RESTORED Week 14 - Choosing Life, not Law

Watch the Video for Week 14: “Choosing Life, not Law.”

Scriptures Mentioned Today

• Genesis 2:8-17
• Romans 10:4
• Romans 7:7-25

Your Notes from the Teaching

Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us...(Exodus 20:19)

The Chosen People stood before the mountain of God, as close as people have stood to the manifest presence and glory of God since the Garden of Eden. God’s voice was audible, and it thundered from on high. His love for the children of Israel had been clear — 10 plagues, a parted sea, manna, water in the desert, quail — what more could He do to show that He was for them? Here was the opportunity for them to be restore to a face to face communion with God, as it was in the beginning. Now Moses stood before the people, inviting them to get to know God the way he had come to know Him — as a friend.

Within these freed slaves arose the religious spirit — the yearning wired into us since eating from that second tree to have rules and guidelines as a replacement for friendship with God. Ways for us to earn our way into God’s Presence (even if He has already invited us in when we had nothing to offer). “Let’s send the lawgiver,” (Moses) — let him tell us what God wants. And we will just do whatever he says God says to do. The religious spirit is based on the knowledge of good and evil. Not upon intimacy with God. It reduces God to a mere Law Giver, whose love for us depends on our ability to follow his rules. And so we seek a mediary — a priest of sorts. Someone to just tell us what we should do (even when we already know what’s right). Like Moses of old, we seek a human to stand between us and God, rather than speak with Him face to face. We prefer a human voice over direct encounters with God. Why?

Perhaps we are seeking someone else to blame later if things go wrong? (Ask Moses (or any spiritual leader) about that one). Perhaps we don’t trust ourselves to know what’s right? Whatever the case may be, the solution is the same: Take responsibility for your own walk with God. Pick up your own cross. Follow hard after your Good Shepherd.

Yes, You do know how to hear His voice. You heard it when you were called. It’s not the thunderous voice on a mountain (at least not normally), but it is clearer than you may yet believe. As Jesus said: the sheep follow [the Good Shepherd] because they know his voice. (John 10:4)

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. (Genesis 3:8)

It was God’s favorite part of the day — the cool of the day. In the original language, this translates to the “spirit breathed” part of the day — when God and his precious ones would commune. Perhaps they talkesd about Adam and Eve’s day. Asked and answered questions. Shared stories of the prior day’s adventures. Discussed future plans for expanding the garden. We don’t know what they discussed, but we do know what it was like: They shared deep relational connection with God, and by extension, one another. One other thing we know for sure:

One day, Adam and eve were unavailable to God when He manifested His presence to them.

And so, God called out to them: Adam, where are you? Not like an angry father looking for the son who just sent a baseball through the window of the house, but rather the Hebrew phrase gives the sense of a lament: I don’t feel you in my heart anymore. Where have you gone?

Adam’s response has been found out in every son and daughter of Adam since: I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked [exposed and vulnerable, full of shame]; so I hid myself. We are afraid of God’s presence because, like the light exposes what was once hidden in the dark, His Presence exposes us as frauds, posers, and miscreants.

We miss the move of the Spirit of God, wooing us back to communion with Him, when we focus too much on how far we have fallen, and not enough on how much He has lifted us up back up into His love. When you next sense His presence, will you come out from hiding and commune with Him? Wil you be as you were in the garden, naked and unashamed? Will you trust more in His love to pull you in than in your sin’s power to separate you from Him (if that were even possible)?

Then your return to Eden has already begun.

For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. (Romans 7:19)

Does it encourage you to know that the man who authored about half of the New Testament struggled the same way we all do with issues of sin in his life? Can you feel the struggle he shares in Romans 7? Take a few minutes right now to read this passage with empathy, knowing full well that he took the words right out of your mouth, too).

Would you believe that he wrote this after walking with Jesus for more than 25 years? After planting dozens of churches, risking life and limb to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth, not only did such a man still struggle with sin, but was willing to write it down for all the ages to know. ..and be encouraged...that you are not alone!

Welcome to the community of the humbled ones. Humbled by knowing that this wrestling match goes on in all of us, no matter how long we walk with God.

Look around on a Sunday morning, and there is not a saint gathered in church who is not familiar with this struggle. Sure, as we grow in God, and intentionally walk in the Spirit, the old desires fade — but they remain in us like a disease waiting for its opportunity. No one is “holier than thou.” No one. Everyone around you has the sin that dwell in [them] like Paul described, and everyone has become holy through being In Christ.

Some have discovered what you also must discover. And that is that Jesus has already answered the question Paul asked at the end of his confession: Who will deliver me from this body of death?

You found it when you first called on the Lord and were saved. Can you discover it again now? And every day for the rest of your life?

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

There is only one possible outcome to the wrestling match you are in should you choose to remain in Christ. You win!