Genesis 1:1-5
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

While we will not read the entire account of creation, I want you to understand some things about Genesis 1 that really help us in this series called Adjustments. Remember, this series is all about making little changes that bring big results.

During the pastors conference this week, I learned a new phrase that exists in Genesis 1. This is found in verse 2 where the Bible tells us that the Earth was without form and void. This phrase is to-hoo wa-bo-hoo, Hebrew for void and formless.

While we translate these words as void and formless in English, a deeper look shows that these two words actually mean, chaos, and an uninhabitable evacuated state devoid of order. So we could really read those two words, not as void and formless, but chaotic without order.

What God was actually doing during those days of creation was not just creating an inhabitable planet, but making order out of chaos.

Look through the days quickly:
Day 1: God creates light, separating it from darkness, calling them day and night.
Day 2: God creates the sky, separating the waters above from the waters below.
Day 3: God gathers waters to form seas, creates dry land, and brings forth vegetation.
Day 4: God creates the sun, moon, and stars to govern day and night and to mark seasons.
Day 5: God creates sea creatures and birds, blessing them to multiply.
Day 6: God creates land animals and humans in His image, giving them dominion over the earth and instructing them to multiply.
Day 7: God rests, blessing and sanctifying the seventh day.

Which day would you consider the most important? Many would say day 6, us. In reality, it was day 7.

Genesis 2:2-3
2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Why did God rest?
Because he was finished with creating? In part. Because he finished taking his creation from chaos to order? Perhaps now we are getting somewhere. God completes the task of taking creation that was to-hoo wa-bo-hoo, chaotic and devoid of order, and establishes hierarchies, authorities, and structure. The result was twofold: it is good, and it is time to rest.

Why did God need to rest?
Was he tired? And if he was tired, does his tiredness negate his attribute of being God? Can God still be God if he gets tired? Or did resting have nothing at all to do with his energy levels? Does rest in Genesis 2 mean what we think rest means now? A clue to this answer can be found in this next question:

Where did God rest?
Most people automatically think heaven. We assume this God creates from on high, on his throne, rather than embracing some idea that he gets in the middle of the chaos and brings clarity and order. If you need some evidence for the latter, just look at Jesus in John 1:1-5, 14
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

In these passages, we have Jesus, our Lord and Savior, not commanding from a perch in Heaven, but taking on flesh in the middle of the chaos of the brokenness of sin that consumes mankind and brings order from the chaos.

What I want you to understand is that we do not serve a God that is unwilling to interject himself into the chaos of humanity and create order in spite of it.

When you think of heaven, what do you imagine?
Do you imagine us down here on this completely remade brand new earth, and God still in heaven, invisible, lording over us? That is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that heaven will descend and a new Jerusalem will take shape, and we will dwell in the presence of God forever. This is the end goal, but while it is the end goal, it was also the original design.

Genesis 3:8
8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day

After the creation of the entire world, including man, we see this fascinating verse that proves to us that it is God’s desire for us to dwell with him. It is important that we understand that God did not rest in heaven, he rested and Eden, with Adam and Eve. So rest with God is not ceasing from effort, but after hierarchies, authorities, and structure create a space, he loves dwelling with his creation in perfect order.

Has God followed this same pattern since?
The pattern is that when there is chaos, God creates hierarchies, authorities, and structures to create order through his tangible presence.

Patterns
We talked about Eden. Next there’s Noah’s Ark. God gave specific instructions on how to build the ark. Line most of us think of a boat when we think of the story, but the dimensions God gave for the ark or not the shape of a boat, but I've a rectangle. If you look at all the details, God gave such as three chambers, only one door, etc., We see that Noah wasn't really building a boat. He was building tabernacle. I don't have time to explain all of this today, but what God told Noah to do was to build something to rescue them, to save them in spite of the chaos.

Now look to the Exodus and the building of the Tabernacle. God was incredibly precise about how to build the Tabernacle. What God was doing, was giving them hierarchies, authorities, and structure so God could not only bring order to chaos, but because he wanted something very specific with the Tabernacle, and it's the same thing he wanted with the temple that was built during Solomon's time:
Exodus 25:8
Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.

Eden, Noah’s Ark, The Tabernacle, the Temple, God was building a space for his presence to dwell with man. He even did this through the person of Jesus. Immanuel, “God with us.”

Ok, a lot of setup here. What am i trying to get to today?

When God makes order out of chaos, he always creates hierarchies, authorities, and structure. Those hierarchies, authorities, and structures prepare the space for one thing, and this one thing is what actually halts the chaos: his presence.

Hierarchies, authorities, structures help arrange the chaos, but only his presence brings order.

We see this with God resting in Genesis 2 that I referenced earlier.
We see this with God making covenant with Noah, and mankind, in Genesis 9
We see this in God’s presence filling the Tabernacle in Exodus 40.
We see this in God’s presence filling the Temple in 2 Chronicles 7

My point is this:
Since the Fall, chaos is all we’ve known, and it is the state satan wants us living in. Godless, presence-less, broken, hopeless, this is satan’s plan. But order is found in God’s hierarchies, authority, structure, and the plan for us is to live in perfect order dwelling with his presence.

I want you to examine your life right now. Is your life defined more right now by chaos or order? Which do you want it to be defined by?

Here’s the thing: our world is in complete chaos. With chaos all around us, it is almost impossible to keep that chaos from affecting our lives. We want to live well, be happy, love life. We want to live and grow and dream and accomplish. We want to be safe and secure. We also want to experience what God has for us. We want to please and honor him. We want God to use us to positively impact his Kingdom. But the chaos keeps us from doing these things.

Much of this Christian life is figuring out how to bring order to the chaos in us. And you know exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to that chaos inside. You know when you're messing up. You know when you're doing wrong. And while sin may be fun for a season, you know that there is a penalty that comes with it. We all have to pay the Piper. You know that at some point the chaos inside of you is going to wreak havoc upon your world outside of you, in your family, your work, the relationships you have around you, even in your relationship with God. You also know when the world around you is in a state that dishonor or displeases God. You see the chaos in the world and you deeply sense something wrong. This is the Spirit in you that longs for order to be brought from the chaos around you.

We understand this struggle and we desperately want to fix it, and the proof of that is in that we try to deal with the chaos with a variety of things. We turn to addictions, we turn to philosophies and ideologies, we return to self-help and discipline techniques and the like. In my own life, I think about something like anger. I get angry whenever something causes my life to spiral out of control, and so those outburst moments are attempts to gain control when I feel like I've lost it. All of these are attempts to deal with the chaos inside and around us.

How do we get order out of chaos? What are some little adjustments we can make?

1. Embrace God’s hierarchy, authority, and structure.
You don’t get to have a relationship with God on your terms. You don’t get God unless you follow his hierarchy, authority, and structure.

This is one of the biggest issues in American Christianity. If you think your relationship with God is going to work on your terms, and in your way, then not only are you badly mistaken, I wouldn't even call that a relationship with God. Any notion that you can come to God any other way than the way he specifically dictates is in error.

John 14:6
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Too many people think they can ignore God’s hierarchy, authority, and structure, yet still make a claim to faith, relationship, and even heaven.

So what do I mean by hierarchy, authority, and structure?
A hierarchy is a system we use to rank things according to importance. When you choose to pay your mortgage before you buy those new sneakers, you’ve ranked items according to importance. That is hierarchy.
Authority is power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior.
When you tell your kid he can’t have a cookie right before bed, you are acting as his authority. Structure is the way something is built, arranged, or organized. A recipe is a structure that you use to produce a meal.

We are all familiar with these because we use them on a daily basis. We may not say it in the specific words, but we all use hierarchies, authorities, and structure.

If you are going to bring order from the chaos in your life, it is going to require that you embrace God's hierarchy, authority, and structure. That means you have to start with making sure what is the most important to God is the most important to you. Is that happening on the daily in your life? You can always tell because order follows obedience.

That means you have to start with submitting to God's authority. Is that happening on the daily in your life? You can always tell because order follows submission to God.

That means you have to start with following God’s structure. Is that happening on the daily in your life? You can always tell because order follows truth.

When you put God first, you submit to his authority, and you obey his structure (His Word), what happens is you prepare a place for God’s presence to dwell.

Look at those things I mentioned before: Eden, The Tabernacle, The Temple. All of these were places God designed so that he could dwell with his people. We see extreme precision and instruction in hierarchy, authority, and structure. All of these were designed to prepare a place for his presence.

You want order from the chaos in your life. I get that. But are you actively preparing a place in your life for his presence? Are you seeking him first? Are you submitting to his authority? Are you not only reading his word, but doing what it says? If you are not, expect chaos.

2. Obey
Pride might be the root of all sin, but disobedience is it vehicle. Do you want to order from the chaos in your life? Obey God. It is literally that simple. Just obey him.

If God told you to let it go, let it go. If he says, forgive, forgive. If he says give something, give it. If he says stop doing something, stop it.

You want order out of the chaos in your life, but do you want it bad enough to obey?

You can read the Word for yourself. It is not that hard to understand. You know exactly what God is telling you to do. You know what he expects of you. You know exactly what you should be doing. **The problem is that we've gotten so used to chaos that we think we can obey just enough to bring enough order to make us feel comfortable. So rather that going all the way with God, we go just enough to get a little order out of the chaos.

John 14:23
If anyone loves me, he will keep my word (obedience), and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Obedience opens the door for God’s presence to come in. Why is this such a big deal?

3. God’s presence brings order
You want order out of the chaos? Here’s the key: God’s presence. In Eden, ordering creation prepared a place for God to walk with them in the cool of the evening. With the Tabernacle, ordering its construction prepared a place for God’s Spirit to rest with them. In the Temple, ordering the components prepared a place for God’s presence. Yet there is more to this chaos to order conversation than order alone. God’s presence is what made the difference.

What am I trying to tell you today? If you want order out of chaos, it requires God’s presence. I am not talking about his omnipresent attribute where God is everywhere. I am talking about his indwelling and manifest presence in our lives.

1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

This verse is why chaos around us cannot overcome us. It’s God’s presence. The only way we can bring order to the chaos in an around us is through God’s presence.

Embracing God’s hierarchies, authority, and structure alone won’t do it. Eden, the Tabernacle, and the Temple were just places, but they became sacred when God’s presence was there.

Look at Genesis 2:3 again.
Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

He “sanctified” it. That means to make it holy.

When God’s presence is there, there is order, not chaos.

What about you? You in chaos or order? If its chaos, you’re missing God’s presence. Why come?

Are you following God’s hierarchies?
Are you submitting to his authority?
Are you being obedient?

Let me ask like this:
- Is his first thing your first thing? Is what is most important to God most important to you?
- Are you following his lead? Is he really your Lord?
- Are you doing what he tells you to do? Are you doing completely what the Bible teaches?

If you aren’t, then you aren’t preparing a place for God’s presence. It is a place for something or someone else, but not God. And if his presence is not there, you can rest assured chaos is.

Is there anything more important to you than God and his presence?

There’s a moment in Exodus right after the incident with the golden calf when Moses went to try and atone for their sin with God. God sent a plague as punishment. Moses then moved his tent outside of camp and called it the tabernacle of meeting. Moses entered it and the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and verse 11 says the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. (Note: look how Moses was prepared for God’s presence)

The Lord tells Moses to leave Sinai. Moses tells the Lord if his presence doesn’t go, he doesn’t want to go either.

Moses knows too well the chaos that exists when God’s presence is missing. Keep your riches and good land and safety and all the world has.
Just don’t make me go without your presence.

The Lord responds in Exodus 33:14
My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

That is interesting…not just that his presence, but that he will give rest.
Rest like in Genesis 2:3 when God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it?

Rest, or in another way to say it: order, sanctification, relationship with God.

I don’t know what chaos is going on in your life right now. I don’t even know the extent of the chaos that exists in this world. We’ve sure seen enough of it this week.

But I do know this:
Where his presence is missing, order is, too. But where his presence is, order is, too.

Are you preparing a place in your heart for God’s presence?
If you aren’t, you know what you need to do. Invite his presence through repentance, obedience, by preparing a place for him.

Let’s pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?