Restoration 2018:  Our Picture of God

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Restoration Ministry

Dee Casper

The Presence of God

Father, thank you for this privilege to worship you, for the beautiful weather, for the beautiful people, and I just pray that you would share a beautiful message with us today, that you would condescend into this place, that you would minister to the needs of each of us, and that we would come to understand that we are currently and actively being pursued.

And I ask this now in Christ Jesus' name.

So what I'd like to do is share with you something that came out of a word study that has been a real blessing to me.

I noticed a similar word being used in a few verses and I wondered where else this is found, and it actually is all telling 1 big story of the pursuit of God for his people.

So, in Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2, the picture we're given in Scripture is that there's a perfect people in perfect communion with a perfect God in a perfect environment.

This beautiful face-to-face communion is afforded between God and man.

God the Creator and man as the created and the delight of his soul.

This is his ideal situation and in the midst of an ideal Edenic situation, God throws in at the end of the creation story something that just seems kind of unique.

Why is it that God is giving rest to a people who haven't even been here for 24 hours?

There's a quote that I've been given through a book that I read, actually, from someone actually here, local Loma Linda, from Sigbe Tonstad.

He has a book called The Lost Meaning of the Seventh Day.

And in this book, he has this quote that has just been life-changing for me on my view of this gift of the Sabbath.

He says, By the act of hallowing the seventh day, God drives the stake of divine presence into the soil of human time.

It's this implication that God is injecting himself into our atmosphere because there's something he wants to give us.

So by the act of howling the Sabbath day, God drives his presence into human time.

It's available to us in a very special way.

And the reason why he refrains from further activity on the seventh day is that he's found the object of his love and has no need for any further works.

You know what that object of his love is?

God's found what he's looking for and he's resting in that fellowship with them.

The seventh day signifies what is most essential to know about God.

God ceases from working in order to enjoy the company of the person God has created, suggesting that the seventh day speaks as much about the value of human beings to God as of God's valuation of human life.

Something about the Sabbath is communicating value to you individually.

And then to us corporately as a race, yes, but God values you and wants time with you.

This is why he gave it right out the gate in creation.

And what lies in the foreground of the seventh day's first mention in the Bible, notice, is God's gift, not human obligation.

It wasn't this, you better not, you ought not to, it was a gift from God, an extra measure of His presence available in the very special window of time, again to a people who haven't fallen, who've just been created, who aren't tired, but he wants to set the parameters in the right way that I want you to know that the cheapest of importance to me is time with you.

And I'm setting this aside, I'm making time for you, I want communion with you, so it's not about what you should do or ought not to do or so forth.

The whole point of the Sabbath was about a relationship with Jesus.

The whole point of the Sabbath was to communicate value to his creation.

He says, It is as if we hear God speaking, I'm ceasing on the seventh day, not only that you may acknowledge and love me, but in order to make it known that I recognize and love you.

This is God's statement to man in giving the Sabbath at the very beginning of his creation experience.

I think it's a gorgeous picture, And when we have this lens and this worldview, the Sabbath isn't a burden, the Sabbath isn't some waste of time or this day of being deprived, like, it's actually a privilege.

But unfortunately, after this Edenic experience, in Genesis chapter 3, man falls, right?

When Adam and Eve eat of the tree that they should not have eaten from, and they fall and sin makes its way into the human bloodstream, shame and nakedness make its way into their experience as we talked about yesterday.

And they find themselves now separated from God.

They did have face-to-face fellowship with God Almighty.

No fear, no shame, pure joy, pure elation.

But now they're separated from this God who so desperately wants to commune with them, and 1 of the evidences of his desire to commune with Him was the Sabbath.

Even after Adam and Eve lose access to the Tree of Life and have to leave the Garden, the precious gift of the Sabbath is still available to man.

Now, in a lesser degree, they cannot have face-to-face communion with God, but there is still the promise of God's divine presence in a very special way on the seventh day.

I love this, that that's still available to man.

So We went from face-to-face communion to separation, and this is heartbreaking to God, because God does not want to be separate from you.

He wants as much time with you as possible, because He loves and values you, and again, you individually.

This goes on for some centuries, and God has decided, I've had enough of this.

In Exodus 25, verse 8, he says, let them build me a sanctuary.

You can just sense here that God wants time with you again.

At least he's afforded the Sabbath, but he wants to be closer to you.

The Godhead is taking a step forward and approaching us.

We have fallen, we have run, we have left.

They take that first step and he says, let them build me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

God is moving into the neighborhood, if you will.

The Israelite sanctuary here, it's kind of hard to see when it's bright out, but this is the tabernacle here in the whole courtyard and there's people camping on the north, the south, the east, and the west.

But in the very epicenter of this place, how many people have been to old towns where they have a city square, right?

They have the clock tower maybe in the middle of town, and they have the city hall.

This is basically the way that it's arranged, right?

People are sitting on all the peripheries, living on the peripheries, but what really matters most is what's in the middle of town, and it's the very presence of God in the sanctuary.

Something about the sanctuary was meant, again, to communicate value towards man, and God longing to commune with man, and for man to be right with God.

The whole point of the sanctuary service was to teach us that God is trying to reconcile us to himself so we can be together once again.

So the very presence of God can be found in the middle of the sanctuary.

In Numbers chapter 35 and verse 34, we see a similar allusion to this.

Numbers chapter 35 and verse 34, he's giving kind of regulations on the overall health of the camp, then he has this interesting statement of what should and shouldn't be done in the camp and why.

Therefore, do not defile the land in which you inhabit, in the midst of which, does anyone know what it says next?

I dwell, for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel.

I moved into the neighborhood, take notice, please keep the things away that would pull you away from me, right?

I want time with you, I don't want to lose this time with you, that's why I moved into the neighborhood.

Actually, I'm going to skip that text just for time's sake, but go to 1 Kings.

These are the instructions now given for the permanent edifice that's to be built, the temple that Solomon's going to build.

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The Presence of God

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