Closer | Vision Month Part 3

Wow. Thank you, God, for what you're doing in our lives. I'm so excited about today. We do have a word for the year and that word is, do you know it? Closer. That's right. Closer. And this is what the word that God dropped in my heart for all of us, me personally, but us collectively as a church family, we're moving closer, closer to Christ, closer to his church and closer to his mission. If you have your Bibles, I want you to open up with me to the book of Genesis chapter three, Genesis chapter three, and we're going to see if we can make sense of why we have a platform that looks a little bit like a garden today. We actually have this at all of our locations. Genesis chapter three, beginning in verse number eight, it says, 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 among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you? He answered, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid. I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid. When God had first put this word closer in my heart and I started digging through the scriptures to see where the Lord would lead me, I ended up here in this passage in Genesis. In Genesis chapter three, when you read this here, it jumped off the page at me. I had not seen this before. Some of you who are deeper than me, I'm sure you'd seen it long before I ever had. But here is God coming towards, coming closer towards the man and the woman. This is after they have sinned, after they have fallen, after they have rebelled, turned their hearts away from God and God is still moving closer and they are hiding. And I noticed for the very first time that they're hiding amongst the trees of the garden. The very place that God gave them as a gift, they're using as a shield. God invited them into a beautiful story, something that they could not make themselves and God planted and prepared this beautiful place for them. And after God prepares this place, after things get twisted, the very thing that God gave them is now used to keep them away or they use to create distance between them and God. You ever prayed for a promotion and you got it? Or prayed for a house or a family or whatever it is and before you got it, you're like, God, if you give me this, I'm going to follow you all the days of my life. Oh God, if you open up this door for me. Oh God, I'm telling you, you ain't never seen somebody that's going to be more committed than me, Lord. I'm going to be locked in like you don't. I'm going to define locked in for a generation. That's

what it's going to look like, Lord. Once you give me this blessing, this promotion, this person, this whatever, once I get that, then you're going to see a whole new me. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen God bless people and give them opportunities and open doors and give them favor and get the promotion, get the job, get the relationship, get the whatever. And then a few weeks, months, or maybe years later, they are hiding amongst the trees that the very thing that God gave them, they are now using to hide behind. And it's not developing their walk with God. It's actually impeding their walk with God. And I feel like God is compelling me and all of us in the theater online and every single location on the balcony and on the floor that we are going to come out of hiding, that we're no longer going to hide behind the blessings and the provision and the wonderful things that God has given us. Instead, we're going to use these things to propel us forward, to be the men and women that God has called us to be. And in Jesus' name, I pray that we would come out of hiding. It's too easy to say, God, if you give this to me, then I will. And then we get it. And then we don't. So we don't want God to have to remove the thing in order for us to have us, in order for him to have us. So let's go ahead and say, God, since you gave this, how can I steward this, use this? Not to hide, but to move closer. I recognize there's a grind out there, right? And we wanna make more money and we wanna have more time. I mean, there's a long list of we want to, we want to, we want to, we want to, we want to. If you get the full list and you have a family and you wanna be closer to your family, but now we are allowing the very things that we have on our list to create distance between us and our family. And I think God's going, no, that's not why I gave you that blessing. I didn't give you that blessing

so that you're not in church anymore. I gave you that blessing so you'd be even more planted in church. I didn't give you that blessing so you'd be disconnected from me. I gave you that blessing so you'd be more connected to me. And this is an invitation that God has given all of us. You can come closer. You can come closer. So the text is really, really clear and I'm reading it and I go, oh man, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I don't know how I'm going to, I don't have the words to articulate the beauty, the intimacy, the connection of the Garden of Eden. I don't, I'm not gifted enough to do this. And I'm trying to paint a picture for all of us of this Garden of Eden, but it's so far from where we all actually live. I mean, we don't live in Eden. We live in DoorDash. We're in Uber Eats. We live in planning to move or I wanna be pregnant and I wanna lose this weight and I hope he likes me. I'm gonna wear this because I hope I get her attention and she's at the gym at that time, so I'm gonna go to the gym at that time. We live in, I hope my business gets off the ground. We live in doctor's visits.

We live in, I'm planning a wedding. We live in Valentine's Day. I hate it. We live in just the mundane of life. We live in I've got bills. We live in I'm trying to get into law school. I'm trying to make a better life for me and my family. That's where we live. We live in, I don't know what my future holds, but I feel like there's more on the inside of me and I'm not quite sure how to actually get to where God is wanting me to go, but I feel something deep on the inside that I shouldn't stay stuck where I am. That's where we live. We live in like rehab appointments. We live in surgeries. We live in neighbors that are getting on our nerves or dogs that just keep on barking. We live in kids that are getting on our last nerve and they say something else to me, I'm hoping everybody's behind. And you're not even my kids. We live in just, we live in this world and I'm trying to paint a picture of the Garden of Eden and I just, there's a really big gap. So it's gonna have to be, as it always is, a work of the Holy Spirit. To capture our hearts, because I don't have, I want things to be practical.

I think they ought to be. But today I'm praying not even just for practical, I'm praying for transformational. I'm praying for meaningful. I'm praying for soul to be stirred. I'm praying that you would taste and see that the Lord is good. And you'd have such a taste for his presence that anything else that's a counterfeit, you would just spit it out immediately and run back to the real. I'm praying not just that your head is impacted, and I want that to be impacted, but I'm praying that your heart is. So it's an invitation here to this garden over the next couple of weeks, this Garden of Eden. Let's see if God can do something deep and profound in all of us. Go with me to Genesis chapter one. This is before the garden shows up. Genesis chapter one, very first book of the Bible. I love hearing all the pages turn. I wanna keep on encouraging you, bring your Bible. I've got a lot of stuff in Genesis chapter 1 underlined in my Bible, things that just jumped off the page at me. Genesis chapter 1 beginning in verse number 1, it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters and God said, let there be light and there was light. Okay, there's a lot of fun stuff here in Genesis chapter 1.

One of the very first things I want us to see is it says, in the beginning, God. Whenever I've done a wedding over the past few years, I've used this passage of scripture to say, as you're starting your marriage, let's not put husband and wife in the beginning. Let's put God in the beginning. Whenever you start a dating relationship, instead of just your needs or your wants or your flesh, as the Bible might call it, or maybe even our lust, come on, our thirstiness being at the beginning, instead let's put God at the beginning of our dating relationships too. Before we start a company, let's not just make it about the numbers and the investors. Let's make it about God at the beginning too. Whenever you're about to start a family, let's not put the kids at the beginning. Let's put God at the beginning. This is how the whole story unfolds. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. The Bible is painting the picture that he is before all things, after all things, and sustains all things. In the beginning, God. I like that it does not start with, in the beginning, you. Our days start with, in the beginning, me. How am I feeling? Oh, my back. Oh, my goodness. My ankles. My knees. Why is my neck hurting? I don't even know how. I just slept. That's what happens when you get over 35.

It ain't right. Another reminder that we're going to be in heaven one day. We wake up with us on our minds, but the Bible starts not with us at the center. It starts with God at the center. I like that. He's in the beginning. I think you ought to be in the beginning of our days and the beginning of every part of our lives. Not only is God in the beginning. This is some really high-level, quick stuff I'm going to go through here in the book of Genesis. You also see the Trinity in Genesis. You see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It says, in the beginning, God. There's the Father. Then you see the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. There's the Spirit. Then in verse number three, you said, and God said, let there be light. Now you see the word through which everything was created. That is the Son who is the word. You can read that in John chapter one. You got God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all right there in the very beginning of Genesis. Not only do you have that, this is fun too. You have people go, how could there be light, but there was no Son? Well, the book of Genesis chapter one is not just trying to give us some scientific explanation of how the world came together. It's trying to help us understand that God is in control of everything, and he's the one that orders it all. So this is what you got to do.

You can read this later. Day number one actually corresponds with day number four, and day number two goes along with day number five, and day number three actually goes with day number six. It is God saying, I'm over here playing chess, and y'all are playing checkers. I know what I'm doing and how I ought to do it. And he's saying, I can feel everything when I want to feel things, how I want to feel things, and life is not an accident. It's all on purpose, and it's on purpose because I decided it would be on purpose. That there is a designer, and he's not far off and removed. He is present and involved in all of humanity, and mankind is not a mistake. They're intentional. Then you get all the way to day number seven. You got day one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Oh, sorry, I did a six, seven. I shouldn't have done that. Man, I don't know about y'all, I'm ready for that to die. Day number seven, God rests. Was he tired? No, he's not tired. What he's doing is he's training. Now, when the people who first heard, they didn't read it, they heard it first because the Bible wasn't written, they were hearing it. They heard it first. They heard that the creator rested, and the people who are first hearing this were slaves. for 400 years. It's a short of Israel. They were slaves in Egypt for 400 years. They did not know. They did not know rest. They did not know stop, rest. They knew pressure, perform, make more, do better, go faster, build higher. That's what they knew. From morning to night, I own you, I'm above you, I'm oppressing you. This is what they knew. And then these people come out of bondage, come out of slavery, and they are used to just working and working and working and working and working and working and working.

And then God says, rest. He's retraining their minds and their souls to say, you are not what you produce. He's saying to them, I'm your source, and I'm your sustainer. I'm the one that provides what you need. You don't provide what you need. I provide what you need. You're not in charge. I'm in charge. Now, I don't know about y'all, maybe you don't feel like you've been in slavery, because maybe some of y'all do with your job. Your boss is like, man, he's terrible. She's terrible. But you do understand the pressure of keep going. Don't stop. Do more. Build higher. Go further. You know that. You know that. Oh, I'm the fifth in the class. I'm trying to be first in the class. You know that. You know we have 5% of the market share, but we're trying to get 15% of the market share. You know that. You know I got one kid. Now I'm going to two kids. Oh, I'm about to have three kids, and oh my goodness. You know that. You know the wrestle and the drive and the intensity that it takes to keep on moving forward. And then in Genesis chapter 1, you see God saying he rested and he made this day holy. Why would God do that? He is trying to train a whole generation of people that I am your everything. I am your source. And when you are not working, there are things that I can do on your behalf when you are resting that I cannot do in you or for you when you are working. So in order for you to see another side of my provision and my glory, you're going to have to be willing to lay down your pride, lay down your ego, lay down what's in your hands. And when you lay it down, you will see me do something in you and for you that will be miraculous that you could not do yourself. But you don't get that kind of miracle if you try to just keep going and going and going and going and going and going and going every single day. You don't get to see that kind of provision. So God even does this thing. I got way more notes than I got time for today, but we're going to have this grass up here for a while. So we'll see. We'll be in the Garden of Eden for at least a couple of weeks here. Let me tell you this. Go with me to the book of Leviticus, and I'm not kidding. Yeah, I want you to go to Leviticus. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. This book of laws. Go to Leviticus chapter 25. I'm going to show you something here. I saw this. This blessed my heart. I think it might bless yours too. Leviticus chapter 25. God even tells them. It's modeling what happens in Genesis chapter 1. God tells these people who were enslaved, his kids, he tells them, not only do I want you resting,

I also want the land to rest. Every single day. Every single day. I also want the land to rest. Every seven years. Don't plan anything. Sounds crazy. This is how they eat. This is how they put food on the table. You have to sow it, and you have to reap it in order to be able to eat it. So God tells them. hey on the seventh year i don't want you doing anything i don't want you doing that with the land so they ask the question well how am i gonna eat same thing some of y'all are saying to me when i'm like rest you're like i don't even understand that word i don't even know i don't even know is that a real word it goes in one ear and out another look at this in verse number 20 verse 20 of chapter 25 it says um you may ask what will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops verse 21 this is god's response i will send you such a blessing in the sixth year oh this is good i will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years while you plant during the eighth year you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in oh my goodness god here says to them if you will grab a hold of this truth that i am your source and you'll be willing to lay down the lie that everything is up to you because you know i recognize there's different seasons of life that are crazy i get that if you're an accountant and april 15th is on the horizon it's crazy you don't get to like chill but i want to even push against that i think that even in the crazy seasons the idea that we get from genesis chapter one and even we read in leviticus that we can understand that it is not all up to me that i am not going to allow the external circumstances of life to dictate the peace of my soul i have to understand that even if everything around me is on fire god is not shaking on his throne and he is not concerned and he is not fearful of what's about to happen because he holds everything in the very palm of his hands so even though everything is burning all around me i can stand here or sit here with peace that surpasses all understanding because i know that he is my sustainer and my source so do not let society tell you freak out when god is telling you peace be still so i'm talking here i'm talking so i'm talking when a doctor comes to you and the doctor says something to you that you do not want to hear and you are unsure about your future even though you are unsure about your future you and i can still be secure in the future that we have in god that he is the one that says even though the doctor said this about you i still call you forgiven

i still call you whole i still call you love i still call you called i still call you this is the truth that starts to permeate in our souls and he's trying to get this into these people because he knows how much they're going to need it because life is going to tell them something different because the mirror will tell you something different shoot your bank account will tell you something different you go to where you're like oh the lord's my provider let me transfer seven dollars and 48 cents over here for my savings real quick you can have moments that it's something different is shouting at you and it shouts so loud sometimes it can shake our souls but now we're being invited into the garden would not have been there if you and i were invited into it he wouldn't have painted this picture if it wasn't something that was intentional so now let's that's all just chapter one so let's slide into chapter two where the garden really becomes a central place of intimacy and connection genesis chapter two beginning in verse number four y'all still with me genesis chapter two verse number four i'm gonna read a bunch of verses here just for the fun of it so we're gonna genesis chapter two we're gonna go verses four through nine and then i'll skip down i think i'm doing 15 through 18 and then 20 through 25 it says this is the encounter of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Verse number five of chapter two. Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground. I think we're gonna get into that next week. But streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.

Verse number eight. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Skip down with me to verse number 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it, not to sleep and do nothing. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. We'll get into the word helper next week too. That does not mean barefoot and pregnant. Some of y'all are reading that, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, give me a helper, Lord. It's like, nah, let me tell you what that means next week. We'll talk about that. It's a powerful word actually. Verse number 20. So the Lord God gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep.

And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man. Now the man's about to sing. This is a song, a poetry is about to happen. The man said, dang. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Mm, mm. This is in my Bible. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. No shame. Okay. The garden is an invitation into the presence of God, the provision of God and the purpose of God. This might be the only notes I'm giving you today. The garden is an invitation into the presence of God, the provision of God and also the purpose of God. Does anybody have any siblings? I do. I'm the oldest of three and I'm my mother's favorite. Sorry. I've told all of my siblings this. I've let them know, guys, you're great people.

You're made in God's image, but I'm this side of heaven. Mom has a favorite and it's me. And my mom is here today and I'm so glad she's not shouting anything like, no, that's not true, Earl. Oh, that would be embarrassing. Honestly though, honestly, I don't think I am the favorite. I think my little brother is the favorite. You know, my baby brother. And he's like 18 years younger than me. And I'm like, hey man, you weren't playing just so you know. So you can't be the favorite because you're an accident. No, I didn't. I never said that to him. I never said, I just thought it. And, but I think, I do think he's a favorite, which is kind of crazy because my mom lives with us. Okay. And I don't charge her any rent. Okay. But if we don't get this thing switched around, I'm charging her. I'm gonna start charging her. High dollar too. No, I lived with her for free for years. So I think I'm still in debt to her as far as I'm concerned. But my little brother, and if you have one of the siblings that you know is kind of the favorite, whenever you want something from your parents,

what you will do, if you're a smart sibling, is you go to the favorite child. and you say to the favorite child, hey, can you please go ask mom or dad for Chick-fil-A? Dessert, whatever it is, because they love you, all right? If you don't, we're all gonna kill you. This is how it goes. This is good brother-sister love right here. This is how it works in a family. Prepares you for the real world. And so you say that, and then they go, okay, yeah. And they go and they walk over and they're like, hey, you know, can we get dessert tonight? And they do the puppy dog eyes, whatever. And the mom and dad are like, yep, you got it. And then they come back with the report. I got it y'all, dessert tonight. Dessert's on me, dessert's on me tonight. It's one of the cool things of having a favorite. I am a little bit concerned that this is how some of us approach our relationship with God. Thinking he has a favorite. And I better go to one of his favorites, ask them if they'll ask God for something for me. Because if I go to God, as ratchet as I am, as many mistakes as I've made, as foolish as I've been, there's no way he's gonna say yes. I need somebody else to go to God for me. And a lot of us, this is a block that we have in our walk with God.

And I wanna bust through that glass ceiling today. That you're looking up like, oh, these people and those people, and oh, if you have any disability, then you can't really be that connected to God. Or if you're single, you can't be that connected to God. Or if you're married, you can't be. Or if you have kids, or if you've been through something really hard, you've been through a divorce, you've been through a death, then something's just, you know, my relationship with God is not the same. So I need somebody else to connect with God on my behalf. And then I'll be content with that for the rest of my life. And I will live a Christianity that is way beneath what God designed. It's not garden-type stuff. This is something weird and different and man-made. But the garden is a picture that God is saying, I'm not trying to go through just somebody else to connect with you. I want to have a relationship with you. I wanna know your name and your story. As a matter of fact, I'm the one who made you. I'm the one who formed you. I'm the one who breathed life into your very nostrils. And since I gave you my very being, and I made you in my image, why would you be content knowing me through somebody else? I want to know you. And this is the cry of our hearts as well, because I don't think you're coming to church

on some random Sunday, because you just want to know about God. You want to know God, and you want to know Him in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings so that your soul comes alive. We don't need more people that have just some head knowledge of God. We need some people who have tasted the very presence and power of Almighty God, and it has so impacted their souls that they're not content living some half-hazard, broken-down average life with saying, no, God, you can have all of me. I want you to have all of me, all my heart, all my soul, even all the stuff that I'm ashamed of. See, Adam and Eve, man, I think the story could have gone differently if they really understood the character of God, because they hid. And when they messed up and then they hid, God did not turn away from them. God moved closer. The lie in your head and in my head is when we mess up, God moves further. But the Garden of Eden tells us, no, actually, He came closer. It was humanity that was content hiding when God wanted intimacy. So if you wanna know what God is like,

you can just jot this down and you can put the verse on the screen real quick. I wanna make sure I share this verse in Hebrews chapter one, verse number three. It says, the sun is a radiance of God's glory. And it says, He is the exact representation of His being. If you want to know what God is like, all you have to do is look at Jesus. And I ask you, when Jesus walked the earth, did he only hang out with perfect people? No. He hung out with sinners, religious people, men, women, kids, outcasts, people that were bound, people that were hurt, people that were strong, people that were educated, people that were uneducated. Jesus paints a picture that you and I can have connection to the holy. But the world and the lie is that it's only for a few special people. No. What Jesus Christ did in his death, burial, and resurrection is he made a way for all of us to enter into a life-giving relationship with God. What would your single life look like if you live like this? What would your business life look like if you live like this? What would your marriage look like, your parenting look like if you begin to live like this? So, this is an invitation to the Garden of Eden, but not just like to a garden per se. It's really to the presence of God. A life-giving, thriving, over-the-top, passionate, soul-stirring relationship with the creator of the universe who knows you by name. It's trying to say son, daughter. Will you come out of hiding? Let's talk face-to-face. Bow your heads if you wouldn't mind, family, friends in the theater, online, all of our locations. In this room, just bow your heads for just a moment. If you're under the sound of my voice and you have never made Jesus Christ first in your life, you've never made him number one, you've never made him the boss, the ruler of your life. I'm talking about even being connected to God. And you've yet to say, I want to surrender my will, my way to the path of Jesus Christ. I want to turn. If you've never given your heart to Christ, or at one point in time you did and you slipped away, and today you're saying, I don't want to go my own way. I want to go his way. On the count of three, I want you to do something simple, but something bold. I just want you to

throw your hand in the air and say, yes, that's me. I want to give my heart and my life to Jesus Christ. Ready? One, two, three. Just lift your hand up high. You're saying, yeah, that's me. I want to give my heart and my life to Christ. This is beautiful. Friends on the balcony, on the floor, you're saying, yeah, this is me. I want to give my heart, my life to Christ. Man, this moment is a holy moment every single time. You and I aren't even good enough to raise our hand. It's the grace of God that's even drawing us closer. So for teenagers, and married people, and single people, and men, and women, it's a moment of a brand new start. I want to ask everyone to put your hand over your heart, if you would not mind. I want everyone to repeat this prayer out loud after me. Say, dear Jesus, I ask you to forgive me of all my sins. I admit I've made mistakes. And today I give you my heart. I give you my life. Give me the power to live for you in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Can we lift our heads up? Clap our hands. Come on with joy.