Hiding From God to Hiding in God

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Good morning.

Good morning, Awakening Church.

I happy Mother's Day.

I am thrilled and honored to join you on this special day.

I am so thankful for my mom, who is a prayer warrior, and I'm sure there's not a day of my life, even from the womb on, where she has not prayed for me, so I am the product of her prayers.

And I'm extremely thankful for my two daughters who are young adults.

And for those of you with young adults, you know this is a big statement that they actually still want to be with me and hang out with me.

Um, almost as much as I love hanging out with them.

So I'm really grateful to be their mom.

Um so there's this famous quote that being a mom is like watching your heart walk outside of your body.

Okay, moms, relatable?

Um, if you're a mom, you do get this.

Not only is motherhood the hardest and the most rewarding work ever, um, it can also be a laboratory where God works on us, on our spiritual development.

And it has been that for me.

I think more than any other place, motherhood has been the place where God has shaped me, molded me, challenged me, and helped me become more fully who He made me to be.

And so as moms, we often feel this weight of expectations.

And I'm a recovering perfectionist, so I have a lot of these expectations.

Sometimes they come from our families, our our um surroundings, or our culture.

But I think a lot of it for moms, it comes from ourselves.

And I think we try so hard to get it right.

And this isn't just moms, this is all of us.

Try so hard to get things right.

Um, so along with the joy of living life that way, we there can also be some shame and guilt around parenting.

And so I think this passage today we're gonna look at in Genesis 3 is extra relevant for um for those of us who are moms because it deals with this idea of shame and guilt and not being enough.

And so you guys have been studying the book of Genesis since January for several months, and Genesis tells us who God is, who we are, and the life that God offers us, the life that is truly life, and we are in chapter three of this teaching series called Where in the World Did We Go Wrong?

So I'd like us to just open up God's word with prayer.

So would you pray with me?

Lord God, we come before you in this special Mother's Day and we ask that you would be with us.

God, on a day like today, there's a lot of complicated emotions, there's a lot of thoughts about what we're doing after service and and all the things.

And I um I ask, Lord, by your spirit, that you would help us to focus on your word just in this little next bit of time, that you would your word would penetrate our hearts, you would soften our hearts, you would open our minds, um, and that you would stir our thoughts, that whatever you have for us by your spirit would be exactly what we need to hear today.

And so, Lord, we invite you to work in us and among us this morning, and that you would just bring life into the words I speak, and that you would encourage us, convict us, um do whatever it is, Lord, that you want to do, and as we are open, we want to hear from you, Lord.

So um come meet us here, we pray in Christ's mighty name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so um when our daughters were little, uh, they used to be so excited whenever they heard dad's um door key.

Like they would hear the key go, they would hear the garage door make that noise, and they would just run.

Whatever they were doing, they would drop it and they would run.

And they would start climbing on him on his knees and just like lift their arms up to be picked up.

They would do that before he even had a chance to drop his keys down or put his backpack down.

They were so excited to see him and tell him about their day.

They'd be talking a mile a minute, bringing stuff to him.

Um, and but on the days where they misbehaved, where they had a timeout, where they were really cranky, where something had not gone well, um, they wouldn't, they wouldn't greet him.

They would wait or they would hide.

Um, they weren't as eager to uh be with him.

And so I think when they did something wrong, um, we you typically had this process with them.

And it wasn't like, you know, we thought, okay, this is what we need to do with this process.

I think it kind of evolved over time.

So we would have this four-part conversation.

So if they did something wrong, we would go where they were, and whether it was their bed or the playroom or on the floor, we would meet them where they were, and then we would kind of go through this four-step process.

And I really don't know where I got it, except that I think it really resonates with how God deals with us and our sin.

Um, so this may be in the beginning of my coaching and my pastoral skills back then, way back.

Um, so we would, the four-step process was we would ask, what did you do wrong?

Why was it wrong?

How can you make it right, and what would you do differently next time?

So the process looks something like this.

What did you do wrong?

I pushed my sister because she tried to take my toy.

This was a common one.

Um, why was it wrong?

Because it made her cry and she could be hurt.

Um, how can you make it right?

I'll say I'm sorry.

Okay, footnote here, sometimes they would say, but I'm not sorry.

And I would say, Do you want to time out until you're sorry?

Oh, I'm really sorry now.

I'm ready, I'm ready to say sorry now.

Um, and then the last one, what would you do differently next time?

I will take turns and I'll share my toy.

And so we use this process to help our kids understand and become aware of their actions, understand the consequences on other people as well as themselves, and then practice making better decisions last time.

It kind of gave them that agency, this practice.

And I think God, our Heavenly Father, has a similar process for us, his beloved children.

When we do something wrong, we disobey God, we act in ways that are not aligned with God's will for us, um, or our commitment to Jesus, then I think the Holy Spirit helps us become aware of it and confess it, become convicted of it, repent, then to turn away from sin, and then choose to change, to restore this right relationship back with God ourselves and others.

And when I say it like this, it seems really simple, right?

You're like step one, two, three, four.

Um, but we know it's really hard to difficult and so difficult for us to face our sins and to acknowledge when we've messed up.

Instead of confession, we are tempted to hide from God and to pretend it didn't happen or just to kind of bury, bury it, um, as if, as if we could hide from God of the universe who is omniscient, omnipresent, and knows everything.

But this is what Adam and Eve does, and this is sometimes what we do.

So earlier in chapter three, last week, you saw how Adam and Eve gave in to temptation, believed Satan's lies, and then disobeyed God by eating the fruit that he had forbidden them to eat.

So we pick up their story here today.

Turn your Bibles or on the screens to Genesis 3, 8 to 10.

Um, and I'm live I'm reading from the New Living Translation for all the passages.

So when the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden.

So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.

Then the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?

He replied, I heard you walking the garden, so I hid.

I was afraid because I was naked.

Adam and Eve knew that they had disobeyed God's command and that it was not good.

And eating that fruit, it did not give them what they thought it would.

Um Satan had lied.

And now they hear God coming and they hide.

They're naked, they're ashamed, they're afraid.

But up until this point, Adam and Eve had enjoyed this beautiful, um, clear communion with the Lord God.

They had been with him and they had partnered with him in naming the animals.

They were given stewardship over all of creation.

Um, they walked together in the garden.

I imagine this happened on a regular basis, and they enjoyed this perfect pure union and closeness with God.

But when sin enters the human heart, it then opens a door for shame and fear to walk in.

So shame is this common universal human experience.

We've all felt this.

Um, it's the emotion that we do not enjoy.

It's that flush of guilt, this feeling like, ooh, we've been found out.

It feels really vulnerable.

And we've been found out as being not enough.

Whatever that may be, not good enough, not competent enough, not kind enough, not spiritual enough, fill in the blank of what that is for you.

And we also feel exposed that now someone has seen something about us that we were trying not to show.

And we wanted to present something better than we actually were, and that sense of shame makes us run for cover.

Um, have you ever done something or said something and you wish like the floor would open up and you could just hide in the hole until it passes?

Like I have definitely been there.

I put my foot in my mouth, and we'll go through great lengths to avoid that feeling of shame because it's so uncomfortable and it's so painful.

But sometimes we get shame mixed up with guilt, and they're two very different things, and it's so important that we understand the difference.

As sociologist and shame researcher Brene Brown pointed out, there's a profound difference between shame and guilt.

I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful.

It's holding something we've done or failed to do up against our values and feeling the psychological discomfort.

I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.

Something we've experienced, done, or failed to do has made us unworthy of connection.

So, simply put, guilt says, I did something wrong, and shame says I am wrong.

Guilt equals I did something bad, shame equals I am bad.

So guilt is a temporary emotion, while shame is more of a state of being.

It's like a filter by which we see ourselves and see ourselves as not being worthy in some way.

So in biblical terms, this is a similar profound difference between feeling convicted of sin versus feeling condemned because of sin.

Conviction of sin is an appropriate awareness, kind of like guilt, where I realize, ooh, I did something that didn't measure up to God's standard or God's desire for me, and the commitment that I made, I violated that commitment to follow Jesus there.

And Romans 3.23 tells us that we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So that is our reality.

Every day we are going to fall short.

We just have to accept that this is our reality.

But there's a gap between us and God that God meets in us.

So when sin um happens, we don't measure up, we experience that conviction, and then it moves us to ask God for help because we need his help always.

And then we choose to change.

We choose to seek reconciliation, to make amends, to restore ourselves from with God.

And this is a healthy, holy process.

In fact, it is the Holy Spirit who actually stirs our hearts and thoughts towards conviction.

Psalm 139, which is kind of the key psalm for this message, opens with acknowledgement: O Lord, you have examined my heart.

You know everything about me, you know everything I do, you know what I'm gonna say before I say it.

And then he closes many verses later with this prayer Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my thoughts.

God knows us better than we could ever, ever know ourselves.

Psalm 139 could have entitled, God already knows, and he loves you anyway.

Um and we experience ourselves from the inside, and we just want to hide what's on the outside, but God already sees all of it.

It's been so interesting, and as I coach um leaders and people, that sometimes we'll do these 360 reviews, which basically you have the client and then their assessment of how they're doing, but then you ask their boss, their um employees, their uh colleagues, and usually the picture's not the same.

They can only see themselves from the inside, but other people are experiencing how they are on the outside.

And then the the goal, of course, is to match that up and to make changes if necessary.

So, similarly, we all have blind spots.

We are great at justifying our actions.

So we want to regularly ask the Holy Spirit and a trusted Christian close friend or your spouse or somebody who knows you well to say, hey, what's wrong in me that can be changed?

What do I need to tweak or change?

So conviction is a good thing because it leads us to change and it often comes through the Holy Spirit.

Condemnation, on the other hand, is more like shame.

It's corrosive, it's like rust on metal.

Initially starts off small with a small sin, and then more and more rust builds until the metal's integrity is broken and it falls apart.

When we feel condemned, we're not led towards repentance or to turn things around or to make changes.

The fear of condemnation makes us so much more likely to hide or to ignore or get really defensive and self-protective.

Condemnation keeps us trapped and stuck in shame.

Because it feeds us these lies from the enemy that we are hopeless and helpless and we cannot change.

That is not true.

That is not the gospel.

And it keeps us hiding from God and from ourselves.

We live in a culture that is constantly trying to shame us by telling us that what we have isn't enough, and that what we are isn't enough.

Um, and for example, for mothers, a lot of um the pressure we're under is such an impossible standard.

You know, if you are a stay-home mom, then there's pressure to do all of that perfectly.

If you are a working mom, then there's additional pressure to do all of that perfectly, um, or any combination in between.

And I remember between my career as an attorney and a pastor, I spent about five years being a stay-home mom, and it was such a privilege financially to be able to do so.

And I would, I love that time, I wouldn't change a thing except that it was really hard.

I look at those babies up here, I'm like, that's nonstop diapers and spit-ups and laundry, and it's tedious, and it's it's it's a lot of um lot of labor.

Um, but at the same time, when I was a working mom, then I felt the pressure of, okay, I'm not home enough, I'm not doing um bringing the you know the best snacks.

Like, okay, true story.

So I used to feel guilty that I couldn't bring like the best homemade snacks or whatever.

And so I felt a little less than because of that, and I couldn't go on a field trip or be team mom, all the things.

And then this one mom early on, like she took me aside and she said, Carolyn, this is what you do as a working mom.

She was a working mom for many years, and she said, You go to an upscale grocery store, like Whole Foods or something, and then you get, you buy it, then you put it on a pretty plate, you crumble a little bit, and then you bring it and you pass it off as homemade.

In the first service, someone actually said, That's a great idea.

So someone's doing it in the first service, but I didn't ever have the guts to do it, but that just tells you the kind of the level of pressure that moms face.

And it's not just moms, everybody faces this pressure to measure up to a certain level and to be presented in a certain way.

We all get hung up and we hide, we pretend to live up to our culture's definition.

And it fills our lives and then it feeds the shame monster.

But we have another choice.

We can choose to let Jesus tell us who we are.

And I remember asking God every season of my life, is this what I'm needed most?

Is this what I should be doing?

Whether it was ministry, whether it was home, whatever it was, and asking God, I want to be with you, I want to partner with you.

So is this the space?

And then if so, how do I do this well?

How do I do this well as a stay-home mom or a working mom or whatever it is that you've called me to do?

And I think we need to constantly ask God to sort our priorities, to help us figure out, okay, where are the areas of our weakness, where are the areas that God wants to shape us and mold us and change us?

And we can do this.

We don't have to hide because God's mercy covers all of us.

So we can trust the good news.

1 John 1 9 tells us if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

And then Romans 8 1 to 2, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

If you are someone who struggles with thoughts of condemnation or not enoughness, or feel like a failure, or feel like you're stuck, this is the verse to memorize.

Just that one line.

There is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus.

He has already set you free.

And let that truth just soak into your bones.

And then you accept God's invitation to shift your sin and shame to conviction, not to condemnation.

And then we can move forward with repentance and forgiveness.

Some people, I think, get stuck thinking, okay, I'm just gonna confess and repent, and then they confess, repent, and they just keep repeating that cycle.

At some point, we want to move towards and away from condemnation and move in that freedom of God's forgiveness.

So let's go back to the Garden of Eden, back to our text.

So Adam and Eve had a choice when they heard God walking.

They could have called out to him, they could have run up to him, fall on their knees, and say, I messed up.

Um they could have confessed, they could have done many things, but they didn't do any of that.

They had a choice, they could face up to their sin or they could hide.

And we read this now, right?

And we go, how silly for them to think they could hide from God.

And yet, don't we do the same?

It's like this picture of a ship on the rough seas, trying to dodge and hide from the light coming into from the lighthouse that's shining its way back home.

Instead of going towards and to, and inside the lighthouse, this you try to maneuver your own ship on the storm and stumble around.

And so, what are some things that we try to hide from God?

Our sins, the idols of the world that we're pursuing instead, our addictions, whether it's you know, alcohol, gambling, porn, drugs, shopping, whatever it may be, um, our selfishness and our self-righteousness, perhaps unforgiveness that we're hung holding on to.

Um, basically, anything that causes us to do our own thing, to set ourselves apart from God, will lead us to feeling shame.

And a related question might be why are you hiding?

Why are you avoiding God's light and moving towards that?

Um, I think it's because we want to protect ourselves from seeing ourselves and from other people from seeing us as we really are.

We want to pretend that we're better off than we are, because it's so painful to see that where we fall short.

Um, we might not trust that God loves us and would actually forgive us and embrace us back.

We may be afraid of judgment from other people or rejection from God, or it may be that we're really enjoying the sin and we don't want to give it up.

So we don't want to repent or change, and change is always hard.

So Adam and Eve's choice to hide reflects their misunderstanding of God and his amazing grace and unconditional love.

Adam's response to God's question, where are you?

reveals that he does not know God's heart.

He's self-focused with his fear and shame and avoidance of punishment.

He has forgotten the character of the God who made him, the God who provided for him, and the God who loves him.

He's forgotten that God is with him and for him.

And I recently was talking to my daughters as I was preparing this message about what they remember.

Um they're 24 and 26 now.

So, like, what do they remember about when they were little and they were being disciplined for misbehaving?

And they both said the same thing.

They said they knew that the punishment would be worse if they didn't come clean fast.

They knew that the hiding was going to be worse.

And you know how many politicians and public figures get in trouble, not because of what they've done, but because of the cover-up.

So it's kind of that idea.

And I was so glad to hear this because I was trying to train them not just to own up to their mistakes and take responsibility, but the reason I wanted them to fess up fast was because as long as they weren't coming clean, there would be an obstruction, a barrier between us and them.

They would feel that fear and they would have to hold that tension and stress of hiding.

And I didn't want them to live wondering if they would be forgiven or if they would still be loved.

I didn't want them to carry that heavy burden.

And I think God doesn't want us to carry that burden.

And he wants us to come to him so that he can show us his love and his grace, and that we don't have to live in that tension and that shame any longer.

And then that we would know that his love never changes.

He is always coming after us with his goodness.

The other problem with hiding from God is that when we do that, we often also have to hide from ourselves.

So instead of seeing ourselves holistically as beloved children of God in all areas of our life, we segment our spiritual lives.

We have our personal life.

Imagine like a pie chart.

Your personal life, your work life, your relational life, your sexual life, your financial life, probably missing some other types of lives.

But basically, we kind of tend to segment all of it.

So we come to church to worship, which we're so glad you're here.

We go to life group for fellowship with other Christians, um, but we may never confess the deeper things.

We may have times with the Lord where we pray and read scripture, but we may not be real about what's underneath the bitterness, the resentment, the pain, whatever may be underneath it.

Um, the things that make us feel ashamed.

And we become segmented people and not integrated.

So we're at war with ourselves.

And it's a bit like the TV show super popular right now on Apple, um, Severance.

I don't know if you guys have watched Severance.

Season one was really good.

It's a sci-fi show.

Season two, I just don't have the brain energy for it.

I don't quite understand it all.

But the whole premise of this show is so fascinating.

It's that these people have chosen, characters have chosen to sever their work life from their home life.

And their emotions and relationships are all self contained in either of those spheres.

The problem, of course, is that human beings are not segmented, and so now they're they bleed in.

They start to bleed in and start to affect each other's life.

And while things are separate, they're experiencing this tension of.

Am I this person?

Am I this person?

I think we also, when we're hiding from God, hiding from ourselves, we experience this tension when we act in ways that we know are not pleasing to the Lord.

We know when we've sinned and we haven't owned up to it, when we've hurt people and haven't asked for forgiveness, we have this conflict within ourselves.

So when we hide from God, we're lost to ourselves and who we were created to be.

I was here a few months ago preaching about Imago Day, the idea that God created human beings in his image and in his likeness to become more like his son Jesus Christ.

And so when we hide, we lose that part of ourselves because we're not bringing that before the Lord.

It takes a lot of energy and the mental, spiritual, emotional energy to hide.

It's actually easier and more clear to just allow ourselves to be fully real, fully vulnerable, to present ourselves to the Lord as we actually are.

And we can't do this without the Lord's help.

Because there's actually a spirit in us that is convicting us and calling us back home to the Father.

And remember, shame isn't an emotion, it's a lens with which we view ourselves.

But Jesus Christ gives us a better lens, the lens of freedom and salvation and hope and healing.

So when we move from hiding, we can come into the light where Jesus is and he can meet us there.

And he always wants to meet us there.

And so we become more fully who we are when we draw closer to God, more integrated and more whole.

So as the Lord God walks in the garden, he asks, Where are you?

Well, clearly, God isn't asking about a physical location.

He is omniscient, omnipresent.

He knows exactly where they are.

He does not need a GPS system.

He's inviting a connection.

I think he's asking them to give voice to their lostness and giving an opportunity to reconnect, to face him, because he wants to love them.

He is the pursuer, the chaser, the inviter, and he's the God who loves us recklessly, extravagantly.

We see that with the prodigal son.

So God is always taking that first step.

He's always calling out, looking for you, asking, where are you?

And so how will you respond?

What does it look like to come out of hiding and move into his light?

The first step to do that is confession, to repent with a contrite, humble heart.

So ask God what is hiding within your soul.

Psalm 139, 23, 24 says, Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

It's kind of like the airport TSA x-ray.

When you walk through, you're like, you forget, you don't even know that there's metal in your shoe until it goes off, and you're like, oh, there's metal in my shoe.

It's we're asking God to show us in our souls and our minds what's hiding in there and asking him to reveal it so that we can deal with it together.

Jesus' invitation is always to connect in prayer and he's always waiting.

So step one is to confess and repent.

Step two is to receive forgiveness and move into the light.

You don't have to dwell in step one that long.

You just repent and you say, okay, God help me.

Then you receive your his forgiveness.

1 John 1:7.

1 John 1:7

But we are living in the light as God is in the light.

And then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

You don't have to have it all figured out.

You just need to take a step towards God.

Come as you are, mess on all the brokenness, and let God's light shine through.

And his light will expose whatever hiddenness there is and reveal the deeper beauty within you.

You become more you and more of his masterpiece.

So a third step then, after repenting and after receiving his forgiveness, is then to hide in God and not from God.

We want to anchor our identity deeply in Christ.

So here's an image of what that might look like.

You're on the same rough waters now, but you, and I don't know if you can see his tiny figure inside the lighthouse.

You're hiding securely within the light of God's love, no matter what storms you're facing.

Psalm 32 says, For you are my hiding place.

You protect me from trouble.

You surround me with songs of victory.

And the Lord says, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.

He's not withholding anything good from you.

I will, I that was my add-on.

I will advise you and watch over you.

This reminded me as I was preparing of an iconic children's story that was published in 1942 at the start of World War II.

It was, it's called The Runaway Bunny, and it was published then, it was a scary, unstable time being of the war.

And I remember having this as actually the version of the book I used to read to the girls.

I remember they love this book, and I told them I was going to use it here, and they're like, oh, but mom, it's kind of a stalker mom story.

It's not really emotionally healthy.

It may be, but I think it's a great picture of how God loves and chases after us.

And this being Mother's Day, I want to read you this story, and I want you to substitute yourself as the little bunny and God as the mother.

So we're going to read this together.

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.

So he said to his mother, I'm running away.

If you run away, said his mother, I will run after you, for you are my little bunny.

If you run after me, said the little bunny, I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.

If you become a fish in a trout stream, said his mother, I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.

If you become a fisherman, said the little bunny, I will become a rock on a mountain high above you.

If you become a rock on the mountain high above me, said his mother, I will be a mountain climber and I will climb to where you are.

If you become a mountain climber, said the little bunny, I will be a crocus in a hidden garden.

If you become a crocus in a hidden garden, said his mother, I will be a gardener and I will find you.

If you are a gardener and find me, said the little bunny, I will be a bird and fly away from you.

If you become a bird and fly away from me, said his mother, I will be a tree that you come home to.

Okay, that's a little stalkery right there.

Agreed, agreed.

Okay.

If you become a tree, said the little bunny, I will become a little sailboat and I will sail away from you.

If you become a sailboat and sail away from me, said his mother, I will become the wind and blow you to where I want you to go.

If you become the wind and blow me, said the little bunny, I will join a circus and fly away on a flying trapeze.

If you go flying on a flying trapeze, said his mother, I will be a tightrope walker and I will walk across the air to you.

If you become a tightrope walker and walk across the air, said the bunny, I will become a little boy and run into a house.

If you become a little boy and run into a house, that is mother bunny, I will become your mother and catch you in my arms and hug you.

Shocks, said the bunny.

I may as well just stay where I am and be your little bunny.

And so he did.

Have a carrot, said the mother bunny.

Um, and they then that is where they stay.

This image of the God who's always pursuing us, his goodness and loving kindness is comes after us and chases us.

That's Psalm 23, all the days of our life from before is the same God who hemms us in before us, behind us, by us.

We are never outside of his care and his concern for us.

And so once our true identity and purpose are found in Christ and not in the things of the world, we can have our lives be hidden in God, in that safety and security.

Colossians 3.3 tells us, for you have died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God, our real life, the life that is eternal, the life that is always protected and safe.

So, you know, we hide things that are valuable, right?

Um, our jewelry, our passports, money, um, and we want to make sure that those things are protected and safe.

This is how God regards us.

We are so infinitely precious to Him.

He protects us, He saves us, He embraces us.

Early on when I was working as a pastor, a spiritual mentor told me that if I'm gonna stay in vocational ministry for a long time, that I needed to make sure that I protect that hidden life with Jesus, that it wouldn't be turned into every sermon, it wouldn't be a teaching moment, it wouldn't be all the things, but rather that I protect this core, core piece of it.

And I think that is not just true for people in vocational ministry, it's true for all of us.

We need to protect that core, still small place, an intimate space that's just you and Jesus communing together and allowing God to work with us in that space, to root our identity in who he is and not what we have done.

It's letting his grace speak louder than any sin or shame.

And that's why we sing amazing grace because it really is indeed amazing.

So this morning, the question before you that God is asking is where are you?

Child of God, would you stop hiding from him and instead choose to hide in him?

The good news of the gospel invites you to hide your life, your heart, your will, your treasures, all of it, your future in Christ alone.

Because in his presence is the fullness of joy, the life that is truly life.

So I invite you to accept his invitation to dwell in his hiding place, where you are fully known, fully seen, fully accepted, fully loved, and fully at rest.

On the tables outside, um Evita and her team prepared these lovely cards right outside there.

And it has um four verses behind it from Psalm 139, and it says, Let Jesus Christ be your hiding place now and forevermore.

And I invite you to pick up one of these just to put it, you know, somewhere where you'd see it this week, so that you'd be reminded that God wants to be your hiding place and he is safe.

He's always safe.

There's no need to ever hide from him.

So let him be your hiding place.

And let's pray.

Oh Lord God, thank you for your invitation.

Thank you that you are our hiding place, that you've chosen to be with your people.

And God, I ask for each person here.

You know what is in their hearts, you know what they need.

God, if they need to confess something, I pray that you would lead them to do that.

If they need to repent, that you would lead them through conviction for that.

If they need to be made aware of something that they can't see in themselves, I pray you would bring that about so that there's no separation in their relationship with you.

Pray, God, that by your spirit you would give us courage to come out of hiding, to enter your marvelous light, to embrace what you have for us fully.

May we trust you more, may we love you more, may we follow you more closely.

May we live in the power and the presence of Jesus Christ, God, in the person and the power that He offers us.

May we be people who just exude that presence and that spills out to everyone around us, God, to be a conveyor of love and goodness and joy just as you feel that in us, Lord.

Um, so God, thank you.

Thank you for your invitation, God.

We accept it.

And I pray you would meet each of us this week in your way as only you can, and may we be alert to your presence and your experiences with you.

God, we want to be part of whatever it is you're doing in our lives.

So, God, we give ourselves over to you and ask for your help in all that we do.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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