Reimagining Rest | You Are Made for Connection

Today Richard will be continuing our series on reimagining rest,

our scripture reading today is from Genesis 3, verse 8.

Genesis 3:8

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.

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.

Amen. We pray for us.

Father. Thank you for Thank you for your

word.