Where Are You?

Well, I should have a smaller Bible, I think.

It's just okay.

Where we are now is as as Justin mentioned, we're we're continuing, and you may recall if you've been here for the last few weeks, let me just give you a quick review.

We've been looking at that epic story of the garden with Adam and Eve.

And you may recall a few weeks ago he challenged us to consider what tree are we preoccupied with?

Are we always about just being good enough and then dealing with being bad and that good, bad tree of the bad, forbidden fruit?

Or have we recognized that Jesus has given us the privilege of now being those who are about life and that his hands is committed to sharing life?

And that was the challenge for us.

Have we made that transition to realize we'll never be good enough?

Let's accept the grace of Jesus.

You may recall that he went on after that and challenged us that God had created this perfect paradise, but there was a snake in the garden.

Do you remember that message?

Anyone remember that message?

Yeah, okay.

And that why would God do that in a perfect paradise?

And that maybe, unlike us parents and grandparents, we always want to create a safe place to protect our kids.

Maybe God's more interested in helping us make wise choices and be courageous about that.

See, there's so many lessons in this story.

A few weeks ago, he challenged us of the reality of the devil.

We don't like to talk about that in our culture, but Satan is real, and we have an enemy when we're seeking to serve Christ and raise healthy families who seeks to deceive us, who lies to us and caused, seeks to cause divisions in our lives.

It's a reality.

Then last week, remember, he challenged us of the dad questions, the kind of rapid-fire questions that God posed with Adam and Eve after they had taken that forbidden fruit.

And last week we heard that that second question, that that business of, who told you you were naked?

Who says that?

The kind of says who.

And the challenge for all of us last week, of course, was the what voices are you really listening to?

Are you listening to God's that you are loved and cherished and that you have a divine purpose here on earth?

Or are you listening to your own voices about what the culture says about success or status or guilt or shame?

Or what voices are you listening to?

And that's one we have to obviously wrestle with every day.

Who are we going to listen to?

He asked me this past week if I would consider going back to the first question.

And that first question finds us in Genesis chapter 3, verse 9.

Genesis 3:9

And here's Adam and Eve, and they've made the fig leaves, and they're off hiding from God.

And God comes along and says, calls the man, says, Where are you?

Well, it's not the anger, it's the question that God already knows the answer.

But he's challenging Adam and Eve to consider what are you doing?

Why are you hiding?

Now, now, don't get me wrong, in the days when we raised our kids, in the days before, you know, all the Xbox and virtual reality and all the games that are played by kids all the time, it seems nowadays in our culture, we actually played with our little kids, and one of the favorite games we played was Lost and Found.

It's a lot of fun.

In fact, our our youngest son, uh Kevin, who's an adult here, he's waving now.

He's got a family of his own.

Uh, but when he was real little, he was real little.

You know, on that graph moms, you know, they they graph your kids and they tell you that they're on the 96% tile in weight and height, and you get all excited because they're succeeding or something.

He was at the 4% level.

And it made him a master of hide and seek.

He could he could get behind a pair of boots and he'd disappear.

And God forbid, if he had gotten into a closet where there are coats, you could open the door and move all the coats and you couldn't find him.

I mean, it was just, but Adam and Eve are sp are playing spiritual hide and seek.

I mean, why are they doing that?

You know, the normal answer is, well, they're they're filled with guilt.

They're filled with shame.

They uh they they're just like us, that when we do something wrong or we don't do something we should do, we we we want to run away and hide.

As though that ever does any good.

I mean, that's.

Well, to be honest, that's that's ridiculous.

Why would we stay in darkness rather than just turn to the one who can set us free?

Hide and seek from God?

No, no, maybe it's something else.

Maybe they just want to avoid the truth.

We all do that on a kind of a regular basis, don't we?

I was with dear friends yesterday, Jill and I had spent the day together.

I ate far more than I should have.

Probably drank a little bit more than I should have, but that's not mentioned here.

Um but you know, there was the scale this morning, and I went, no, I'm not gonna stand on that today.

You know, we do that a lot.

We we we avoid the truth that there's something wrong, that we're broken.

So we want to hide from God.

That's what Adam and Eve are doing.

Uh maybe it's that that's just the human condition.

You think?

That life is very complicated, life's really hard, and there's so many issues, there's so many decisions, there's so much to do.

I mean, most of you, I want to give you good news.

You've almost made it through May, moms and dads.

All the graduations, all the school parties, all the homework, all the last part, you've almost made it.

But you probably wouldn't look back for this month and say, yeah, I was perfect in that.

It's kind of a juggling act.

And a lot of things we do that probably in retrospect are wrong.

And maybe that's it.

We just, it's just a human condition that we're out of sorts, and when we're out of sorts, we don't want to look at the one who is holy.

So we hide.

Or maybe it's something else, and it was reiterated in our worship this morning.

Maybe in Adam and Eve really didn't understand the heart of the Father.

Have you ever wondered how long it was before between the time that God said, Don't touch this forbidden fruit?

And they did.

Had they lived in the in the garden for years?

Months?

Minutes?

How long before they got tempted to go, well, let's see what that fruit is and let's see if we can take it?

Everything else is here good, but God said not to go there, so we're gonna go there.

Do they really not understand, though, that his heart was of grace and love?

Had they not been with him that long?

I mean, imagine if they had just taken the time to think about the nature of God.

Think about what uh we're told in Psalm 145.

I mean, it's a wonderful place to go.

I hope you have this underlined or highlighted in your in your Bible.

The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all, then his mercy is over all he has made.

That's the heart of the Father, isn't it?

Why would we want to hide from that?

Why would Adam and Eve want to hide from that at all?

The only hope they have is to look to the Father, don't you think?

Who wants to stay in hiding?

Or maybe, you know, if they'd only, I thought about this on a case if only they had, well, if they had a glimpse like the prophets did, or King David, of the nature of the Son, the grace of Jesus.

Remember, he was the one that taught the story of the prodigal son.

Whoa.

He was the one that talked about the son that ran away from the father, and then woke up and realized he had to go back to the father, and before he could even reach the father, the father is running to him.

That's the heart of the father, isn't it?

The true father now I understand we all have, at least we do, Adam didn't, but we all have earthly fathers.

And oftentimes they weren't perfect, you know what I mean?

And some of us were told, well, you wait till your father gets home.

You know what I mean?

First time I heard that, I wanted to go in hiding.

I'll tell you the story a little bit.

My um my sister, who's four years older and I were good buddies growing up, but we like kids, fought a lot, roughhoused a lot, not real fisticuffs, but wrestled a lot and pushed each other and that kind of stuff.

Of course, I was four years younger, so she was always trying to tell me what to do.

And I was the boy, so I was trying to convince her she didn't need to, and you know, that whole stuff.

We're there in the kitchen fooling around one time, getting a little bit too rough, and I went to grab her shoulder and she ducked.

And she was quicker than I was.

I was probably about seven or eight years old, and my hand went right through the kitchen window of the door, the back door.

You know, that whole wait till your father gets home was ringing in my ears.

So she and I both apologized to dad.

He went out and got the glass, and he did what I couldn't do.

He repaired the glass, and okay, everything's fine, we're good to go.

I'm not upset with my sister, she's not upset with me.

Dad's not too upset with us, he just changed the glass and we're good.

But then a week passed.

We're back at the kitchen, standing next to that same door.

You know where this story goes, don't you?

We're clowning around again.

I didn't swing, I really didn't.

Same hand, same pane of glass.

Broken.

I wanted to go in hiding.

It's not as bad as when I threw it through the window, but the shoulders, her shoulders stopped her.

They did.

You see, we we all do things that we go, uh oh, dad's coming home.

Is that what they're dealing with?

They don't understand the nature of the father?

Is that what we deal with?

Is that what keeps us away from church?

Keeps us away from the word of God?

Because we really don't know the heart of the Father.

Or is it that we really don't know the Son?

You know, I I wonder if if that's the reality that we really haven't embraced the love that Jesus has for us.

I consider just one place, uh John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

It's an amazing message.

This woman who was caught in adultery, and yes, in the story, we don't know whatever happened to the man, but the woman is thrown before the crowd, and they all want to stone her.

And Jesus says, of course, that famous line, he who is without sin, throw the first stone.

And then he turns to her and says, So, and no, everybody walks away, from the oldest to the youngest.

And he turns to her and says, Who's here to condemn you?

And she says, No one's he says, Neither do I go and sin no more.

He doesn't pretend the sin doesn't matter, not at all.

He says, Go and sin no more, but he's not there to condemn, he's there to save.

You've thought about the cross today, haven't you?

Today, this morning.

There's a high price paid for you to be forgiven, to be free.

You don't have to hide from God.

If this is your first Sunday here, you don't have to hide.

You also don't have to live up with the standard that you think we might have in our lives, because we're all there too.

We're all broken, we've all blown it, we've all run into hiding.

But Jesus is our Savior, He's our deliverer.

He's the one we want to run to.

I've also thought about wouldn't it be wonderful if Adam and Eve just for a moment had heard about the Holy Spirit?

I don't know, maybe God had told them, but it didn't get recorded.

Uh Jesus taught us in the upper room with his disciples.

Also Gospel of John.

He said, It's to your advantage I go away.

It's, I tell you the truth, he says to Ephesus, it's to your advantage I go away.

For if I do not go, uh the helper will not come.

But if I go, I'll send him to you.

Uh the helper, which is a hard word in the Greek to translate into English, because we don't have the same kind of thing.

So it often gets translated as helper, advocate, guide, counselor.

Someone who's there on our behalf who wants to help us.

That's the Holy Spirit.

That's the God that's present here with us now.

The God who's trying to gently lead us back to the Father to get us into more important things than hiding in our past or being filled with shame of our past or thinking that somehow we'll feel better if just time passes.

What a big lie that is.

I know people are still dealing with burdens from 40 years ago.

Folks, we don't have to hide from God.

Why do we do that?

We stop praising because we think we'll get too close?

We stop praying because we're afraid he might talk back to us.

We don't go to church so we can pretend there's something more important.

Why why do we do that?

Why do we play the game of hide and seek?

Back to the story of my son Kevin.

Even at his tender preschool age, there was something extraordinary about him, and that was sometimes I hadn't even finished counting to 20, and he'd go, Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo.

I'm going, I guess he doesn't understand the game.

Then I realized he understood it better than I did.

Because the real joy in hide and seek is being found.

It's being found, folks.

And I learned that when he was doing woohoo, I had to be real careful.

Because when I got to that door, he was going to be airborne coming out of that door, and I better catch him.

Because somehow he had figured out at his tender age that it was more important to get a hug from dad than to remain in the darkness.

Do you get it?

Church, do you hear what God wants us to hear today?

We have to decide that if we're going to be people of faith, we can no longer play the game of hide and seek.

We have to turn to God and say, I want to meet God.

I want to be with you, Father.

I want to experience the grace of Jesus.

I want to know the presence of the Holy Spirit.

How do we do that?

Well, let me give you some tips, practical tips, I hope they are for you.

We create a garden.

And I want to show you a garden.

It's a metaphor, but it's a real garden.

It's my wife Jill's garden.

Now, it's it's not it's not Jill and Fred's garden.

It's not our garden, it's her garden.

Uh here's a picture of her garden.

Uh oh, it's a little small picture.

Okay.

This is you haven't gotten to the garden yet.

It's not that big a garden, but it's a garden.

It's got a fence and all.

And um years ago, when she told me she wanted a garden out on the back part of our lawn, she said, and oh Fred, I'm gonna need water.

You're gonna need water.

I'm thinking, okay, every time I go to mow the lawn, I'll have a hose in the way.

And I was sharing that with a friend, and and Gary said to me, Well, let's just get a ditch witch and we'll run some PVC and put water out in the garden for her.

And we'll run electricity too while we're there.

And I went, We can do that.

And he said, Well, sure, Fred, of course.

Tell you what, I've got a truck.

I'll pick up a ditch witch and we'll do it on Monday.

I'll be there at 10 o'clock if that's right.

And I went, Yeah, okay, sure.

So, you know, I didn't mention to you.

Uh Gary's about 6'4, about 280 pounds.

And he, guys, he drives one of those trucks like you guys, some of you guys do, that for people my size, it's hard to get into.

And I feel like I'm getting into Daddy's truck.

You know, I know it's it's really macho to have a big truck, but when you're five foot eight, it's not macho.

It's dangerous.

So he he pulls into the up our hill, and I'm thinking he's got this little like a, you know, like this rotor tiller thing that's gonna make a little hole for us.

He's got this piece of yellow gear on a trailer that looks like it eats boulders for breakfast.

Going, what is he doing?

He maneuvers this thing out, cranks this puppy up.

Of course, the whole neighborhood has woken up, and and he starts, he says, You want it right here?

I said, Yeah, and he starts going, well, it's a warm Georgia Georgia day.

And he starts perspiring.

Pretty soon the shirt is soaked.

He's gotten about a third of the way done.

He turns to me and he says, You want to do this?

Do I want to risk my life?

Uh, guys, for those of you who know, this is before the days of F3.

I didn't know what a burpee was in those days.

I'm going, Do I want to do it?

What could I say?

Of course I do, sure.

So he shows me where the throttle is, and I put my hand on the throttle, and all of a sudden, this mega machine is out of the ditch, and I am water skiing across the lawn, heading for the trees.

And and he finally caught up to me and showed me how to turn it off and said, I guess your counterweight isn't sufficient.

I wanted to say hell no, but I'm a pastor, so I wouldn't say that.

But I have learned if anybody comes on my yard with a ditch witch again and they says, Freddie, you want to do this?

I've been through F3.

I can do 20 burpees.

Um no, but I'll walk in and get you some water.

You know?

But I'm telling you that story because the garden has water now.

And as you go in the garden, next picture, last bit, no, go to another picture, the one with the arbor.

You you go through this arbor, and what you find is there's life everywhere.

There's flowers and there's blueberry bushes, and and as you go in further, next picture, you get the you get the herb garden, and you get, I mean, there's blackberries and there's raspberries and there's lilies and there's all sorts of stuff that I couldn't possibly name.

Flowers.

There's all sorts of colors.

And then you continue further and sit in those chairs, and you turn back, and now the picture of the newest edition, it's more water with little fish in it that now need to be fed every day.

And oh, Fred, would you build me some nets to cover them at night so the critters don't get them?

And I thought this was a perfect garden.

They're not supposed to be critters here.

But and it's got lights, and I mean, just it's a beautiful place.

Why does she have this place?

Jill believes that old saying, it's not in the Bible, but she believes that thing you're closer to God in a garden than any place else on earth.

Anyone else believe that?

No, one hand.

Okay, thanks a lot for the commitment.

Jill, you're solo in this crowd, hon.

Um, she has this beautiful place to meet God.

She's not hiding from God.

This is not a garden to hide.

This is a garden for an encounter.

Now, my wife is very creative.

She can grow anything, anywhere.

That's not me.

Let me show you my garden.

Next picture.

That's my garden.

It's a table where I sit with coffee, open my Bible, and read.

I'm using the garden, obviously, the well-watered garden, as a metaphor.

You your place might be going for a walk.

It might be going for a walk in the woods.

It may be coming to church where there have been thousands of people in this place alone, spending tens of thousands of hours to create a place for you to encounter God.

Isn't that wonderful?

Everyone needs that place.

Maybe it's an easy chair.

I would suggest it's not your bed because most of us fall asleep.

But someplace where you can have an expectation of being able to say, yeah, or ooh-hoo, and you know the embrace of God.

But I want to mention to you, biblically, there is a word.

It's a Hebrew word.

I actually learned it from our pastor Justin this week.

I hate it when he turns around and says, Fred, you know this word, don't you?

And I went, uh, can you text it to me?

He said, Fred, do your research.

I went, okay.

Look at this word.

It's an incredible Hebrew word.

It's called Hanaini.

I want you to remember this word, Hinaini.

Can you say it with me?

Hinene.

You know what it means?

It's the exact opposite of what Adam and Eve were doing.

It means, I'm here.

I'm ready, God.

Whatever you want, God, I'm here.

When God called Abraham and said, Abraham.

And Abraham said, Henani, I'm here, Lord.

He said, I want you to sacrifice your son.

Abraham said, Okay, it's the only one you've given me.

I've waited my whole life, but okay.

I trust you, God.

He went to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

You may know the story, a famous story in Genesis.

And before he could sacrifice his son, God said, Abraham, Abraham.

They said, Hanay, I'm here, God.

What do you want?

I'll do whatever you want.

He said, Don't sacrifice your son.

I'll take care of that.

I'll provide the sacrifice.

Little would we know them in his son for us.

When he called Moses the burning bush, he said, Moses, Moses.

And Moses said, Hanay, I'm here, God.

What do you want?

What can I do for you, Lord?

Of course, a long conversation began after that, because after he found out what he was supposed to do, he kind of did the backstroke.

But that's another story.

Then hundreds of years pass, and there's a little boy named Samuel.

And he's having a dream.

And he hears his name called out.

And he wakes up and says, Hanaini.

And he runs to the priest, under whose charge he is.

Samuel goes back a second time.

He hears his name called, he runs back to the priest and says, Hanay! And the priest says, I didn't call you, go back to bed.

Third time, he hears his name called, he runs back to the priest a third time and says, Hanay, I didn't call you, go back to bed.

But maybe this is God.

So if he calls you again, acknowledge you're ready to listen.

Samuel says, when he hears his name again, Hanaini, God says, Samuel, I'm gonna make you a prophet.

Samuel was the one who picked the first king of Israel, Saul.

He's the one who picked and counseled David to be the king.

This boy who said, Hanay, I'm ready, God.

What do you have for me?

Don't you think people of faith ought to be ready for that?

Don't you think we you and I should be those who are always trying to get to a place where we can have the encounter and just tell God, I'm here, I'm ready, what do you have of me?

This this this word, Hanaini, is not just, oh, I'm over here.

It's not that.

It's I'm here, I'm ready to serve.

Whatever you have for me, God.

Now, what's remarkable as we continue in this mystery of even this word and the contrast between what Adam and Eve were doing in hiding when God called, there's something else I want to reveal to you, and that's the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah had in chapter six what is described in Scripture as one of the most remarkable God encounters of all.

The prophet Isaiah, and we're told in chapter six, in the year that King Husiah died, we actually know what that year was.

It was the year seven around the year 740 BC.

So he's he's seven centuries before Jesus.

And he has a vision of heaven.

It's the first time this has ever happened and recorded in Scripture.

And we're told he saw the Lord, and notice just in passing, the Lord is capital L, little O, little R, little D, in almost all Bibles it'll be written that way.

That's the word in the Hebrew, which means Adonai.

That's the word we use to describe our Lord Jesus.

He sees the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

And as we continue, above him stood the seraphim.

Each had six wings, and with two they covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew.

He called to one another, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

Notice the Lord there is capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

That's a different word.

That's the word Yahweh.

So he sees, this is the crazy stuff, seven centuries before Jesus comes to the planet.

He sees the Lord, the king, sitting on the throne, but the angels are all singing to the Godhead, Yahweh.

Holy, holy, holy.

And as the story continues, the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

And I said, Woe is me, for I'm lost, for I'm a man of unclean lips.

I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

My eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

In other words, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

Then one of the seraphim, one of the angels, flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that is taken from the tongs of the altar.

He touched in my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips.

Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

And verse 6, oh sorry, verse 8, I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

Then I said, Hanay.

The prophet says, Here I am, God, I'm ready.

I want to do what you want me to do.

Now Isaiah goes on to be the most, probably the most significant prophet in all the scripture.

Years ago I was taught that if Jesus had used a handbook to learn what it was to be the Messiah, it was probably the prophet Isaiah.

It's filled with messages about what the Messiah will do for us.

But he goes on and says something else quite extraordinary.

And I really invite you to let your heart hear this.

In chapter 52 of Isaiah, he says this.

After he says that we are to awake, and after he says that you were sold for nothing, he says, There will be a day, my people will know my name.

Therefore, in that day they shall know that it is I who speak.

And God says to us, and Amy, I'm right here for you, my people.

I'm closer than a whisper.

God says to us, He knows where we're hiding.

He doesn't want us hiding anymore.

People of faith don't need to hide.

The heart of the Father is drawing us to himself.

The work of the Savior is to keep redeeming us so that we can be alive to him.

The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to fill us and comfort us and strengthen us so we can get about the work that God wants us to do.

And God's saying, Here I am.

I'm right here for you.

One more place.

Isaiah chapter 58.

Isaiah 58 · chapter mention

You see how the word brings life?

The prophet is recognizing a lot of people are playing a religious game.

They're fasting and not meaning it.

It's not in their heart.

And he says in verse 6 Is not this the fast that I choose?

To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

That's what we're doing in Austria, folks.

Through our missionary friends there.

Is this not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, your healing shall spring up speedily, your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, the Lord will answer.

You shall cry and he will say to us, if you will just do what God wants you to do, then the Lord will cry to you, I'm right here, Hanaini.

But it goes on.

If you take away the yoke from the midst, the pointing of the finger, spreading wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry, you satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness, your gloom be as the noonday, and the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and make your bones strong, and you shall be a watered garden.

My brothers and sisters, do you understand what God wants to do with your life and with mine?

He wants to make your life a well-watered garden.

Because you've spent time with him, and you are telling him day after day after day in that place of encounter, whether it's your walk or your Bible readings or your prayers or coming to church, and you're saying to him over and over again, here I am, God, I'm ready.

And he turns to us and says, I'm here also.

Let's do this together.

And he makes us well-watered gardens so people can experience God through us.

It's not magic.

It's a mystery of the Father's heart, the father's love for you and me.

Because every one of us is here because someone invited us or influenced us enough to come and seek, to come and see, and to come out of hiding.

And Aini, here I am, Lord.

Excuse me.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word that brings life.

We thank you that unlike Adam and Eve, we don't have to hide from you ever.

Because you love us, you send your son to die and redeem us, you grant us your spirit to comfort and strengthen us.

Oh Lord and Amy, here we are, Lord.

Use us and help us to hear that when we doubt, you speak to us and say, Here I am.

Let's do this together.

And now, Lord, we come to you on behalf of these who seek to be baptized to enter into your grace.

Bless them, Lord, and make them new as you make us new every day.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.