©2006 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

05-21-06

Coming Out Of The Jungle

5/21/06 Coming Out of The Jungle

JOH 1:17-18 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

I know we touched on these verses last week,

but I’m not quite ready to let them go.

What we are going to be doing during the next few minutes

is a truly remarkable process for all of us.

We are going to take about 25 minutes of our lives

to look closely at several statements found in the Bible.

Each of us brings to this process

our own set of beliefs and assumptions

about how this fits into our lives.

I think probably a few of you have already settled into your assumption

that what will happen during the next few minutes

will bore you to death.

In fact, you’ve already chosen your mental alternative

to whatever it is

that I’m going to try to offer you.

You have some place where your mind will go during the next few minutes.

For some of you

it might involve that person you’ve been noticing here in the Fellowship,

the one you’ve been wishing and hoping would notice you.

In fact, when you chose your seat this morning

you chose one that would allow you to...

well, to just sort of keep an eye on them.

And they have already become your chosen point of focus for the next few minutes.

I’m not suggesting that’s necessarily wrong, folks.

I met Sandee through my church fellowship more than 30 years ago,

and there were a number of months in my life

when I went to every meeting the church had

just to see her, and to be with her.

I haven’t got a clue what the preacher said during those months,

but I’ll tell you they were some of the best church meetings I’ve ever attended.

For others

you’ve got some things you really need to worry about

and the next few minutes seems like as good a time as any.

Maybe money is at the top of your worry list right now.

Or it might be one of your children.

It might by your future,

or your past,

or something you’re afraid of or confused about.

But you’ve already settled into a determined mental worry

and will keep it up until you hear me say, “Let’s close in prayer.”

The worry won’t change anything, of course,

but expending all of that mental energy

will make you feel as if you’ve done something.

And even for those of us here this morning

who are listening and genuinely interested in the passage we’ll look at,

there is a common assumption we bring to studying the Bible,

an assumption planted within us by the enemy of our souls,

an assumption that tells us

that what we will see is good stuff, but irrelevant to the real issues in our lives.

By far the most effective attacks used by Satan

in his efforts to rob us of those truths that can bring healing into our lives

are not the attacks in which he attempts to discredit the divine authority or credibility of Scripture.

The most effective attacks

are those in which he seeks to convince us

that what God says to us is simply not relevant to real life.

God’s words to us may be well-intended,

but they will never ever lead us into the kind of life we long for.

Do you remember Satan’s first attack on the human race?

Do you remember what he did?

He certainly didn’t try to convince Adam and Eve

that their Creator hadn’t said what He’d said.

He didn’t try to tell them

that they had misunderstood God

or misinterpreted His words

when He told them not to eat of that tree.

What he did do

is to tell them that God simply didn’t understand

what they really needed for a truly fulfilling life.

And Satan is very good at what he does.

Do you remember how he opened that conversation?

 GEN 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

He began by suggesting to Eve that God is an unreasonable God,

a God who makes arbitrary demands,

a God whose secret agenda is to cheat us, to deprive us of what we need most.

Sound familiar?

How often do we bump up against the message

that God really doesn’t get it,

that the principles He’s given to us

simply will not work in the real world,

or more often

that they are a barrier

walling us off from the things we really need

in order for our lives to be good.

How about every time we turn on the TV,

or watch a movie,

or read a magazine,

or wrestle with some need in our own life,

wondering how best to meet it?

Do you know what Satan was really saying to Eve with that question?

He was saying, “So, this God of yours

created all of these incredible trees,

with all of this wonderful fruit,

He surrounded you with all this good stuff,

and then told you that you can’t eat any of it.

Must be some sort of power thing He has going on, huh?

He must get some sort of twisted pleasure

in forcing you to submit to His obviously unreasonable demands.”

Of course Eve knew that wasn’t exactly right,

but still she believed the lie.

She believed that this God really was both arbitrary and unreasonable in His demands,

and even more, that He simply didn’t care or didn’t understand her own needs.

We know that because of her response.

GEN 3:2-3 And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said,' You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.' "

Did you see it?

There it is right there - God has said,' You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'

God never said anything about touching it,

and as soon as the Serpent heard her expand on God’s command

he knew he had her.

She was ready for the lie

that would become the starting place

for the entire human race’s relationship with God ever since.

GEN 3:4-5 And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Which, translated says,

“God cannot be trusted.

He’s out to cheat you.

He doesn’t really understand you,

or if He does He doesn’t care,

and what He’s said to you

either isn’t true

or isn’t relevant to what’s really going on in your life.”

And ever since then

everyone of us have begun our interaction with our God

from that point of view.

And yet,

if we could see correctly

what our God is saying to us

we would discover that not only is it relevant,

but it is, in fact, the most vital information for real life we could ever find.

I’m getting a little off track here, I know,

but do you want to see this from the other side?

Do you want hear the truth?

These are Peter’s opening words to his second letter to his fellow believers.

2PE 1:2-4 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Do you know what really comes to us through what our God has said to us?

Grace and peace.

Grace from our God,

poured out on us in an endless flowing river.

And peace.

Peace with Him, to be sure,

but far more than that.

It’s peace with ourselves.

Peace with our past.

Peace with who we are as unique creations of God.

Peace with the life and the leadership given to us by our Lord.

And then Peter gives us the full truth in one powerful statement.

He tells us that God has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him...

Not only is He not trying to cheat us,

but from the very beginning

His one desire has been to reveal to us everything we need

for the most fulfilling life we could ever know,

and then to create between us and Himself

a relationship in which we could trust Him.

And, of course, that’s why,

with everyone of us,

God wants to open the conversation between us and Himself

with what He’s saying to us about Himself through Jesus Christ.

Christ dying on that cross in our place for our sins against Him

is His way of saying,

“Can your let your trust in My heart desire for you begin right here?

Take everything else you think you know about Me,

everything else you feel about Me

and set it aside.

Now, start right here.

I know your fears,

I know your anger,

I know your shame,

I know that heavy weight you’re carrying around inside you.

I want it,

I want it all.

I want to take if from you

and replace it with my arms around you,

and my forgiveness poured out in endless measure,

and my hope and my healing filling your soul.

And I ask nothing from you in return

except your willingness to give Me

that great weight you can no longer bear.”

MAT 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."

There is no greater,

no more difficult,

and no more important battle we ever face in our lives

than the battle to find our way

into the discovery of the love of our God for us.

And having said that,

I have to say, too,

that I haven’t got a clue as to how to lead you through that process.

In fact, there is no more personal battle in life

than the battle for the discovery of God’s love

because with each of us

the barriers to that discovery

are unique to each of us,

and the pathway to overcoming those barriers is unique as well.

I do know there are some universals in the process,

one of the greatest of which

we find illustrated for us once again back in the Garden of Eden.

You remember what happened, of course,

following Adam and Eve’s sin.

Once they realized what they’d done,

once their innocence was gone

and they found themselves filled with shame

they tried to hid themselves from God.

GEN 3:8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

And do you remember what God did?

He found them,

He brought them into His presence,

and asked them what was causing their shame.

They didn’t do real good with their answers, of course,

just as we don’t.

They admitted their disobedience,

but then Adam blamed Eve,

and Eve blamed the Serpent.

Of the two

Adam handled it the worst.

GEN 3:12 The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."

Translated, what he said was, “This whole mess is really Your fault, God.

You gave me the wrong partner.

If you wouldn’t have given me THAT woman

none of this would ever have happened.

Now, if you would have given me a different woman,

everything would have been great!”

And how many men throughout history

have said the same thing?

Nothing really changes...

But still,

both Adam and Eve did allow God to bring them into His presence,

and both of them admitted, “I ate.”

And how did God respond to their shame?

GEN 3:21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

He could not restore their innocence,

but He could heal their shame

so that they no longer needed to hide.

And in the process

He began to communicate His love.

And what I want you to know in this

is that this part of the pattern at least

is a universal in our discovering His love.

We, too, begin our relationship with Him

hiding from Him in shame.

Our hiding place may be in the jungle of religion or good deeds.

You may hide behind your frantic efforts

to be the perfect mother,

or the perfect father,

or the greatest success in sports,

or in your career,

or in music, or dance, or hunting, or fishing,

or behind a frantic schedule that simply leaves no time

and no energy to look honestly at those things that cause you shame.

But the beginning of the process

in our discovery of the true nature of our God’s love

is the same for us

as it was for Adam and Eve.

It is the process of our God

calling to us in our hiding place,

coaxing us out into His presence,

bringing our shame with us.

I don’t know what it is in your life

that causes you to know that on your own

you stand naked before your God.

The details differ with each of us,

but the end result is always the same.

We hide from Him in fear,

knowing all too well

that we have nothing to bring Him

that could even begin to justify His kindness to us,

or His compassion,

or His forgiveness,

or His smile.

And yet still He calls to us,

He draws us,

He seeks us,

He coaxes us out of our hiding place.

And if we respond,

the very first part of our interview with Him

is sometimes as terrifying for us

as it was for Adam and Eve

because He asks us the same question.

“Why were you hiding from Me?”

And our answer will be the same.

“Because I was afraid,

afraid of You because of what I have done,

because of who I am.”

And it is at this point

that, for the first time,

many of us are able to hear His love and believe it,

because, if we hear Him clearly,

it is at this point that He responds by saying,

“My child, I know what you have done,

and I know why it causes you shame.

But come with Me now, and let me show you a truly wonderful thing.

Come with me, now, to a cross,

and to a certain time,

and a certain place in history.

Come with me to a place called Golgotha.

Now look with me at this cross,

and let me show you what’s nailed onto it.

See this man hanging on this cross?

This is Me,

dying in your place

for that very thing that causes you shame,

that very thing that has caused you to hide from Me for so long.

The price is paid in full.

Your debt is gone forever.

And if you look more closely at this cross

you will see something else nailed to it as well.

You will see a certificate of debt nailed to it,

your certificate of debt.

And if you look very closely,

on it you will see written all of those things

that have caused you such shame,

such fear of Me.

I have taken them all away from you,

and I myself have nailed them to the cross.

And know this for certain, my child - what I have done can never be undone.”

And then, to insure that our shame is never again revealed to the world,

He does one more thing.

Isaiah said it perfectly.

ISA 61:10 I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Just as He covered Adam and Eve’s shame

with clothes of His own making,

so He wraps us in robes of righteousness,

clothed in His righteousness forever.

2CO 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

That’s where it so often begins

in our discovery of His love.

And the very things we think we most need to keep from His sight

are the very ones that ultimately

give us eyes to see His love as we have never seen it before.

And all of that was intended to be

just a few words of introduction

to our ongoing study of the first chapter of John.

But we have next week for that.