Ruakh

Good morning

Multiply

I wanted to give you all a brief update on what’s next for multiply:

-Three areas

Become a church that is a hub for multiplication

we want to multiply, disciples, leaders and Churches out of here to bless the world

So we are doing three things

Addressing the spiritual reality: We are so blessed to have Angelina as an interim worship leader but after this summer she will be done and so this month we are officially beginning our search for a worship leader

We are upgrading property with what we are calling 20-30 year upgrades…Doing big things that if we knock those out then the church wont have to worry about them for a while…things like bathrooms, painting, lighting etc…This month, a priority that was a little lower on the list got pushed to the top and we are doing some upgrades to our security system

We want become a church that multiplies....So we need to plant a church…If we are going to become a multiplying church then we need to multiply one

we are raising $300,000 over 3 years to do this Right now, in just the first few months we have been able to paint the sanctuary, renovate the lobby, maintain the parking lot and now we are going to really ramp up hiring a worship leader

So We have about 200 donors in our church family but if just 100 people gave $83/mo we would fully fund this goal

If 125 People gave $66 we would fully fund this goal...

So maybe your here and you’ve never considered it or you just haven’t heard about what we are doing…On the welcome table we have pledge cards, maybe you want to make a pledge to help us further these goals and help this church reach the world.

MULTIPLY COMMERCIAL OVER

So today we are starting a brand new series called “words”

And maybe this is just the way my brain is structured but words get stuck in my head...

I go on these long bike rides and I can be gone for like 5 hours and think about one word...

So in part, this series is just a way for me to get out to you the words that have been floating around in my mind...

But its so much more than that...

But I want to submit to you that the words for this series matter so much in our reading and understanding of scripture...

These are biblical words…Some in Hebrew…some in Greek

And they are words that are sort of hidden from view we read the Bible in English…

In Hebrew, you will have one word that will be used many different ways...

and English has so many words that we tend to lose the original meaning of what was written in the Bible...

So I am going to teach you these words…and the right way to say them and I guarantee you that if you lean in to this teaching series that you will end up reading the Bible differently..

But ultimately I think that your relationship with God will really grow...

So let’s start with the first word:

I said something during our last series that struck a chord with many of you…I have had many of you tell me that it impacted you

When we were talking about prayer I said: God is closer than the air that you breathe

And I truly and really believe that

So the first word I want to teach you today is “Ruakh”

If you take your had and you put it up to your face and breathe…everyone do that

What your feeling, your breath…In Hebrew that is your Ruakh

Its the Hebrew word for spirit, or wind or breath

So to the ancient Hebrew people when they would say a wind blew from the east…They would say a Ruakh blew, there was a mindset that this Ruakh originated from someone

So lets get into it, I have a ton of Bible for you this morning

Genesis 1:1–2 (NIV)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God (Ruakh) was hovering over the waters.

It might not look like it, but there is so much packed into these 2 sentences, it is crazy....I will try and give us only what we need

So Sentence 1, I am not even touching, God created the heavens and the earth....let’s save that for another day

But the next line says: “Now the earth was formless and Empty

I am going to give you bonus words in this series because it adds meaning to Ruakh

The Earth was TohuWabohu

Now this is a fun word that when you say it, you say it as one word but when you write it It is just Tohu & Bohu

Tohu & Bohu are the twin forces wild and waste

So the idea in Genesis 1:2 is that God created this world that has no form and its empty and there are chaotic, wild and waste waters

Think for a second how scary the ocean would have been to an ancient person…I mean often times ships would leave port never to return with no explanation at all

Whales are bigger than your boat…tales of giant squid...

Not to mention storms pop up and just eat ancient ships whole.

What Genesis 1:2 tells us is that in this beginning uncreated world, it was a wild wasteland…it was chaotic water...

But there was something over these chaotic waters it was the Ruakh of God

Ruakh is understood as God’s spirit or energy that animates all of life

God’s Rukah animates all of human life and all of life around us

Genesis 2 Tells us this

Genesis 2:7 (NIV)

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

God Breathed his Ruakh into humans and it gave them life…It is God’s spirit that animates all of human life....

So what we have to see that God is doing in creation is that he is using his Spirit or his breath or his wind

to take the chaotic waters and to separate them and fill the earth

Then God uses his Ruakh to create people who live and breathe by his Ruakh

So God’s Spirit

1. Tames the chaos

2. Animates life

Ok let’s now go to Genesis 8...

Most of us would remember the story of Noah’s ark right?

God has Noah make a huge boat and take 2 of each animal from all over the world and put them in this boat...

Then it rains and it floods...

Ok so I know most of us think of this in terms of a children’s story because there are animals involved...

But what this actually is was a world that descended back into sin, and it is a story of de-creation...

The wild an waste waters of creation the Tohu & Bohu are coming back to de-create the earth

Genesis 8:1 (NIV)

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind (Ruakh) over the earth, and the waters receded.

This is Genesis 1:2 all over again....God again tames the chaos waters…The earth descended back into the wild and waste, the Tohu & Bohu of uncreation....There was a whole earth flood and then what happens…God’s spirit comes over the waters and separates and waters so that Noah could partner with God in the re-creation the earth

God’s Spirit is again hovering over the chaotic waters

And do you remember what the symbol was for Noah that they had found dry ground?

There was a bird that hovered over the waters and what kind of bird is this? its a dove right?

and by the way this is what the Old Testament does…It takes these little concepts and forces you to stow them away for later...

Its like God is like…Ok I am going to build on this…put it on a shelf for a little while

So there is a dove hovering over the chaotic waters…ready for a new creation

Matthew 3:16 NIV

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

Now the New Testament is written in Greek but the Greek word for Holy spirit is Nooma and it is translated to Ruakh in Hebrew

So what we see is Jesus standing in water and the Ruakh of God descends on him like a dove and now Jesus goes about his work of new creation....

God’s spirit is the animating force of all of life

It calms the chaos and creates new life!

oh and there is so much more...

Ruakh to Ruakh Relations

But here is why you should care about all of this

How many of us when we think of the word spirit think something like in the cartoon world…like when Wile-e-Coyote gets blown up by one of his own bombs…you see this disembodied spirit kind of float out of him?

This is what we tend to think of when we think of a spirit but this is not even close to a biblical idea

The Hebrew mindset of what this is like the wind, God’s spirit is just always around you, always wanting to engulf you

but the next deeper way to understand Ruakh is that its something you can surrender to or not

Here is what I mean by this.

In the Biblical mindset....Each one of us has a Ruakh

There is no Hebrew word for Brain…So the Hebrews use the word Ruakh and it is translated as “mind”

So the word Ruakh is not just used for the Holy Spirit but also for humans...

You and I have a Ruakh

In the Bible there are a couple of significant places where we see how God uses his Ruakh through people

The very first person in the Bible that we see embody God’s Ruakh is Joseph

And this would take a whole character study of Joseph but let me just give you the twitter version

Joseph is one of the youngest in his family and he is very arrogant

and it takes him a stint in slavery to a guy named Potiphar and a stay in prison to fully submit to the Lord but once he does, God uses him for incredible things...

Joseph will utter words in his life that change his life…at one point he says, “I cant do it, but God...” and with those words he fully submitted his Ruakh to God’s Ruakh

He gets brought before Pharoah to interpret a dream…something that he can not do without God’s help

And because of God’s spirit in him, Joseph is able to do it

So Pharoah appoints Joseph to prepares a nation for a coming famine

This is what Pharoah says:

Genesis 41:37–38 (NIV)

The plan seemed good to Pharaoh and to all his officials. So Pharaoh asked them, “Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the (Ruakh) spirit of God?”

See when Pharoah sees Joseph he sees a man who is united with God’s spirit and its totally obvious to him

It’s actually the same exact phrase from Genesis 1:1-2…The Ruakh of Elohim…So that same spirit of God from creation that was hovering over the waters is now alive inside of Joseph

This is a connecting theme that we will see with all of the old testament kings as well

That Man’s Ruakh and God’s are connected

We see this powerfully in the life of David

1 Samuel 16:13 (NIV)

So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the (Ruakh) Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah.

David was a man after God’s own Heart

In David we find this full submission of his Ruakh to God’s Ruakh

And we know this because David famously messes up…He commits adultery, he sleeps with his friend’s wife, and then when it is going to get exposed, he kills his friend…and when he does he writes this beautiful Psalm of repentance

But what he realizes is that his Ruakh and God’s are not aligned and he lays this out powerfully in Psalm 51

Psalm 51:1–2 NIV

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

Bu the way…we will come back to this scripture next week!

Many of us probably know this Psalm…if you don’t its a great one to go read, especially if you have messed up…

But I just want to break down a couple of verses for us today

Psalm 51:11 (NIV)

Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy (Ruakh) Spirit from me.

He is saying, ok God I sinned…But don’t take your Ruakh away from me…I need your spirit

So then he says this

Psalm 51:12 (NIV)

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing (Ruakh) spirit, to sustain me.

So what David is saying here is, God I need you to make my spirit open to you again…Willing

Our job becomes surrendering our own Ruakh (spirit) to God’s

what a prayer to pray right? To not only restore the joy you once knew but to take the stubborn parts of your own spirt and to make them submissive to God!

What David is saying is something that you will hear Paul saying in the New Testament

What Paul will continually argue in nearly every letter that he writes is that there is a war happening between our own Flesh and Desires…In the Hebrew mind…our own Ruakh and God’s Ruakh

Paul uses the word spirit 150 times over 13 letters…This is a huge deal for him…He says we need to live by God’s Spirit

Galatians 5:16–18 (NIV)

So I say, walk by the Spirit (Ruakh), and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

So Paul argues that we need to keep in step with the spirit

So Just like David Prayed…God Change my Ruakh so that I can make room for your Ruakh

you are fully alive to God you are living in his Ruakh

A life permeated with God’s ruakh is what is needed for this new creation to break though...

So we are down a road here

there are these three main uses of Ruakh in the Bible...

Creating: So we saw the Spirit hovers over the waters, God’s spirit overcomes the Tohu & Bohu the twin forces of wild and waste

Partnering: I call it partnering…its when you submit your Ruakh to God’s Ruakh…That keeps you in step with God...

Re-creating : God’s spirit partners with you to make you a new creation for the world

So we already saw at Jesus’ baptism he got Ruakh of God and then after his death and resurrection here is what happens:

John 20:19–23 NIV

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

So Just as the father sent Jesus…In other words...”This is my son whom I love...” And the Spirit descends on Jesus…Jesus is saying, in the same way that my father gave me his Ruakh I am now breathing new life in to you so that you can have my Ruakh...

in the very same way that God breathed life into the first humans…the first creation

Jesus breathes his Ruakh into the lives of his disciples…He made them a new creation

I think God’s greatest desire is for us to be connected to him in the spirit!

We see here that a human fully alive to God is a human that is at one with his Ruakh

This is why Paul says live by the spirit!

God’s spirit empowers Jesus to begin the New Creation

And of course…Jesus pours out his spirit to his disciples and 50 days later at Pentecost, God’s spirit is poured out to

Response: Today we are celebrating Communion

Maybe your here and there is some Tohu & Bohu in your life…Every where you turn there are the twin forces of wild and waste destruction

This is the specialty of the Ruakh of God....Let him into the chaos, He will create something new out of it

Maybe your here today and your spirit is out of step with God’s spirit…Maybe your prayer today is to come to the alter and say…Lord Grant me a willing spirit

Or maybe for you today, your here and you are in step with the spirit, the spirit of God has calmed the chaos in your life and now you are needed to go out as an agent of new creation calling all people to walk in step with the spirit

I want to pray for all of you if that is your response today

But what he realizes is that his Ruakh and God’s are not aligned and he lays this out powerfully in Psalm 51

The New International Version Chapter 36

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh