Today Richard will be continuing our series on reimagining rest,
our scripture reading today is from Genesis 3, verse 8.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord.
God as he was walking, in the garden in the cool of the day.
And they hid from the Lord God, Among the Trees of the garden.
This is the word of the Lord. Hey, good morning.
That was a short reading, right? Oh you think it's going to be a
short sermon, don't you? Appreciate a few weeks I'll be
preaching at the dinner table, they're in the middle of a game
just because I got got stuff to say, hope you're ready.
No, I'm joking. I'm not joking.
I'm serious. I'm excited.
I'm excited to preach God's words today.
Let me pray for our time. Father, thank you for your work.
Word that it's alive. That's active that it's bread,
nourishment and in life. So we pray for you were to fall
on good soil. And yeah.
Meet with us today reveal yourself to us, your church,
your people. In Jesus name.
Amen. Amen.
Well Happy, Father's Day to biological dad, spiritual dad's
mentors. This is your day.
Shout out to you. Use it all up, because tomorrow
thing, Go back to normal. Okay.
As we can as we continue our series on rest, I want today to
steer our attention to our why and when I say why, what I'm
saying is getting back to what we were made for, Shortly after
God created Adam he creates Eve why does God create Eve for
human connection because we were made for community.
God said, it's not good to be alone.
I remember as a kid, I was the only kid for the first seven
years of my life. And during that time, I was
like, I want to stay bling. I want to Simply I want a
sibling because it's lonely playing with these toys by
myself, watching these shows by myself.
I want someone to play with, I want someone to go to Childhood
with together. So my parents bought me a bird.
Okay. And um, and so I had this bird
and I started to terrorize the Heard and my parents gave the
bird way to my cousin. And then a few years later, I
just ditched their and I terrorized her, but they kept
her, they kept her the capture, they didn't get rid of her.
And so another thing that God does in this creation is count
is not just surround adamant with Community, with ease, some
something, with Eve, something else that God does in this
account that I think can be easily overlooked God, God
frequent it, his children to God, didn't have children, and
just leave them abandon us the okay to stay on Earth and good
luck and I'll see you later. He frequents them.
He visits them in our passage. It says this and I know it's
short. But there's a lot in this
passage says they heard the sound of the Lord as he was
walking in the garden, in the cool of the day.
See, here's what eat and represented Eden was at the
meeting place. It was, it was the inner section
of Heaven and Earth between God in humans.
This because we were made for communion with God.
In the book. Not the way, it's supposed to be
Cornelius, Antigua describes creation account.
As a picture of peace and peace goes by the word shalom, in the
Bible, which roughly roughly, which he roughly translates.
The way it's supposed to be. Whoever says that phrase,
whoever watches the news and go, that's not the way it's supposed
to be or watches LeBron playing. Oh, that's the way it's supposed
to be me. That's Beauty.
That's Artistry. I'm sorry.
I'm just joking. But right, you see something,
and it's done, right? And there's something within you
go, that's the way it's supposed to be.
Or you see something that feels out of place and disjointed.
And you go, that's not how it's supposed to be.
And we go through this creation account, and God puts in this
community, and he puts him this communion between God and Adam
and Eve. And what are you saying?
When you say this is good? He's saying this is how it's
supposed to be. Are you with me?
All right, I got one with me. Okay, I'm gonna try to get the
rest of you soon. In other words, when we see this
picture, this was God's intention.
He intended for humans to have fulfilling and flourishing
relationships with one another and with God and I don't know
about you, but there's something deep within me that says I want
that too. I want to experience life the
way it's supposed to be. There's a deep desire in me to
have deeper connection to life is Buddy here, desire that.
Okay, I got one still, okay, akan who a connection with God?
We're experienced his experience and his peace and Shalom.
We all want that we read these stuff and we read devotional, we
go all man. I want that, I want that with
God, and then here's the thing, life is full and busy, and
messy. And if I look at some of your
calendars were like, man guy, I need this.
To happen. A lot easier than it is God.
I have a small window of time. Can you show up now?
Can you show for now in your fullness?
Inbounds is written, nine prayer, nine books on prayer.
And he says this, I think Christians fail, so often to get
answers to their prayers because they do not wait long enough on
God, they just drop down. Say a few words then jump up,
forget it and expect God and expect God to answer them.
Such. Praying always reminds me of the
small boy, who ringing his neighbor's door bell and then
running away as fast as he can go.
If you've been the human long enough, you know this connection
takes time. Connection takes time.
Connection takes intentionality and connection requires our
hearts availability. Because connection with one
another connection with God, happens from the inside out.
Who here remembers the movie Bruce Almighty.
Okay yeah we're dating ourselves some of us I'm and so Bruce
Almighty you don't know it's Jim Carrey and he's complaining
about how God's running the world and he gets an opportunity
to harness God's power for a season.
And so Jim Carrey is harnessing the power of God and he has a
breakup and he's trying to get his ex back and he tries to
command her to love them. Love me.
And it doesn't, it doesn't work.
And what he realizes is what he needs more than a promotion,
Fame power and money is connection.
When we realize, what were made of and we feel the, the, the
distance between actually experience in it, it can be
frustrating, right? So that when hear other people
talk about the relations of God, you're just like, oh, man,
forget it. I've never, I'm never gonna have
that. I think we think about
connecting with the God we can go.
This just seems too elusive. God is just too slippery.
He doesn't really want to be found and I'm trying and it's
just there's nothing happening or you just like I'm not
spiritual enough or we talk about connecting with God.
Will of God, really knew me. If God really got close to me
and he saw really how I am. Maybe he wouldn't want that
connection with me. So in this, in this story we
have we have a serpent and this serpent is speaking to Adam and
Eve and here's it, here's two things, the serpent objective to
drive people away from God. The Serpent's strategy to plant
lies in our head about what God thinks about us.
Connection is about drawing close to God that God is the
source of Abundant Life. Jesus said in John 15, that he
is the vine and that we are. The branches that he is a source
of life for human flourishing. You with me.
Okay. All right.
I couldn't tell. All right.
This way it's it's Father's Day and I know many of us relate to
this day differently, but I just want to say this personally as a
father, the last thing I want my kids to do is distance
themselves from me. Listen, if you, if you want to
break God's heart, don't spend quality time with him.
This the secret to real soul level rest is sitting at the
feet of Jesus. There's these two women about in
the Bible, Mary and Martha and Jesus comes over their house to
visit them. And Martha is running around
trying to prepare everything and and clean the house.
And Mary is just sitting at Jesus feet and Martha's
complaining like floor, tell her to get up and do something.
And Jesus says, few things are needed or indeed, only one Mary
has chosen. What is better?
And it will not be taken away from her.
In other words, Jesus is Saint. Mary has chosen the right thing
because I'm here with you right now and she's sitting at my
feet. I don't know what your church
background is, or what your conclusion in conclusion is on
what you've owned. Were you've landed on how God
feels about you? But I just want to say this when
I read the scriptures that I know this that God desperately
wants you to know him, God desperately wants you to
experience his presence. Here in here in Genesis week we
run across a story where Adam and Eve they missed.
The mark that God tells him don't do something and they do
it and they're and they're feeling condemned.
They're feeling shame. They're feeling all the
emotions, but what I want you to catch in this short verse is
God's action. The God still shows up to meet
with them. God shows up in the garden to
meet with his people, and their worst moments.
And it says a previously in verse 7, that after they ate the
fruit, that they, they realized that they were naked and they
try to cover themselves. And what they're doing is
saying, I don't want God to see me as I am, I don't want God to
see the state that I'm in right now.
If God sees me the way I am right now, he won't want me.
He will be disappointed. Need in me.
See when we talk about reimagining rest, some of us
might need to reimagine how God views you.
If you view yourself and you see yourself as a worst thing you've
ever done and you put that on God that God sees you as the
worst thing that you've ever done.
You will not only distance yourself from God.
You would disinter stuff from people in life that God's put
around you. What we're talking about here is
a relationship in the connection with God and you can experience
God's Embrace. If you're too ashamed to let God
see you, as you truly are. Because if you're too ashamed
for God to see you as you truly are, you won't allow him to
embrace you. You with me?
the story says in verse 8, that They hid from God.
So, now, when I was a teenager, my mom, let me drive the car
mostly out of necessity because we just, you needed me to drive
him. Take my sister daycare, but she
let me go out one night, and I took the little Han died.
Hatchback, on little, little little road, trip around the
block, and I wasn't a great driver yet.
I am now, holds Andrea driver yet and um, got a little fender
bender. And when I got that fender
bender, here's the thing. I tried to come home and hide It
and this is a vehicle people. I tried to come home and hide
it, and I tried to hide from my mom.
And I mean here's here's what the here's what makes it hard
because I had a good I had a great opportunity to have a
vehicle and I blew it and it was too much to handle.
It was too much to face. So I try to dodge her and do
little things on the side to show that I'm good and I try to
stay busy distracted and distant And I think we often do this
with God and and we try to dodge God or stay out of the way.
Or don't let him in close, that's actually worse than the
thing that you're trying to avoid him seeing.
Man, some of you didn't really, really not really hearing me and
maybe rather go back and hear the podcast.
I'm just so, let me give you a practical example.
My kiss, they did something. They didn't do their homework or
they got in trouble in class. If they try to dodge me and
don't spend time with me and I want to see that's the worst.
It just telling me what you did because we missed time together.
And so the thing that they did, they're trying to hide from God,
is worse than the thing that they actually did because
they're not spend time with the God.
And they're not experiencing his healing and his approval and his
accepted and his Embrace where he wants to bring them in and
redeem their lives. I want you to know me more than
anything else. They hid themselves when our
hearts condemn as we will shrink from intimacy.
If we believe our relationship with God is conditional, we will
hide. We would distance ourselves.
We will try to do what's right only to avoid punishment and
never really experienced God's rest.
Jesus says, you know, this is Matthew 11, come to me all who
are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
He says, you will find rest for your souls.
He just come to me, he didn't give them a list of things to
do. He said, come to me.
You will find rest. You're all, we're all looking
for something. We're all.
Looking for our, why we're all looking for, what's the thing
that makes this human? What are we made for?
We're all looking for Jesus, come to me.
The writer of the book of Hebrews talks about entering
God's rest over and over again. Oh bantering God's rest.
And the thing that he says that will keep you from entering
God's rest is if you harden your hearts.
Because entering into God's rest is about connection.
It's not about a physical location or going through the
motions of religion. It's about the posture of our
heart. Saint Augustine says this.
You have made us for yourself O Lord and our heart is restless
until it rests in you God loves you.
God wants you to experience his presence, God wants you to be
rooted in his love. Jesus said that again John 15 as
the father has loved me. So have I Loved You Now remain
in my love. It's wild to think, especially
those of us have been in church for a while.
To all that we know about God, all that.
We've been taught about his grace.
When we go through something that we often, like evade
spending time with God, Like we're going through something
go. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull myself
out of community. I'm gonna do devotions laughs.
I'm going to talk to God less and I it's a, it's a weird
thing. God is like actually when you're
going through something actually, when you feel like
you're spent or you're at your margin, that's actually the time
where you need me. Most I can always tell parents
have this since this sixth sense, with their kids, can
always tell my kids, when something else has their
attention because they distance themselves, even though we're in
the same house, even though we're in the same thousand
square feet, they just, they find a way to distance
themselves and I go. Hey guys, what's up with you?
Where are you? And I'm saying, let's spend time
together. God does this when he enters the
guard he says where are you? It's rhetorical.
He knows where they are is not like I see right there you know
like I know where you are. He's saying but where are you
He's saying, don't you realize how far you are from me even
though we're in the same Garden? But don't you also realize that
I'm right here and that I didn't walk away from you?
Don't you realize that you still have an opportunity to interact
with me? He says, where are you?
God is initiating a conversation.
I wonder if God is looking for any of you today, whatever.
God is saying, where are you? What's distance to what's caused
you to distance yourself? Don't let shame remorse fear.
Guilt inadequacies, cause you to distance yourself from God.
Here's a phrase that I want us all to say over and over again
and adopt, no matter where we find ourselves to God.
Say this, you're welcome here. Because this is pretty much the
progression of most of the Psalms.
Why me? This is hard.
I don't want to, but you've been faithful.
Wait a minute, you are good? My heart is yours.
Psalm 139, the psalmist realizes this, that God doesn't give up
on us. Man.
What if we got that? What God does it?
Give up on us? He says how precious to me, are
your thoughts. God how vast is the some of them
were I to count them? They would outnumber the grains
of sand. When I awake, I'm still with
you. Even in your hiding, God is
saying I'm with you, even in your hiding, God is saying, let
me be your hiding place. Let me be your Refuge.
Where are you? Don't you know that you were
made for me and I for you Church, make God you're hiding
place. Over and over in the Psalms
Psalm 31, you hit them in the secret place of your presence,
you can feel them in your shelter.
Psalm 91. He who dwells in the secret
place of the most high shall abide under the shadow.
Y'all my I wish I had two people in here that was catching like
the word of God right now. It is like, man.
I know. All right.
Okay, I don't know. I read these things.
I was like, oh, man. Yes, Laura.
You can be my refuge that I can go to you.
That you will hide me. And you will, you will Rescue
Me. Like have you ever had people
come after you and God said I got you.
I'm your strong tower. I'm with you.
I didn't want you to run away from you.
I wanted you to run towards me. I can tell you what you were
made for, but you have to answer the question.
Do you want it? Do you want God to do stuff for
you? Or do you want God?
David says, in Psalm 24, one thing I ask from the Lord, this
only do I seek that, I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all
the days of my life, to Gaze on the beauty of the Lord and seek
him in this Temple. So back to our passage says that
God comes in the cool of the evening that word, cool, as the
Hebrew word ruach, which means Spirit, or when the one
commentator says this, this may mean that it is intended to
evoke the unmistakable power of God's presence.
That when God shows up in the cool and he walks in the garden,
he wants Adam and Eve to know that he is with them in an
unmistakable Way Church when we talk about connecting with God,
when we talk about resting in God, here's what God wants.
He wants us to be a people that are marked from being with him.
What's it to be a people that are marked from being in his
presence? When God, created the garden, he
created an environment where we can meet with him and God has
been creating and cultivating environments for us to meet with
him, all through the scripture, and it culminates in Revelation
where he is in the middle of the life.
Of the people of God, he creates a temple.
Why? So we can meet with them.
Jesus comes and makes his place here on Earth.
Why? Why?
So we can meet with him he says man you want to know the secret
to life? Lock the door, get away with God
talk to him. And what you do in private and
secret God rewards openly Aw Tozer.
He is a pastor and author of pursuit of God.
He says this, I want the presence of God himself or I
don't want at anything at all to do with religion, I want all
that God has, or I don't want any Psalm 84 better is one day
in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.
Do you have a place? Do you have a place where you
can create an environment to meet with God?
And here's the thing, God will make every provision in way for
you to meet with him. And Adam and Eve's worst God
creates covering for them. God will create environments for
you to meet with him and unlikely places and seasons of
your life. But will you take, will you stop
take off your sandals? So I'll end with the story.
Moses, Moses, you guys know this.
You seen the show? The Prince of Egypt, right?
And he, he was raised to be a kingly person, The Prince and he
kills an Egyptian and for Injustice and he's on the run
and he's serving his father-in-law out and out of
nowhere and he's a bush on fire. Verse Exodus 3 says this there,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from
within the Bush. Moses saw that the Bush was on
fire and it did not burn up some oldest thought.
I will go over and see this strange light.
Why the bush doesn't burn up when the Lord saw that he had
gone over to look God Called to him from within the Bush, Moses.
Moses. And Moses said, here I am.
Moses takes off his sandals, God tells him, he's on Holy Ground,
Moses is in the space and the intersection between Heaven and
Earth and his encounter with God changes his life forever.
God wants us to be a people that are marked by his presence
because we spend time with them because they're willing because
when he calls our name. We said here, I am man.
You know my past, you know what, I've just done but if you call
my name here I am. If you tell me to come closer to
the bush, I'll take off my sandals and I will come.
I believe God invites us to rest because he wants us to know the
way things are supposed to be. In the garden with a God who
shows up in the cool of the day to meet with you to give you
rest. Amen.
We pray for us.
Father. Thank you for Thank you for your
word.