It’s a good day to be here. I’m gonna start with a pop quiz. How many of you would consider yourself a gardener? Raise your hand if you’d say, I am a gardener. Enjoy gardening. Nice. the rest of us that don’t have our hands up are looking at you with disdain right now. I’m not a gardener, or at least I’ve not been successful in gardening. My wife, her parents are gardeners. So my in-laws Dan, lean amazing at gardening. Lemme show you a picture of their garden right here. This is a picture. I’m just kidding. That’s not their garden at all. <Laugh>, I, i, if you google stunning gardens, that’s the first thing that pops up right there. This would be what my garden looks like right now. So I have found that in gardening, there’s two different types of people. There’s people that are really good at it and they love it, and they invest in it, and, and it grows and it flourishes.

And then there are those of us that we plant things and they die. And that was our experience this last year. We were in Colorado, and one of the cool things in Colorado is you can grow fruit on trees in your backyard. We’ve, we’ve had some friends that, that we go in their backyard and they got cool fruit trees and we’re like, all right, let’s do that. And so I I, I looked on the internet and found the right fruit tree for the right place exactly where we are. Bought a handful of apple trees for our backyard. Planted those this last year, watered ’em really well for like two days and then maybe started going down after that. And about a month later, they were dead. I mean dead as a doornail. And maybe you’ve had a similar type of experience that, that you’ve tried to grow something and it just hasn’t worked.

It’s turned out and ruined. It’s looked more like a desert than a garden. But it’s interesting because that idea of a garden and a desert is a theme that we see in scripture that we see introduced at the very beginning of the Bible, is this idea of a garden. And then at the very end of the Bible is this idea of a garden. And then everything in between is this idea of God trying to bring back to us the garden that was offered at the very beginning. This idea of those two pictures that God wants us to be in this flourishing garden with him. But oftentimes we feel like we are in a desert. In the very beginning, in Genesis chapter two, verse seven, you see this idea introduced, it’s a famous passage, if you’re familiar with it. It’s in the creation story. It says, before sin enters the world.

In chapter three, it says, 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 when the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the 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 food good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And if you pause right there, like it’s awesome, everything is good and warm and fuzzy, then when we think of that garden theme, that, that once you understand that it exists, as you read through Bible, you’ll see garden over and over and over again. And what the garden really represents in Genesis chapter two, and also at the very end of scripture, is it’s this idea of a paradise.

As a, as a side note just kind of a cool Bible nerd thing, that the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, and then about 300 years before Jesus, they translate it into Greek because Greek is the common language that everybody spoke. It’s called the the Tugen. And so it as a, as a interesting kind of fact, most of the time in the New Testament when they’re quoting from the Old Testament, they’re quoting from the Greek version like that’s the word that gets translated. So they’re, they’re quoting from the Greek sep. So when the, the Greek scholars are, are looking at the Old Testament, and they’re translating it into Greek, when they translate the word in Hebrew for garden into Greek, they actually use the word paradise. So their understanding of what the garden represented was this paradise. And the garden also represents the scripture, this idea of rest and renewal in a world that is so busy, so much going on, and we always feel tired and we always feel worn out, that there’s this promise of the garden that gives us rest and renewal.

The garden also represents God’s dwelling place. We see in that same exchange that Adam and Eve are walking with God, that the presence of God is in the Garden of Eden. And then finally, the garden represents this idea of human flourishing, that God puts him in the garden and that they would flourish. And they’re just putting the, the garden and saying, Hey, just, just take a nap and rest and relax. They’re actually given a job. Look what it says down in verse 15. Genesis two verse 15. It says, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. That that idea of working the garden and keeping the garden is probably best understood by, by two different ways. To translate it, it would be the idea of to cultivate the garden and to protect the garden.

And so this is before sin sometimes falsely, we have this idea that, well, I wouldn’t have to work except sin entered the world. But before sin enters the world, Adam has a job, he has a purpose. Eve has a job, she has a purpose. And that job, God gives them the garden and says that you are to cultivate the garden and you are to protect the garden. That that in the same way that God has created you, God has created me with a purpose. And we might not have a physical, literal, tangible garden that we are supposed to cultivate and protect, but the garden of your life, the garden of my life is something that I, from God Almighty, am entrusted to cultivate and to protect. What what does that mean? Well, if you have experience as a gardener, there’s really two key things to gardening you. You can break it down

To these two things. A gardener helps something grow by doing two things, adding nourishment and removing hindrances that you plant. Just take one plant and you plant one plant first you gotta make sure that you’re adding nourishment. It’s getting enough sun, it’s not getting too much sun. You’re adding water, maybe plant food. And then you’ve gotta remove the obstacles to growth. It could be pulling out weeds, hindrances. It could be making sure that that soil doesn’t have rocks in it. And so in the same way in our life, if I’m gonna try and cultivate and protect a garden in my heart and in my soul, that it really boils down to me doing two things well, that I have to be adding nourishment and I have to be subtracting or removing obstacles that would prevent me from flourishing. At the very end of the Bible we have John pick up on this idea.

The very last chapter of scripture is the book of the Revelation, chapter 22. It, it’s interesting when we think of John, John writes a a few things in the New Testament. He writes the Gospel of John. He writes the epistles, first, second, third John. And then he writes the book of the Revelation. And, and throughout all of his writings, John does something very intentional where he tries to connect in our minds the idea of the Old Testament back to the New Testament at the very beginning of scripture, Genesis one, one, that famous phrase In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So when he’s writing his gospel, he picks up on that phrase and intentionally try and draw our minds back. And he says, in the beginning was the word Jesus. And the word was God, and the word was with God. And so throughout all of John’s writing is this idea to try and point us back to see that these are not two separate stories, the Old Testament, the New Testament, no, that this is one story of God’s redemption.

And so just like the very beginning in Genesis chapter two talks about this garden, he picks up on that imagery at the very end, in Revelation chapter 22 when he writes this, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright is crystal flowing from the throne of God and in the lamb through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the river, the tree of life, same thing we just saw 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, a cursed, but the throne of God and of 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. And so you, you have these bookends of the Bible. You have what we are created to be. And that was to be in this garden flourishing in the presence of God. And then Genesis chapter three happens. So sin enter into the equation. We get booted out of the garden. And then there’s this messy middle. That’s where we are right now. That, that John is looking ahead and saying, listen, someday in the new heavens and the new Earth, that garden idea will come back. Then we’ll be a part of that. But, but right now, we are stuck in the middle. And yet here’s the challenge. We are wired in such a way by God to desire the garden. We’re constantly desiring that rest and renewal.

But I have found the biggest challenge in my life, the biggest challenge in our culture is that there’s a lot of things that offer what looks like rest in renewal, but it’s actually not. It’s counterfeit. It’s a knockoff. When I was growing up, my family, depending upon how you want to describe them, was either if you’re calling them kind, frugal, or if you’re being honest. We were cheap. And that’s just who we were growing up. And so I didn’t know for a long time as a kid that there was a name brand cereal, because we never bought that, that didn’t exist. And our pantry were things like this. They looked very close to the real thing. And so like Joe’s os that’s the knockoff of Cheerios. Cheerios. And they intentionally make the box look the exact same as Cheerios. It’s a yellow box. It’s gonna have the, the Red Bowl, the Cheerios in the middle, even down to the three strawberries.

But but of course, as a kid, that’s not what I was eating. I was eating things like Tootie Fruities. They look a whole lot like, but they’re not. And then you got things like Berry Kids Crunch, which is as close to Captain Crunch, crunch berries as you could possibly get without it actually being in. And then there’s a thousand versions of marshmallow Matis, like Lucky Charms has 19 different knockoff brands. And so as a kid, I ate 2D Fruities because that’s, that’s the knockoff that we had in our house. And then one day I got old enough where I’m watching a TV commercial and that TV commercial is for Fruit Loops, and there’s a two can Sam. And we go to the grocery store and I say, mom, what are these Tootie fruities? This isn’t what’s on the TV commercial. I want Fruit Loops. The two cans says they’re the best.

Can we please have those? And and if you have bought cereal anytime recently, you wanna talk about inflation. I, I don’t know what is in a cereal box, but it is $8 for a big jumbo box of cereal if you get the name brand, but you know what’s right next to that name brand strategically, it’s not like they put the, the fruit loops here and then the fruit os are way down there. No, they’re right next to each other because as a kid, you go right to the Fruit Loops, but as the parent you say, whoa, those are $4 more than the box right next to ’em. And so my family, we always bought the knockoffs. And as a kid, my parents would always say, you can’t taste the difference. It’s the exact same thing. And as an adult can I honestly, honestly tell you the truth, you can a hundred percent taste the difference, like a hundred percent.

Like, like it’s, it’s a close counterfeit knockoff, but it’s not as good as the real thing. Probably the best example of that, I I, if you’ve been around for long, you know that I’m a friend of Dr. Pepper is the best soft drink. It’s just the outside of water, maybe most important drink that you can drink. Clearly it’s got the word doctor in it so it’s healthy for you. <Laugh>, there are so many Dr. Pepper knockoffs, like so many Dr. Pepper knockoffs and all of them hear me now, all of them taste like trash, okay? All of them, like they all have this weird aftertaste, like they’re imitating the flavor, but they can’t truly replicate the flavor. Dr. Pepper, 23 flavors of goodness, I don’t know what this is. Maybe they only got 19 in the 23. I don’t know what their issue is, but it is not the same.

And can I tell you that, that in this life, and so God creates us and wires us in a way to desire the garden and desire rest, but there’s a lot of counterfeit rest that exists. And counterfeit rest are things that distract or maybe things that numb us, but they don’t renew us. They don’t restore us. There’s a lot of things in life that exist like that. We walk around just perpetually tired and worn out. And man, I need a break. And what do we tend to do when we need a break? We do things like entertainment. And now let me pause and just say, I, I’m not anti entertainment. We’re not Amish at my house. We, we have TVs. We have iPads, but Bronson mentioned it, it’s the first Saturday or first Sunday in like months. There’s no high school football, there’s no college football, there’s no NFL football.

And there are men across our country and women across our country that, that they don’t know what to do this themselves because they spend five, six hours on a Sunday just sitting in front of the TV watching and watching and watching. And we think that those things rest and restores, but they, they really don’t. And and I’ll give you a great tangible example of how I know that because my kids watch screens. So we don’t let ’em watch screens on school nights, but on the weekends, they have a certain amount of time. And, and when they hit the end of their timer, so they’ll, they’ll either watch a show or they’ll, they’ll play video games. And when they hit the end of their timer, not once have my kids closed that iPad or turn off that video game and come into the room and just said, I, I just feel so renewed right now in my soul.

Like there’s just something about me that just woo, I feel great right now. Like never happened. And you know what happens when we tell ’em, Hey, timer’s up, time to turn off the screens. I mean, it is like their dog has died. Evan’s just tears. It’s the gnashing of teeth. They’re ripping clothes. They got ash on their face. Like, what is wrong right now? Why? Why is that the response when that turns off? Like, ’cause they’re not rest and renewed. They’re entertained, they’re distracted, they’re not rested and renewed. And there are so many things in our life that do the exact same thing. Entertainment can do that. They can distract us, but it doesn’t renew us. Addictions can do that. Why do people walk down that road of addiction? It’s because, well, I, I’ve got so many challenges I’m facing in my life. So much pain I’m facing in my life, and so I’m going to use the alcohol or use the drugs to numb the pain that I have.

But does it really give us rest or renewal? No, of course not. Toxic relationships can be that way. You have an unhealthy relationship. So all of a sudden bad things happen. And so you go back to that bad relationship because maybe it feels good at or it feels nice. Escapism does the same thing. I don’t know what to do with my, myself. I got these problems, so I’m just gonna try and escape from it. I’m just gonna try and run away from it. Even things that on the surface sound really great. So self care is a really big thing. Culture, man, you take care of yourself and go get a massage and go go to the spa and do those things. And I’m not saying those are bad things, but if those are the things that we hold up to say that’s the only thing that’s gonna be arrested, renewal, can I just say it’s, it’s close to the real thing, but it’s not the real thing.

And even oddly, religion can do the same thing that going through the motions of religion without the presence of God is a counterfeit rest showing up at church, physically showing up in a Bible study, going through those motions, but not entering into the presence of God misses the rest that he offers. So John, who wrote Revelation in the middle of his gospel tries to tie together a theme for us to understand where we can achieve that garden today. And so he uses this garden imagery and the gospel of John in chapters 18 and 19 and 20. He intentionally mentions a garden in places that we don’t see with the other gospel. So, so look in first John chapter 18. We know that this is the Garden of Gethsemane, but, but John doesn’t mention the garden of Gethsemane. <Laugh>, Luke in his gospel is very intentional to name places and names.

But John, I think intentionally doesn’t name Gethsemane because he’s trying to point us back to the garden in Genesis chapter two. And what happens, he physically says where there was a garden. This is where the betrayal happens, where Judas brings the guards and they arrest Jesus just like there’s a betrayal that happens in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sin against God. Then in John chapter 19 he’s very careful to describe that Jesus buried in a garden tomb. Look what it says. One very poignant verse in John chapter 19, verse 41. He says, now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden. Probably most of us, when we think in our head and picture Jesus’s death on a cross, we don’t imagine that there’s a garden around that. And yet John points out that there is this garden.

And he says, and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had yet been lame. So the place that Jesus would be buried was in a garden, a garden all around it. And then a more famous passage where, where Mary she, she runs to see Jesus the the body of Jesus. She’s going to the tomb and the the stone that was there has been rolled away. And so she goes, and she gets John and she gets Peter and they, they run and then they say, well, hey, it’s empty. Jesus’ body isn’t here. And then we don’t know what happens to Peter and John that just kind of drift off and Mary’s sitting there at the tomb, and then this exchange happens. It says, but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And then as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb.

And she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had laying one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, they’ve taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener? She said to him, sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary, it’s that moment where Jesus says her name, that all of a sudden the revelation happened. She knows that this is not just the tomb’s gardener, that this is Jesus. It says she’s turned to him and said to him in Aramaic rabbi, which means teacher.

It’s this interesting exchange where we see the resurrected body of Jesus. Oftentimes people don’t recognize who he is that, that Jesus intentionally hides his identity. We see this over and over and over again, and this is the first time that we see that. And Mary looks up and she’s in a garden. And so she sees this figure not knowing that it’s Jesus. She assumes that he is a gardener. Can I tell you that she was both wrong and right at the same time that he was not the gardener of the tomb. But, but John is trying to, to, to get an imagery for us to understand that that garden all the way back in Eden and, and that garden that is promised in the new heavens and the new earth, the way that we can cultivate that garden right now to today, and the messy middle, is by letting Jesus be the gardener by, by letting him come into our life, letting him cultivate, letting him let all the other areas of my life to flourish.

But, but we tend to not do that, do we? I think oftentimes we look at our life kinda like a big puzzle, and we’re trying to fit things into that puzzle of life. And so I’ve got, well, there’s, there’s the work me, and then there’s the family me, and then there’s the me that’s around my friends. And then there’s, well, this part of my life that, that I like to have fun. And then there’s this part of my life that I, I like to have rest. And we can compartmentalize our life in these different ways where we almost become different people where, okay, well, the me that I am, when I’m hanging out with my family, actually it looks very different than the me that I am when I go to work on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. And that’s actually a very different me than when I’m hanging out with a certain group of friends.

I take on a different persona, a different personality, and maybe that’s even a different me than, than when I’m seeking out entertainment. And, and so then we’re left with all these pieces and we said, well, I guess, I guess I gotta put Jesus right there. I gotta try and fit him into the, to the puzzle, into the equation. And so we tend to give him this little piece right here and say, okay, Jesus, here’s your spot. I need you to stay right there, and if you can just stay right there, everything’s gonna be great. But, but here’s the problem. A garden doesn’t work that way. Like if you have a garden and you say, okay, I got this huge garden and I’m gonna take this small spot right here, and I’m gonna cultivate it, and I’m gonna protect it, and I’m gonna give it the nourishment, the nutrients that it needs, and I’m gonna make sure I’m pulling out the weeds, but then I just abandon and ignore the rest of it.

What’s gonna happen to every other part of the garden? It’s gonna be dead. You, you see, what Jesus is asking us for is not to be a piece of the puzzle, but instead to be a permanent fixture in every area of my life. That, that Jesus isn’t just, well, hey, I I go to church, so I give you Sunday for two hours. No, no. That when I am at work, that who I am at work reflects who I am in Jesus and, and in my family. That that who I am as a husband, who I am as a spouse, who I am as a father, reflects my relationship with Jesus. That when I’m with my friends, that my friends know that, hey, the primary thing that’s driving your purpose and identity in life is your relationship with Jesus. That, that when I’m choosing things for entertainment, for fun in my life, that it’s still going back to who Jesus is in me.

That all is about Jesus. And yet oftentimes we try and keep ’em over here. We say, Hey, Jesus, I need, I need you to say right here. I I think the reason is ’cause it comes down to trust. How much am I trusting in Jesus to let every area of my life flourish? So often instead of finding those times of stillness and presence to enter into that rest that Jesus offers, we numb and distract ourselves with all the things of the world. So what does it mean to trust in Jesus? So some of it is about thinking less of ourselves and more of him. And that sounds challenging, but it’s actually the most freeing thing that we can do. I remember when I was about 26 or 27 years old, so I had a degree in finance. I worked for three years in corporate banking, and then I went to go work in a mega church when I was 24.

And a big church, amazing church, second Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, had a wonderful experience there. And it got poured into by some amazing people. And so when I was about 26 or 27 my wife and I, and we didn’t have kids, she was working in education. She was a fourth grade teacher. And, and I was running the, the kids’ ministry, family ministry. It was a big ministry and, and we were going the right direction. It was growing. And I was in the season of life where, where I was just that, that phrase of burning the candles at both ends, and I just was pushed, pushed, go, go, go, go. And I had this weight where I felt like if I didn’t show up, everything falls apart. Now I really believed that the reason everything was successful was because of me. And if I just kept working hard, then everything keeps going that direction.

And I had a, a boss, her name was Lisa Mill, now Lisa Young, who was very wise, very smart, and she saw it. So, so she was just observing me from afar, and she was like, Hey, this, this is not sustainable. And so she calls me into her office and we have a long conversation. And, and about halfway into the conversation she says, Kurt, the pace that you’re running right now is not a sustainable pace. And the reason that you’re running the pace you are, is you think that everything relies on you. And, and I have maybe some good news and maybe some bad news for you. And then she, she used a quote that her father had given her. It’s a famous quote, although if you go Google it, you can’t find out who originally said it. It’s, it’s attributed to like 19 different people.

Here’s the quote. It says, take a bucket, fill it with water, put your hand in up to the wrist, pull it out the hole that remains is a measure of how you’ll be missed. <Laugh>. That was what my boss said to me about the work that I was doing, <laugh>. And she said, she said, don’t hear me wrong her. I think you are doing an amazing job. She said, but you somehow have bought into the lie that you are the only one that can do the job that you’re doing. And she said, let, let me just give you some honest truth. Every single one of us is replaceable. She said, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, the ministry ain’t shutting down the next day. She said, we’re gonna hire somebody else and we are gonna keep going. And she said, that’s true of you. She said, that’s true of me.

That’s true of all of us. And, and then she, she turned it on me. And she said, but, but here’s what you need to know, and I need you to remember this for the rest of your life, that there are certain buckets that you can pull your hand out of, and there is no hole. But there are other buckets that that is not true about. She said, your marriage, you can’t just pull your hand out of that bucket and not leave a hole. She said, someday, when you have kids as a dad, you can’t just pull your hand outta that bucket and not leave a hole. She said, you’ve gotta realize that certain areas of your life where you’re trusting wholly on yourself, that you have got to just hand that over. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your past.

He said, if you would just trust not on yourself, but in him, it allows you to take a step back and not feel like you are the hero of the story. That that’s what Jesus is offering to us. When John is saying that he wants to be the gardener, I don’t know where you are in life right now. Maybe you feel like life is flourishing and you are in a garden and everything is growing and everything is great. Or maybe if you’re candid and honest, you say, well, no, my life feels like a desert. It feels like it’s in ruin. Or, or maybe you’re somewhere in between. But the promise that God gives to us about who Jesus is comes in. Isaiah chapter 51 says, for the Lord comforts Zion. He comforts all her waste places that can be translated as he comforts all her ruins and makes her wilderness like Eden.

Her desert like the garden of the Lord, joy and gladness will be found in her thanksgiving. And the voice of song that that’s the promise of Jesus. And he takes the desert to ruin the wasted spaces in our life that when we give it to him and allow him to cultivate it, that would flourish in a way that we’ve never experienced before. But we gotta slow down, seek in that stillness, his presence the first Sunday of every month. We always do communion as a church family. Normally we do it upfront, somewhere connected to music. But today we’re gonna do it at the very end as we end this series on rest of slowing down and, and really focusing on the presence of Jesus in our life. We are gonna conclude it with communion. And and here’s what I want you to understand.

That, that it’s easy and communion to just go through the motions. Hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna eat the little cracker. I’m gonna drink the little juice and both taste terrible, and then I’m gonna go through my motions. But, but that’s not the point of it. It’s, it’s not about a little cracker. It’s not about the juice. It’s about the presence of Jesus in my life. It’s about me stopping and putting my trust in him and saying, I remember, Lord, I remember what you have done for me. I remember that my life was paid, the price.