness of God.

And we lean on this passage from Matthew baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as kind of that entry point to the Trinity. Truth is Jesus may have said those, their very words or something [00:08:00] similar or may have said something completely. Different. We really don't know some thoughts that it was added later when there was arguments about the Trinity and Godhood and it was added and kind of put into his mouth as a way of explaining it, and maybe that's true.

But circling back to Genesis, that long poem that I read, explaining or trying again to impart to us an understanding of the complexity of creation. Don't read it as a a science book. Don't read it as a explanation, but read it as a poem. It has a gift on the theology and the glory of the creation of the creator God.

The wind that is tra translated in there could also be translated as breath or spirit. It's several [00:09:00] different ways, but think about it as it's an active act. God is breathing into life. That's the spirit that we're talking about, and I don't know about you, but creating something is never easy. It always takes work.

And just like us, if, if we breathe out, is our breath us? Is it part of us? And the answer is kind of yes and no. It it is, but it's also not. It's separate, but it's also part, and that begins to break down what it means to have the oneness and duality that we're talking about between God and the Spirit.

It's important to recognize God is creating, there is word, there is something being spoken. There is a vision being cast. And it happens over and over. It happens. God said it and it was created. [00:10:00] That's the message that's being captured and turning back to Matthew, we're invited to go into the world, go out into creation and invite people into community.

It says, make disciples. I prefer grow disciples, invite disciples, invite people into relationship. Make an often. Imply some sort of aggressive thinking. But if we go forth and we grow and invite and teach and connect into relationship, we then partner with God, the creator in God's creation to create alongside God as we create a little piece of the kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

Thanks for [00:11:00] listening.

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