God's Plan For Relationship

This is Mother’s Day. Did you know that Mother’s Day boasts as the third highest in card sales for Hallmark?

It is a huge holiday in the Christian world, but it is NOT a Christian Holiday.

Are there any Christian holidays?

It’s not a biblical holiday. The only truly Christian holiday that we celebrate, in my opinion is the celebration is Easter, which we should be celebrating weekly, even daily.

The holiday had its roots in the church starting out as a church holiday but it wasn’t a biblical thing.

In Europe in the 16th century there was a holiday that the church started called mothering Sunday which was celebrated during Lent where people would go back to the church that they grew up in, or the church that they were baptized in, their mother church.

Many people were not able to get off of work during this time period, they didn’t have the weekends like we do so getting off of work to travel was difficult. This church holiday enabled people to go back to the church they were brought up in and one of the benefits of that day allowed for families to spend time together for the day.

The holiday started out as a church holiday but it wasn’t a biblical thing.

The version of Mother’s Day that we know stems from a woman by the name of Anna Jarvis who wanted to honor her mother and her mother’s causes and campaigned relentlessly to honor her mother.

It all started in the 1850s, when West Virginia women's organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis—Anna's mother—held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College. The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

But the holiday has more somber roots: It was founded for mourning women to remember fallen soldiers and work for peace.

It all started in the 1850s, when West Virginia women's organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis—Anna's mother—held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College. The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

In the 1850s, when West Virginia women's organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis—Anna's mother—held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College. The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

Her mother was Ann Reeves Jarvis, who In the 1850s, West Virginia was a bit of an activist. During the Civil War she held Mother's Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination. The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

It’s a neat story and it is a good thing for Anna to want to honor her mom but it isn’t a Christian holiday.

I kind of wanted to talk about this just a little bit because if I think about Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, or grandparents day, even though these are not Biblical holidays, there is a Christian connection that is behind all of them. And it is the theme of Relationship.

And I got to thinking about this idea of relationship and how God set up the world, He set up the processes to how things are done. And when it comes to the population, all people in the world, have been created by and for relationships.

Everyone that has been created (apart from Adam and Eve) have been created from a realtionship for a relationhship.

I think this may be important if we want to understand God a little better. Because there has to be a reason why God set things up this way.

There has to be something about relationships where He would not only want to populate the entire planet through them, but through relationships people would want to be together in communities, as friends, as teammates as work mates.

God made this concept of relationships and I think this tells us something about God.

God has a desire to be in relationship with people just like he has relationship with himself, just like we have with each other.

God has a desire to be in relationship with people just like he has relationship with himself, just like we have with each other.

Let me say it this way. When it comes to creating people.

God could have created the entire population out of the dust on the ground. He did it already.

Genesis 2:7 ESV

7 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.

This, of course is Adam, the first man, But Adam is the only person God made from the dust from the ground.

Genesis 3:21–22 ESV

21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”

Then God made Eve through Adam’s own body.

God did not exhaust His creative power after making Adam and Eve. He could still create if He wanted to. But God stopped creating that way and then created people, created the population through the process of relationship.

Genesis 2:21–22 ESV

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

God did not exhaust His creative power after making Adam and Eve. He could still create if He wanted to. But God stopped creating that way and then created people, created the population through relationship.

Again, God could have created every person, miraculously. He could have had people show up however He wanted to.

God could have created everything miraculously but He didn’t, God now uses relationship between a man and a woman where a relationship, a coming together brings on the next generation and the next and the next and the next.

This reminds me of all those ways that people used to talk about when it came to understanding where babies come from? Remember that?

God really could have had babies delivered by storks. What was one of the other ones? They found a baby in a cabbage patch? What? That isn’t how it happened.

So these two were made by God but you know, every other person was

God now uses relationship between a man and a woman, a coming together that brings on the next generation and the next and the next and the next.

For some reason, God holds the institution of relationship very high in importance. Very important. And this isn’t just about making babies. Not at all. God created people to be in relationships with other people. There is a need for relationship.

Look at what God does after he creates Adam.

Genesis 2:18–22 ESV

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

18-22

Adam was placed, literally into a garden made by GOD! God made Eden and it was a perfect place, it was heaven on Earth. It was paradise. Adam is there, he is living on his own, in the most beautiful vacation getaway you can imagine.

God gives him a job, best job on the planet. Sit here, I will bring all the animals to you and you can name them.

He is living the perfect life! He is hanging out with all the animals, but Living in paradise wasn’t enough. Verse 20 says that there was not a helper fit for him. One version reads a helper as his counterpart.

He is hanging out with all the animals, God gave Adam the job of naming the animals, classifying them but it wasn’t enough. Living in paradise wasn’t enough. Verse 20 says that there was not a helper fit for him. One version reads a helper as his counterpart.

Adam is lonely. He needs relationship because we were created for relationships.

And it is interesting that we read that all of the animals were brought to Adam for him to name. It wasn’t enough for Adam to have pet’s. Okay?

It wasn’t enough for Adam to have his cats, or his dogs, or whatever. He had all the animals come to him, the most exotic, beautiful animals in the world and guess what… they weren’t enough. “No suitable helper was found”.

For those folks that think that their cats are enough, that isn’t what you were created for.

Being in paradise wasn’t enough.

And it isn’t because Adam wasn’t satisfied with God, it’s not that God isn’t enough, listen, it is that God created in us the need for relationship, the need, a real need for us to have others in our life. We do, of course have a need for God in our life and we will talk about that in a couple of minutes.

But these relationships that we have, especially with our families are foundational, they are usually going to be strong, either positively, or negatively.

For some reason, God designed us to come in to the world and live in the world with a sense of relationship. It is a major area in our lives.

God designed us for relationship, with others, with Him and with others.

With others, with God and with others. What does that mean?

It means that generally, the process where we recognize our need for God comes from people. People tell us about God.

Most of the time we don’t find God in a vacuum. We usually don’t first discover God by ourselves, It can happen. God can definitely make it happen that way, but usually, we begin our relationship with God because of a relationship that God has put in our lives.

We need a relationship with God, but very often we don’t know it until someone else points it out to us.

Relationships where we receive from others.

You might remember my friend Jerry who spoke last week. He told you that he had a friend who told him about God and that there was someone who told His friend about God, and someone told THAT friend about God. IF you had the data, you could trace all those people back to the disciples that were with Jesus.

Isn’t that exciting?

But it is true that God uses relationships to reveal our need for Him.

You and I, if we are believers owe a debt to those who told us about Jesus. And there is a long list of them. There were a lot of workers, a lot of laborers who invested in me growing up. Sunday school teachers, family, friends, peers in my circle of friends, parents, youth group leaders, pastors who all had a role in pointing me to Christ.

It wasn’t just Jesus and me, there is an army of resources who helped sow the seeds of faith in my life.

God used relationships to bring me to him. Those people loved me enough to bring me to church, those friends from school loved me enough to encourage me to go to youth group, to bring me to places where I would hear the gospel and this is the way God planned it. This is how God worked on me to reveal Himself to me so that I could have.

So God wants us to have relationships with one another to point them to Him because...

2 Ultimately, God wants us to have a relationship with Him.

God wants a relationship with you. Shocker right? Some of you might find that hard to believe but it is true. God seeks out His people.

God created you. (in His image)

God desires a relationship with His people.

That is why in

Genesis 3:8–9 ESV

8 And 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. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

But that was not an exception, that’s not just Adam and Eve.

Why not use

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God initiates relationship with His people. They don’t have to do anything, or be good enough. God is seeking His people out. He demonstrates this as Genesis states. And the cool thing is that the way that this is written makes it seem so normal.

God’s walking to be with His people. He is seeking them out.

God loves us so much that He seeks us out. But our sinfulness causes us to hide, it causes us to be ashamed. And it should..

By rights, God should have killed Adam and Eve for their sin. They directly disobeyed God when they ate the fruit that God had forbid them to eat. They even lied to the serpent about what God said.

We won’t get into it here but Adam even blames God for sinning! God had every right to destroy them, every right to wipe them out but He didn’t. He didn’t. And this makes me so happy because

Just like God had every right to destroy Adam and Eve for their sin and didn’t, God has every right to destroy me for my sin, but He doesn’t. God is so merciful and forgiving that he doesn’t.

God seeks you out. No matter who you are, not matter what you have done, he seeks you out. Jesus does this in when he calls Zacchaeus down from the tree. Z a chief tax collector, the most crooked kind of person there was.

Luke 19:1–10 ESV

1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Jesus has such a strong desire to have relationship with His people that he doesn’t care what anyone thinks, no matter how important they are, no matter how powerful they are. He just wants to have relationship with His people.

Jesus’ mission is stated there in verse 10

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Luke 19:10 ESV

10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Are you getting the sense that God wants to have a relationship with people? He really does.

He created us to be in relationship with one another, with him and with one another..

God created us not only to be in relationship with one another, not only to be in relationship with him, but to share the gospel with one another.

That is why I say this so much.

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus Christ came to save us so that we can tell others about Him. You were told about Jesus by someone and you have that person to thank. Maybe this week you can actually reach out and thank that person that introduced you to Christ, maybe you can thank that person that has helped you along in your walk to encourage them.

When we realize the miracle that happened in us we should want to share that information. And I have told you this before that the sooner you share your faith with people after you have been saved the easier it will be.

1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Evangelism, Necessity For

Hudson Taylor told of a Chinese pastor who always instructed new converts to witness as soon as possible. Once, upon meeting a young convert, the pastor inquired, “Brother, how long have you been saved?” The man answered that he had been saved for about three months.

“And how many have you won to the Savior?”

“Oh, I’m only a learner,” the convert responded.

Shaking his head in disapproval, the pastor said, “Young man, the Lord doesn’t expect you to be a full-fledged preacher, but he does expect you to be a faithful witness. Tell me, when does a candle begin to shine—when it’s already half burned up?”

“No, as soon as it’s lit,” came the reply.

“That’s right, so let your light shine right away.”428

Jesus’ intention for his children has always been for them to share the good news to others.

That is why He said in

Matthew 28:19 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Mattew 28 19

:

Not create programs, not be a nice person, not volunteer, but make disciples! And guess what? Disciple making happens through relationships.

I love what Jerry said last week when he talked about getting out into the world and being friends with people and getting to a place where they are willing to hear your story about how you put your faith and trust in the son of God, Jesus Christ.

Who does God want to save through you? Let me ask it this way. Who is that person that doesn’t know the Lord but needs to know the Lord in your life? Who has God put specifically in YOUR life to bring the knowledge of the faith to them?

Lord, I thank you for your truths today. I thank you that you desire us to be in relationships with others and a relationship with you. Thank you that you seek after us, thank you that you provide people in our life that need to know about you.

Give us an urgency to tell others the truths that we know about our amazing Savior!