NOTE: I’m teaching a churchwide Bible study on Genesis TONIGHT (8/31), 6:30-8:00 PM. There is a lot in Genesis 1-11 that we don’t have time to look at in a Sunday morning sermon, so in this Bible study we’ll talk about: Cain and Abel; the Nephilim in Genesis 6 (CRAZY STORY); The Flood; and literally anything else folks ask about during the Q&A. Can’t make it? Check out the livestream.

Genesis 2:4-14

4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Man is created out of the dust.

Today, we know how to specifically identify the various components that make up a living body—carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, etc.— but the Bible’s ancient words still suffice: we are made of dust.

It’s not what our bodies are made of, however, that gives them life; what gives us life and sustains our lives is the breath of God himself.

Every time you take a breath, you are receiving God’s breath. Yes, the air you inhale contains oxygen, but oxygen alone won’t make a dead body live—it’s God’s Spirit that does that.

This is why praise is therefore such an appropriate act: when we praise God it is the very breath we receive from God that makes our praises possible. God gives to us, and then we give back to him.

Take time today to breathe. And praise God for it.

P.S. This weekend is Labor Day weekend; going to be out of town on Sunday? Come to Thursday night church instead, 6:00 PM. I’m REALLY fired up about what I’m going to preach on this week.