ROOTED IN CHRIST S LOVE Created for Intimacy and Mission in Christ Genesis 1:26-28 & Exodus 33 Layne Lebo January 20, 2019 When my oldest daughter Bronte was 2 or 3 she had this fuzzy, little, blue puffball she carried around the house and played with. It was well-worn and honestly kind of nasty. I remember coming home after work one day and walking in the door of our home on South Washington Street. Bronte ran to greet me, but instead of giving me a big hug or a sloppy kiss on my cheek, she handed me her little puffball and scurried away. That s been nearly 20 years ago, and I don t remember if I said anything to her at that time, but I remember thinking, I don t want your puffball. I want you! I ve never forgotten that exchange, because it s a picture for me of how I often approach my Heavenly Father. I try to give Him things that I think are important or things I do for Him, instead of giving Him myself. He graciously accepts what I give Him, but I imagine Him thinking to Himself, This is nice, Layne, but I don t want your gifts or your frenzied activity trying to do things for me. I want you. I want to spend time with you and I want you to learn to know me better and more fully receive my love. It s human nature for us to struggle to maintain balance. Created for Intimacy and Mission in Christ Either/or comes a lot more naturally to most of us than both/and. I find this to be especially true when it comes to our faith walk with Jesus. We know that relationship (intimacy) with God and living for Him (mission) are both important, but we tend to give strong priority to one over the other. Some followers of Jesus love worshiping with singing or listening to music, meditating on God s Word, or spending time in his presence in prayer. Others are more activist in nature. They prefer doing stuff volunteering at their local church; serving the poor; or looking for opportunities to share their faith. I know I m stereotyping, but most of us can probably identify ourselves in our faith journey with Jesus as either being contemplative or activist. And this isn t just true for individuals; we see it in churches as well. Some churches are activist they re characterized by a flurry of activity. Looking at the events page of some church s weekly bulletin or at their church calendar makes me feel like I need a nap. Other 1
churches are contemplative they focus almost exclusively on spending time in Jesus presence at worship services and worship conferences and prayer gatherings and Bible studies. At McBIC we re convinced that intimacy (or relationship) with Jesus and doing his mission are inextricably linked. There will be seasons where one takes priority over the other, but we believe we re called to focus on both. Intimacy with Jesus that doesn t result in God s mission being accomplished becomes stale and self-absorbed and focusing on mission while ignoring our relationship with Jesus leads to a place where we re trying to give to others what we ourselves don t have. Jesus emphasized this connection well in John chapter 15 when He said, Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15:4 In the fall of 2017 our staff worked in conjunction with Cindy King to create a series called, His Story, My Story, Our Story. We preached 6 sermons and Cindy created daily devotional and group materials on the theme, Being on Mission with God. We received good feedback on the series and when we finished it, we began to talk about doing a similar series on the theme of intimacy with Jesus. This morning we re kicking off that series and our goal over these next 6 weeks is to provide people with Biblical foundations, with handles and with inspiration to help people grow in their relationship with Jesus. As we did in the His Story series we want to begin with Genesis with God s Creation in the Garden of Eden. On the 6 th Day of Creation after creating light and darkness, separating the water from the land and then the land from the sky, positioning the moon, planets and stars in the sky, creating birds, fish and animals, we read these words Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Genesis 1:26-28 We sometimes breeze through the Creation account without paying a lot of attention to the details, because we ve read it dozens of times, but Genesis chapters 1-3 contain important insights for us about big themes like God s nature, human nature and sin. In the verses I just read we find clues to God s dual purpose in creating us relationship with Him and 2
accomplishing his mission. Three times in these verses we re told that we were created in the image of God. We re unique among God s creation in that respect. Unlike the earth and sky and sea and unlike plants and animals and fish and birds, you and I are created in God s image so we can relate to Him. As the next chapters in Genesis unfold we see God speaking to Adam and Eve. After their sin, we re told God was walking in the garden in the cool of the evening looking for them, while Adam and Eve hid ashamed of their sin and fearful of encountering God. Sin broke that relationship with God and the rest of the Bible is the account of God working out his plan to restore relationship with us. The coming of Jesus was the full revelation of God s plan and after Jesus left earth, God gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. Relationship with God intimacy with Him is the foundation for everything we are and do. But Genesis 1:26-28 also emphasizes God s mission for us. We re told we were created in his image so that we could rule over creation. The word rule doesn t give us license to run roughshod over creation. God has entrusted his creation to us. We re his stewards, his managers. And God goes back to that concept of ruling in verse 28 where we read, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Intimacy and mission are inextricably intertwined in God s creation of us from the beginning. You and I are designed for relationship with God and we re designed to carry out his mission. One of the places where I find this idea of relationship with God expressed most beautifully in the Scriptures is by David, the Psalmist, in Psalm 139. Listen to these powerful words, Psalm 139 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 3
If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Our Heavenly Father longs to be in a relationship with each of us it s why He created us. And yet, I think I can safely say that most of us, like my daughter, Bronte, in the illustration I shared earlier, gravitate toward giving Him stuff or doing stuff for Him as opposed to being with Him and growing in intimacy with Him. My goal today and our goal as a staff throughout this series is to challenge and inspire us toward growing in intimacy with Jesus, understanding that as Jesus Himself said in John chapter 15, Remain in me and I will remain in you. Apart from me you can do nothing. The main Scripture I want us to focus on today is found in Exodus chapter 33. The Israelite leader Moses was leading God s people through the desert en route to the Promised Land. The journey from Egypt where they had been in slavery to Pharaoh to the Promised Land of Canaan shouldn t have taken more than about 6 weeks, but as the saying goes, It was a lot easier to get Israelites out of Egypt than it was for God to get Egypt out of the Israelites. In other words, the work God needed to do in transforming the Israelites into the people of God took a lot longer than a couple of months. God s purpose in leading the Israelites out of Egypt was to establish them as him people a witness to the surrounding nations of the goodness and greatness of God. But the people of Israel had a long way to go to get to that place. They grumbled and complained. They doubted and tested God. They even talked at one point about appointing a leader who would essentially lead coup to take them back into slavery in Egypt. Their rebellion came to a head when Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God receiving the 10 Commandments and God s Law for the people. While Moses was gone the Israelites talked Aaron, Moses brother and his assistant, to construct a golden calf for them to worship and celebrate around in blatantly immoral ways. 4
When Moses came down from the mountain and saw what was happening he was furious. He slammed the two tablets with the 10 Commandments on them down and broke them. He scolded his brother Aaron and asked how he could allow this to happen. Then he had the golden calf ground into powder and forced the Israelites to drink it. God was upset as well and he sent a plague in which twenty-three thousand of them died. That s the context for where I ll begin reading chapter 33 verse 1 and following Then the LORD said to Moses, Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants. I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way. Exodus 33:1-3 This makes sense, right? After their grievous sin God would do for them all He promised, He just wouldn t go with them. Surprisingly, the Israelites even in the midst of their blatant rebellion understood this wasn t an acceptable alternative. They began to mourn and they took off all their jewelry. Meanwhile Moses went off by himself to the tent of meeting the place where he would meet with God. While he was praying in the tent Moses asked God to help him. He lamented to God that leading all of these people by himself was impossible. In his grace God replied, My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. After the people humbled themselves and Moses made his plea, God relented from his plan not to accompany the Israelites into the Promised Land, but Moses wasn t satisfied. Listen to his response If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? Exodus 33:15 & 16 Moses response is so insightful. He knew it wasn t God s blessings or ultimately even the fulfillment of God s promises that he and the Israelites needed. What they needed was God s Presence. If God s Presence didn t go with them they would be just like all the other people on the face of the earth. Moses response pleased God, and He said, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name. When I think of this story I m reminded of the priority of relationship with God and growing in intimacy with Him. I m an action-oriented person. I want my life to make a 5
difference for God and his Kingdom and so I try to live purposefully. I want to invest my life in partnering with Him to do his work in our world. But in the midst of my activity and my quest to accomplish the mission God has for me, it s easy for me to drift away from focusing on my relationship with Jesus, and become fixated on doing things for God and giving stuff to Him. I m pretty sure I m not alone in this. For us activists, Moses unwillingness to accept anything less than God s Presence is instructive for us. Listen again to his words, If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? And those words sound a lot like Jesus words to his disciples in John chapter 15, Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I encourage you over the next 6 weeks to engage, not only with the sermons on Sunday, but with the daily devotionals and in a Bible Fellowship Group or a small group. Let s commit ourselves together at the outset of 2019 to growing in intimacy with Jesus. 6