The Dancing Hand of God, Part 1 — The Holy Spirit From Creation to Today

The dancing hand of God is the Holy Spirit at work in a believer’s life: the same Spirit who brooded over the waters at creation now rests on God’s people, leads them and choreographs their steps. In this first message of the series, the pastor goes back to Genesis to show that God did not stay at a distance. He spoke the universe into being, but He formed man by hand, planted a garden for him and walked with him every day.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for letting the Holy Spirit lead you this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message opens a new series at NTC Ministries and was posted on September 8, 2022. The pastor explains that he had just finished a series on the hands-on experience of God’s love, and that it laid the seeds for this one. His opening question is simple: we have talked about Jesus, but where was the Holy Spirit in all of this?

His answer runs through Genesis 1 and 2, the garden of Eden, the promise of the Helper in John 14 and Paul’s teaching on spiritual gifts. The message closes with an invitation to receive Jesus and a prayer for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

A Hands-On Creation Born of Love

The pastor begins with why God created at all. God is sovereign, which means He exists without any outside aid and is complete in Himself. He was not lonely and did not need anybody. But love is different: love needs an object to express itself to. That is why God created, and why He still draws people to Himself with His love (Jeremiah 31:3).

He illustrates it with his own story. He and his wife Pam met when she was eleven and he was twelve, and they knew that day they would marry. Love like that arrives from outside you. In the same way, when a person opens up even a little to God, whatever walls or problems are in the way, the love of God is poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).

The result is a brand-new creation that never existed before (2 Corinthians 5:17). And the pattern for that newness is creation itself. God spoke everything into existence, but with man it was different. The master artist gathered clay from the ground, formed man by hand and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). God humbled Himself to dirt.

That same humility brought Jesus into the world as Emmanuel, God with us, living among people with His hands on their lives. Because hope rooted in God’s love never disappoints, the pastor says, desires begin to rise in a believer. He compares it to an oak tree that is not satisfied at three or four feet but keeps growing toward the height it was created for. Those desires are not selfish; they come from new life.

Sin, the Greatest Pandemic, and the Cure

Before turning to the Spirit, the pastor lays down a principle: if a truth cannot be traced back to the beginning, when God brought everything about, it is not a real truth from God. Everything God purposed was in creation, and sin is what corrupted it. He recalls a salvation message he preached at the fair, where he called sin the greatest pandemic the world has ever known.

An epidemic stays in one region, he explains, but a pandemic reaches everyone. Sin passed to all people through Adam, carried from person to person, so that everyone is born into it (Romans 5:12). He rejects the idea, heard even from pulpits, that people are basically good and just lose their way. Scripture says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

This matters, he says, because unless you realize your life is corrupted you have no need of a Savior. You can know about Jesus and even memorize the Bible without being saved. Salvation begins with recognizing your sin. Then the blood of Jesus Christ becomes the cure that cleanses from all sin and makes you immune to its power.

Once saved, you are no longer a sinner. God has removed your sin as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12) and cast it into a sea of forgetfulness. That is why Jesus came hands-on for us and took our sin on Himself. And because He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and the Lord does not change (Malachi 3:6), what He did in the beginning still shows how He works now.

The Spirit Brooding Over the Waters

The pastor reads Genesis 1:1–5: the earth was without form and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Jesus created everything, and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:3). Yet, the pastor stresses, even Jesus did not act until the Spirit of God had moved first.

He explains that the Hebrew word for hovering means to rest or to sit, the picture of a mother hen brooding over her eggs to warm them. The Spirit sat over a cold, chaotic earth, warming it and bringing it back to life, and only then did God say, “Let there be light.” He adds that the earth is going to be made new again after this age, a theme he promises to develop later.

The same brooding happens when believers gather. This is why Scripture tells us not to forsake assembling together (Hebrews 10:25), and he means like-minded believers who welcome the Spirit, not a group that never talks about new birth, healing or the Spirit’s power. When the Holy Spirit rests over a congregation, people feel what he calls the corporate anointing.

That warmth is the Spirit getting His hands on people’s lives. Before God created man, the pastor points out, He personally created everything and personally planted a garden. The Holy Spirit still works that way, going ahead of us and preparing what He then hands to us.

Eden, the Gold and the Four Rivers

The garden of Eden was not a backyard plot. The pastor says the Hebrew word means vast forests. Every day, in the cool of the day, it was God’s custom to walk and talk with Adam (Genesis 3:8). He ties this to the biblical principle of firsts: the first day of the week, the tithe before the bills, and the first part of each morning given to God before the day presses in.

What did Adam talk to God about? Not needs, because he had none. God supplies all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). Instead, God explained His creation and shared revelation. That is the point of leaning not on your own understanding but acknowledging Him in all your ways (Proverbs 3:5–6). God is not asking to bless your path; He is calling you onto His.

In Genesis 2:8–15, a river flows out of Eden and parts into four heads: Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel and the Euphrates. The pastor says the word for river, nahar, can also mean a sea or large body of water, and prosperity. He connects it to Jesus’ promise of rivers of living water flowing from within (John 7:38). Prosperity, he says, means a good and growing life, not only money.

He uses a realtor as a picture. A realtor does not open by pointing to the cracked foundation; he shows you the best features first. So what did God show Adam first? Not where to sleep or cook, but where the gold was, and “the gold of that land is good.” Money is not the root of all evil; the love of money is (1 Timothy 6:10). Hoarded wealth becomes a dead sea, while giving keeps it flowing (Luke 6:38).

Why can no one find two of those rivers today? After the fall, he says, the garden disappeared and the earth changed. In the days of Peleg the earth was divided (Genesis 10:25). Adam had one command, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17), and one duty, to guard and keep the garden. Corruption buried the good things, but salvation brings the river back.

The Helper in You and on You

The church reads John 14:16–17 aloud: “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.” The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. The word Helper, the pastor explains, is paracletos: one who comes alongside to aid, guide, comfort, strengthen and cheerfully encourage you.

He contrasts that with harsh preaching. Jonathan Edwards preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in 1741, and the pastor recounts how people clung to pews and trees, feeling they were falling into hell, at the start of the Great Awakening. But Edwards preached it many times after, he says, and it never had that effect again. God is not angry with you; all His wrath was satisfied at the cross, and it is His goodness that leads people to repentance (Romans 2:4).

The Holy Spirit is a person, not an it, and Jesus treated Him with respect. The pastor notes two positions for the Spirit: in you and on you. The anointing upon you is for others: coworkers, friends and everyone you meet. The Spirit within is for you, built in your intimate time with God. He warns that ministers with a great anointing on the outside have crumbled because they did not nurture the life within.

He calls the Holy Spirit the sole administrator of the wealth of the Godhead. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17). In 1 Corinthians 2:9–14, eye has not seen nor ear heard the things God has prepared for those who love Him, but God has revealed them by His Spirit. The natural man calls them foolishness, which is why loving the world closes your eyes and ears to God (1 John 2:15).

The Dancing Hand of God in Manifestation

The pastor returns to Zephaniah 3:17, where the Lord rejoices over His people with gladness and singing. He explains the two words for joy. The first is like the gladness of someone who wins a lottery: blessing beyond anything you could gain in a lifetime on your own. The second means to spin around dancing. Right now, he says, the Spirit is moving over us, brooding like a hen over eggs until they hatch.

Then he reads 1 Corinthians 12:1–7: there are diversities of gifts, ministries and activities, but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. He says the word manifestation has 161 synonyms, including exuberant, jubilant, ecstatic and to dance, and that it is a compound of a word for hand and a word for festive dancing. This is the source of the series title.

The table below gathers the word meanings he gives throughout the message, as he teaches them.

To picture it, he recalls the June Taylor Dancers on the Jackie Gleason Show, who lay in a circle on the floor and, seen from the camera above, moved like a kaleidoscope. Their beauty came from following one choreographer. In the same way, the dancing hand of God is in us to choreograph our lives and the church. If the Lord prompts you to give a word, testify or lay hands on someone, then do it.

He tells of a young coal miner in the Welsh revival who, after praying with older women whom others mocked, felt the Lord tell him to pray for the youth. The pastor said it would do no good, but the young people gave their lives to Jesus, and the pastor recounts how jails and bars closed and the revival spread worldwide. Jesus asks why we call Him Lord but do not do what He says (Luke 6:46).

He closes with his own testimony. Once poor, a dropout and an addict, he went on to share the goodness of God with leaders around the world, including at Uganda’s fiftieth anniversary. That is what God wants for every believer, he says: good, better, best, as children of the King.

Following the Spirit’s Lead This Week

The pastor ends with an invitation to receive Jesus and to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, reminding the church that Jesus breathed on His disciples and told them to wait for the promise of the Father. These steps come straight from the message:

• Give God the first of your day. Meet Him in the morning before the pressure builds, the way He walked with Adam in the cool of the day.
• Talk with Him, not only at Him. Spend time listening for what He wants to show you instead of bringing only a list of needs.
• Gather with believers. Make church a priority so the Spirit can rest on you with the corporate anointing.
• Nurture the Spirit within. Build private time with the Holy Spirit so the anointing upon you never outgrows the life inside you.
• Let your giving flow. Reject the love of money and keep generosity moving, so that you never become a dead sea.
• Obey the prompting. When the Spirit leads you to encourage, testify or pray for someone, follow His choreography.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 A new series: love needs an object
• 1:13 Puppy love and the love that draws us
• 2:10 New creations and man formed by hand
• 4:17 Hope never disappoints: the oak tree
• 5:15 Where was the Holy Spirit?
• 6:24 Sin, the greatest pandemic
• 9:49 Reading Genesis 1:1–5
• 11:51 The Spirit brooding over the waters
• 13:03 Gathering together and the corporate anointing
• 15:11 The garden and walking with Adam
• 19:57 Reading Genesis 2:8–15
• 21:53 Nahar: rivers and prosperity
• 24:42 The realtor and the gold that is good
• 33:51 Peleg and the vanished rivers
• 37:25 Adam had one thing to do
• 41:44 John 14: another Helper
• 44:02 Jonathan Edwards and an angry God
• 47:39 The Spirit in you and on you
• 50:59 1 Corinthians 2: what God has prepared
• 56:18 Zephaniah 3:17: He dances over you
• 59:35 From poverty to the nations
• 1:02:26 1 Corinthians 12: the manifestation of the Spirit
• 1:06:05 The hand that dances and the Welsh revival
• 1:08:58 Salvation prayer and the baptism in the Spirit

The Dancing Hand of God Series

This message begins an eight-part series at NTC Ministries. Continue with the next teaching:

• You are here: The Dancing Hand of God, Part 1 — The Holy Spirit From Creation to Today
• Next: The Dancing Hand of God, Part 2 — The Hidden River That Now Flows From Within

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the pastor say the Holy Spirit is a “he” and not an “it”?

He points to the passages in the Gospel of John where Jesus speaks about the coming Helper. In just four verses, he says, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as he or him ten times. If Jesus respected the Spirit as a person and waited for Him to move over the earth before acting, believers should show the same respect by welcoming Him each morning and letting Him move in their hearts.

Is it wrong for a Christian to want to prosper?

Not in this teaching. The pastor says the first thing God showed Adam was where the gold was, and that the gold was good. What Scripture condemns is the love of money, not money itself. He defines prosperity broadly as a good and growing life, and warns that wealth held only for yourself turns your life into a dead sea, while giving keeps blessing flowing to others.

Why does the message end with prayer for the baptism in the Holy Spirit?

Because the whole sermon is about the Spirit’s hands-on work. The pastor explains that the Spirit comes into you when you are born again, but God also wants Him upon you. Jesus breathed on His disciples and then told them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, so that they would receive power. He invites anyone who has not received to lift a hand and come forward for prayer.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Genesis 1:1–5 — the Spirit hovering over the waters
• Genesis 2:8–15 — the garden and the four rivers
• Romans 5:5 — God’s love poured out by the Holy Spirit
• Hebrews 13:8 — the same yesterday, today and forever
• John 14:16–17 — another Helper
• 1 Corinthians 2:9–14 — revealed by His Spirit
• Zephaniah 3:17 — He rejoices over you with singing
• 1 Corinthians 12:1–7 — the manifestation of the Spirit

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

If this message stirred you to welcome the Holy Spirit’s leading, there are hundreds more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep following the dancing hand of God in your own life.