Genesis 2:4–15 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth. When they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no bush of the field was yet in the land, in no small plant of the field had yet sprung up. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work.

The ground in the midst was going up from the land, and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east. And there he put a man whom he had formed.

And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the site, and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there divided and became four rivers.

The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. In the gold of the land is good. Bdellium and Onyx Stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. In the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria.

The fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 

Revelation 22:1–5 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life. Bright is crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city.

Also on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God, and the lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more.

They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Welcome to the weekend here at Christ Community Chapel. My name is Zach. I'm so glad you're here. Glad we get to be part of your weekend. Hey, if you're watching me on video because I'm in the tent on Sunday. Thanks for being here. We're starting a new sermon series just for August. We're calling it More Than Religion. And the big idea is pretty simple.

God wants relationship with us. He's not interested in religious formality. My goodness, this service I'm in right now is in a gym. This weekend I'll be preaching in a tent. It's not formality that God is after; it's people. He wants relationship with people. And I've been excited about this series for a while for two reasons. Pretty simple.

One is this idea that God wants relationship with us is what changed many of our lives. I'm excited for some of you to hear this for the first time, to consider it for the first time, that God wants more, that we've settled for too little, that he wants to know us and be known by us. I think that is the kind of idea that if you awaken to it, we'll change everything about you and about your life.

I'm excited in advance of the stories, but also I'm excited for the rest of us who are familiar with that, because there are just certain things in life that are worth hearing. Again, like, whenever I get home tonight, Mike, a lot of my kids will be asleep. My wife Amy will not, and when I get home, she will be excited to see me.

She'll probably tell me that she loves me when she says that. I won't say I know. I've heard it before, you know? What do you have that's new? I'll be glad to hear it because some things are worth hearing over and over and over again. And this is one of them. And so I'm excited for you. Whether this is the first time you'll ever hear that God wants relationship with you, or it's the thousandth time, I think it's going to be a great August.

This week I'm kickstarting the series by kind of doing Introducing the Big Idea. And to do that, we're looking at a hostage in Genesis two, the beginning of the Bible, and Revelation 22, the end of the Bible. So if you want, you can open your Bible if you brought it to both those sections. Otherwise it's going to be on the screen behind me and you can follow along their three points.

Pretty simple. I'm going to use to guide our time together as an outline. And here's what they sound like. I want to show you what this story is all about, who is the main character and where do I fit in? Three questions. What is the story all about? Who's the main character and where do I fit in? Let me start with this.

What is this story all about? Let me ask you, have you ever had the feeling of being a square peg in a round hole, like playing a role that just doesn't really suit you? I remember my first job out of seminary was being a youth pastor in central Illinois, and I neither fit Central Illinois or being a youth pastor.

I was born old. I didn't think playing youth group games were fun when I was 16, let alone when I was 26. So you can imagine the kind of youth pastor I was pretty lame and pretty serious. And I remember when I met with the guy who was my boss at that time at the end of my tenure there, and I said to him, I'm, I'm leaving my wife, Amy and I are going to move to Cleveland to plant a church.

We were in a pizza place and he said to me, oh man, you're making a huge mistake. You will be the worst church planner ever. You are ruining your family. And I thought, well, with a pep talk like that. How could I not succeed? You know, he said that I was offended, as you might imagine. I mean, the worst church.

I mean, a big a bad one. The worst. That's pretty low bar. I was offended, but as I reflect on that, I mean, he could have been nicer, for sure, but but what he was really saying was he had only ever seen me in a role in which I didn't fit what I mean, like he had seen me playing a role for which admittedly, I was not designed to play.

And he was like, you stunk at this, and you're probably going to stink at that. I get that, I mean, we're not all great at everything. And and if you see me in a role I don't fit, you can form an oppression. Did you know I read, interestingly enough, I read a Wall Street Journal article maybe a month ago.

They did a study of 10,000 managers, CEOs, directors, and they found one trait that makes that is the single biggest indicator that you'll be successful as a manager, a CEO director. So if you're in any of those roles, you write this down. And here's what they said. The number one trait is the willingness to move people in your organization when they're in a role that doesn't fit them.

This is the best. Leaders will not let people languish in a role in which they don't fit. They will find the right spot for that person and move the organization forward. That's because nobody does. Well when you're a square peg in a round hole, right? Okay. Now let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt like that for a reason you can't put your finger on?

Like, your job is fine. You know, it's fine. I mean, maybe it's not your dream job, but it's fine. Your marriage is fine. Your kids are fine. You know, you like your house, okay? Like everything could be a little better, but it's good. And you still feel like life doesn't fit.

It's almost harder, isn't it, by the way? Because you don't know what button to push. Everything should be good, but it doesn't feel that way. Let me tell you this. Here's what the Bible says. Here's what the Bible says. That's true. You and I were designed for relationship with God. That's what we were made for. And it really doesn't matter what we do professionally or how many connections we have relationally, or how much money we have, or how much fun we try to have.

And I'm not against any of those things. I'm not against work or success or marriage or fun or or any of that. But it doesn't matter, because no matter how high our scale is in any of those areas, until we are in relationship with God, we will always feel like a square peg in a round hole. Genesis two God makes people.

He forms us in his own image. He is the one time, if you think about it, in the Genesis story where God uses his hands, the rest of the rest of the things he makes, he just says, let there be this and there's that. Not here. He gets down in the dirt and he forms us out of dust, and he breathes his own breath into us to cause us to come alive.

And then the Bible, and you might have gotten lost when he was reading. And it's like this river and that river. And but you got to understand, when the Bible was written, it was an agrarian society. The best possible place you could live would be at the confluence of four rivers. What that is telling us is that God made us in his image, made us with his own hands, breathed his own breath to us, and then put us in an environment that was conducive for success.

In fact, Genesis 215 says it this way the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. The language in the Hebrew there of taking the man. In the English it sounds kind of rough, like God snatches him up, throws him down the garden. In the Hebrew, it's the same language you would use to describe the way a mother puts her newborn baby in the crib.

She's been getting ready for him. God made us for relationship with him, for a life of meaning and purpose, for a life of knowing him and being known by him. In fact, not only did God design us for relationship, the end of the Bible tells us that we're destined for relationship once again. We're walking by a river. Once again we're with God.

Listen to the way the end of the Bible describes the future waiting for God's people. Here's what it says in revelation 22, for this is how beautiful this is. It says they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. You see the Bible. The story of what God is doing in human history begins with relationship with him and ends with relationship with him.

What does that tell you about God? He wants relationship with us. That's what this entire story is all about. It begins that way and it ends that way. And it doesn't matter how many cars we have or how many homes we have, or how many vacations we go on, or how many times we try to get married, we will never truly feel at peace with who we are until we know him.

But of course, that begs the question, doesn't it? If God wants relationship with us, if that's what he's after, if that's what the whole story is about, why don't more people have it?

I mean, if that's what God wants, why don't more people enjoy relationship with them? Well, the answer to that is actually my second point. Not just what is the story about, but who's the main character. In my experience, there are two reasons people miss relationship with God. Tell me if you resonate with either one of these. The first reason people miss relationship with God is because they're writing their own story.

They're not interested in his. They have their own vision, their own ideas of what life is going to be like. They're chasing a career. They're they're chasing a relationship. And they understand that, that a true relationship with God might alter their plans the way any meaningful relationship does. It changes you. And so they keep God at a distance because they know the story they're writing for themselves.

The the second reason people miss God is because they don't think they're good enough to be in the story of God. If you think about it, those kind of sound like polar opposites, right? Like on the one hand, saying, God, leave me alone. I've got my own story. Type A driven right, and then over here, God, leave me alone.

I don't deserve to be in your story. They sound different. But if you think about it, they're the same because they both make the same fundamental state mistake. They make themselves the main character of the story. They make themselves the hero. On the one hand, the person is saying, I want the story I can write for myself. On the other hand, a person is saying, I've made a mess of my story, but I got to tell you, this story is not about you, and that's good.

Let me tell you what I mean. You might have noticed this pretty much any story. Not everyone, but almost all of them. Every movie, every follows the same plot line. Here it is. It's pretty simple. In the beginning, things are good, right? They're good. We see the good guy, he's enjoying life. And then something happens. Things go bad, and then the hero, he or she faces down whatever challenge and things get good again.

Sorry for ruining just about every movie ever made for you. I just this week saw the Odyssey. It is amazing to me that this movie is like the hottest movie in America. It's based on a 3000 year old story that put us all to sleep in high school. You know, it's pretty, pretty amazing, right? But I go see this movie and I don't want to spoil it for you, but it is 3000 years old.

Okay. So, you know, you've had time. All right. So I don't want to spoil it for you, but basically, the Odyssey is the story of a man named Odysseus who's the king of Ithaca, and he lives with his beautiful wife and their in their young son. And life is good until the king calls him to battle against the Trojans, the Trojan War.

And and he goes and he fights in a war that lasts a long time. And what happens is people begin to think he must be dead. And so a bunch of guys who want to marry his wife and take over his kingdom, move into his house, which you can imagine create some problems. Sounds like the plot line of a reality TV show, if you ask me.

And then the story is the story of Odysseus making his way back and eventually freeing his family. Here's here's why people miss the story of God. Pretty simple. They miss it because they think they're Odysseus.

They think that life is about what they can win for themselves. Of course, the problem with that is, even if you're successful, what do you get? You get to be the main character in a pretty small story that ends when you die. Other people will say, well, God could never welcome me into his story because I've made a mess of my life because the problem with that is there once again saying, I'm Odysseus.

You know, it's like when I was watching the Odyssey, 25 minutes in, there's this big action sequence. There's a lot of those spoiler, and everybody's on the edge of their seat like, oh no, oh no, he's going to die. And it's like, I got news for you. If he dies, it's going to be tough for them to get two and a half more hours out of this, right?

Like he's the hero. He's not he's not going to die. Right. And what we're saying here is, if you're Odysseus and you make a mess of your life, the story is over. But, you see, actually, the smart thing to do in the Odyssey is the letter bidding and just get behind him. That's the story of the Bible. Listen, the Bible begins with you and I in relationship with God.

It ends with you and I in relationship with God. And you go, well, how in the world do we go from perfection in the beginning to perfection in the end? And the answer is Jesus Christ is our Odysseus. He's our hero. He's the main character. It's Jesus who will come and live a sinless, obedient life so that when he goes to the cross and God the Father pours out his anger and wrath and judgment onto God the Son, it won't be his sin he's paying for.

It'll be ours. And when he dies, he can say it is finished, because the anger and wrath and judgment of God was on him, not on us. When he raises from the dead, he will say to us, if you get behind me, if you go to God in my name, letting my life in my death and my resurrection be the reason that he'll forgive you, you'll be forgiven and included.

In other words, Jesus says, if you'll let me be the hero, let me be the main character. I will take you back to God. You see, we were made for a relationship with God, but that relationship is broken. But Jesus came to restore it. By the way, the Bible says this over and over again. I'll just show you a couple of times where the writers will say it.

Second Corinthians 517 through 19. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says. He says this therefore if anyone is in Christ. He's a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new is come. And all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is, in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Paul says, Jesus came to live and die so that our relationship with God could be reconciled, so that we could go back to being square pegs in square holes doesn't mean we don't want to succeed in work, doesn't mean we don't want great marriages or healthy kids, or to have fun on the weekends. We can want all those things, but the home we were made for, the relationship with God is available through Jesus.

Peter will say it this way a little more succinctly. He'll say in first Peter 318 he says, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. Listen, that he might bring us to God. Some friends, what this means is not only were you made for relationship with God, not only is God so committed to relationship with you that this entire book is about all that he's done in human history to make that relationship possible, the way you get that relationship is not by earning it, or trying harder, or by picking up your sword and fighting the enemies.

You do it simply by letting the hero. When the battle for you, you do it by stepping out of the small story you're writing for yourself, whether you love it or you hate it, and saying, I'd rather be a small character in the eternal story of God that ends with me face to face with God himself. Now you might be thinking, well, okay, well then what is left for me to do?

What do I do to get this relationship? That's my third point, you know, what is this story about? Who's the main character? And then here, where do I fit in? If I'm not the main character, then where do I fit? Of course, you already know the answer. If God has done all of this so that we could have relationship with him, the answer is you go to him, you go to him.

Let me give you this in metaphor, I this is gonna be hard for you to believe. So buckle in. Okay? When I met my wife, Amy, in college, she did not want to date me. I know, tough to believe it took. She took a lot of, you know, convincing, you know, arguing, you know, whatever. I had to really get in there and fight.

Fight for myself. And finally, on the day she said, okay, Zach, you know, I will go out with you. I was very excited. Then she said that. She said, but you should know, there's another college like 20 minutes away from here. And there's a guy at that college who's also been pursuing me, and I was supposed to go there tonight and hang out with a group of people and see him, but I won't do that.

I'll spend time with you. And in a rare moment of wisdom I did not have at 18 years old, you might argue I still don't have it at 42. I said to her. No no no no no no, you go there, go there. Because I'm very serious about you and I don't want to have a fight in like a month.

And you're like, I should have picked the other guy. So go there and hang out with him and decide, like, if you want to be with if you want to date him, just tell me. But if you come back, I want you to be all in. So go there. You make up your mind. So she did, and she was gone for three hours.

Most excruciating three hours of my life. I didn't feel wise. I was like, what an idiot, what an idiot, what an idiot. And then she calls me on her way back and she goes, hey, I'm going to be in town in 15 minutes. Meet me at this coffee shop. Doesn't say anything else. Click. So I'm getting in my car to drive to this coffee shop, and I'm like, I have no idea what she's going to say to me.

Like, I'm ten minutes away from my heart being broken or one of the best moments of my entire life. Like it's going to go one of those directions. She's sitting at the coffee shop waiting for me. I don't know what she's going to say. That's a great metaphor for, I think, where most people are with God.

Because I think we desire to be at the coffee shop with God. We want so badly to look across the table. We want so badly for him to say he loves us, that he forgives us, that he wants relationship with us. But we're not 100% sure what we're walking into. What I'm telling you is that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus make it so you can know on the way in what you're going to hear when you sit down.

James says it this way in James chapter four, verse eight. I'm just going to read the first part of the verse. Here's what it says. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Now listen, here's what James is saying. Here's what he's not saying. He's not saying if you go to the coffee shop first and sit down, God will show up.

That's not what he's saying. What he's doing is presuming upon the kindness and goodness of God. What he's saying is God's already at the coffee shop. God is already waiting for you. God has already decided what he's going to say to you when you get their friends. Here's what the Gospel of Jesus teaches us. What we're going to spend all month in August leaning into is there is not a single minute of the day where God does not desire to be known by us and to know us.

He is not hiding. He is waiting for us to sit down. That is the message of the Bible. In Jesus we can know what he says. And by the way, what James is saying is, if you're here and you are a Christian, he's not saying, maybe if you pray, God will answer. He's saying, since you know God loves you, since you know God wants relationship with you.

Why won't you pray? Why won't you spend time with him? Why won't you ask him what he wants for your life? You know he's for you. You know he loves you. You know he's forgiven you. Jesus has proven that, friends. Do you know what that means? That means that if we spend one more minute distant from God, it is not because that's what he wants.

Going to say that again? Because that's pretty important. If we spend one more minute distant from God, it is not because that's what he wants. He said, well, how do you know that? It's what the entire book is all about.

He is at the coffee shop and all. August. He's saying, won't you come in? Won't you sit down? I have some pretty amazing things I've been wanting to tell you. Let me pray for you. Father God, thank you so much for your desire to have relationship with us. Who are we? God, you made the universe.

We should be insignificant to you. Not only that, you gave us the universe and we threw it back at you. We mistrusted we. We replaced you with ourselves. We. We've rebelled against you. You have every reason to be angry with us. To. To refuse to see us, to tell us. You gave us a shot and we blew it.

And yet the entire Bible is about all that you've done in human history, so that we could end where we began in perfect, eternal relationship with you, God. My prayer is that there would be someone here this weekend who is invited to step out of their story, to stop trying to be Odysseus, stop trying to be the hero writing the story.

There would be someone here in the rubble of a story that has not gone the way they wanted, that they would feel that they can be. Not only can they be forgiven, they can step out of theirs and into your story. God, my prayer is at the door of the coffee shop. Would swing open or close, open and close all weekend as people sit down across the table from you and hear how much you love them.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.