Ordered Chaos-Sabbath In Creation (Aeronova Retreat 2023) - Tyler Behel

During this time, we explore the theme of Sabbath in nature and its connection to God’s purposes for humanity in Genesis.
This series of teachings is recorded live from The Retreat by AeroNova 2023. To find out more about how to attend the annual Retreat visit theretreat.aeronova.org. 

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Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):




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Tyler is a man of God and he is a prominent place in our country. And Marina is a woman of God. And besides leading the pastoring, the mission house, they're in Northern Alabama, which we're going to be doing the school of spiritual leadership. Next month, we're looking forward to that. They also hit up all of the ministry operations and air Nova for Guatemala. So you Guatemala folks, we it's amazing what God's doing. I'm astounded to what the Lord's doing. And Marina has a women's ministry in Guatemala. And and just it's they truly have servant's hearts, but they, they are powerful in the Lord. And but humble, and we love them. And so I promise you this, I'm not getting your hopes up too much. They're gonna bless your socks off, because the Holy Spirit is going to move through them tonight. Both of them, he's going to move through them tonight. And so, guys, come on up, and we'll welcome you in the name of the Lord. Go ahead, brother. We'll adjust this for you. Sounds good? Yeah, I'm a little shorter than rod is. So might need a little bit of a mic adjustment not quite as much as Lucy does when she says Lucy? Yeah. Yeah, so I cannot tell you how thankful Marina and I are to be here tonight with you guys. We had to miss last year, because we were in the middle of moving to Alabama. And I tell you, we missed it. We missed it big time. It was a no, it was a hole in our hearts for not being able to be here last year. But it's made being here this year, that much sweeter. I know, in spite of everything that's going on right now. But, you know, what's really encouraging is, is in the midst of all of this chaos, that the enemy has tried to inject into this spiritual family. Everybody has linked arms and link shields, and link swords and spears. And they're fighting in unity in a way that I haven't seen us, you know, have to step up and do before. So it's been really incredible. So we've been talking about this Sabbath thing and nature thing today. And I'll tell you what, so this morning, Riley, that message was so on point. And many of the verses that I've got in here, I think you talked about earlier. And in fact, some of the research that you listed in detail I allude to in here, she and I did not coordinate. We didn't talk before this. And then Mike, there's some things in here that you said too. And we had a very loose topic that we were kind of all praying into for the Holy Spirit to write, you know, help us write a message for the for the group tonight. And whenever I hear something in Scripture, and it's repeated over and over and over again, I think there's a reason for it. And I think that means we need to listen, we need to pay attention to it, right? So when I see the Holy Spirit highlighting certain verses, and certain certain themes, and certain messages in all of these teaching so far, I'm like, huh, my antennas go up a little bit. And I'm like, I need to pay attention to this. This might be something that's important. So I encourage you, if you're not doing so already, take notes. While we're here. Go back and look at those notes later. Don't let it be the last time you look at them. And then I encourage you to pray into them and say, Hey, what are you saying to us about this? God? What does this mean for our church family? What does this mean for me personally? What does this mean for the big C church? And what does it mean for creation? So, so as we get started in and we've we've been talking about this Sabbath thing and nature thing and Marina and I have been feeling the Lord call us to this for quite a while, over the last year or so. And we've tried to do this with our family and I'll talk a little bit about that in the teaching. But then when rod asked if I if I was feeling called to teach, and as I was praying about it, I was like, What is this mean? You know, like, I go out, I go out in the mountains, and I feel wonderful. I go out in nature in creation and I feel great. And I go back into my job, you know, into into technology even into places that are supposed to be super comfortable. That you know people have made that are supposed to be great. And and I don't feel so good. Why is that? And I think whenever we ask those questions why? Why is something a certain way? It leads us to a how. And that's the reason I think it's important for us to kind of take a look at this first, like, what is what does that mean for us? And why do we feel like that? And then that should drive us to our how, how do we get to that point where we can Sabbath in nature effectively, to get the maximum out of out of it that what God intended for us. And that's kind of what I want to talk about tonight. And this whole search, as I was praying over, it led me to a story. It led me to a story. And it starts like this a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. I know that was no, that doesn't sound right. Now I'm a space nerd. In case anyone doesn't know. That's what I do. But But no, it actually starts like this in the beginning, in the beginning. And so if you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, whether that's a digital copy, hardcopy is preferable, and especially this weekend, but if you don't have that a digital copy will be fine. I would really like for you to follow along, because I'm going to read a chunk of Genesis. And what I'd like for you to do is I'd like you to follow along. And I'd like for you to make mental notes, make some highlights, make some actual notes, as to the different themes that you're seeing. What is the Lord highlighting to you about Sabbath? What is the Lord highlighting to you about your purpose? What is the Lord highlighting to you about creation. So I'm going to start in Genesis one, verse 26. And we're going to go till probably chapter two, verse 25. And then I'm going to read one verse at a chapter three. So I'll give you just a second to get there. All right, so then God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image, and the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them. And God bless them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, Behold, I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food, and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth. Everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food, and it was so And God saw everything he made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens in the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day, from all his work that he had done. So God bless the seventh day and made it holy. Because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens in the earth, when they were created, and the day that the Lord made the earth and the heavens when no bush of the field was yet in the land, and 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. And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. And then the Lord formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed his life into his nostrils, the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. In 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 the 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, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And I'm gonna skip down to verse 15. Then Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden, to work it and to keep it. And the Lord commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat it, you shall surely die. And then he said, It's not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord Gods 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, the man gave names to all the 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. So the Lord caused the deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he sleep, he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh in the rib that the Lord God had taken of the man he made into a woman, and brought her to the man and then said, and the man said, this last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called Woman, because she is taken out of a man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and behold, and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And I'm going to skip down to verse, or chapter three, verse eight, and they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Okay, so So who in this room has ever been a leader in any sort of capacity? Okay, that's good. You'll have a little bit of context then. So how did you decide what tasks to put someone in charge of when you were leading people? If you had a direct task? How did you? How did you? How did you make your people set up? Anybody? Based on their character and their abilities, anybody else got something to add to it? strengths and weaknesses? Spending time with them? You had to know them? Anything else? Based on skills? Okay. So most of us had pretty similar answers, right? Like, you wouldn't give someone an assignment because you thought they were going to be terrible at it, and we're going to fail, right? You wouldn't do that unless you were being really mean. So the army did that, to me, kind of whenever, when, whenever I was a lieutenant and I had a German degree in international business, I completely avoided math, like the plague. And they thought, hey, you know, it'd be a great idea. Let's make him an artillery officer. So he can do manual gunnery, because he needs to learn physics. Oh, it was terrible. So the army doesn't do it this way. But God, on the other hand, I don't think that he does it in the way that the army does, I think he kind of looks at it, like, like we sort of do. So in, in my leadership roles, I look at those things, I look at their skill sets, and I say, Hey, what's this person going to be really good at? Where are they going to thrive? And the other way I look at it as if this person has the potential to be really good at something, but he's never had the chance to try it yet. I'll give them an assignment where I feel like they're gonna grow, like a stretch assignment. And I don't think we came up with these leadership, like qualities and, and ways of doing business, just, you know, out of the blue, I think, you know, as people created in God's image, he gave those to us. So I think he does the same thing with us. So you look at what he told man to do. He created man and God's image. And then he gave us dominion and stewardship over creation. So when we look at that, if we have the skill set necessary to do it, and we have the call to do it, I feel like our hearts are always going to be inclined towards that, you know, we're always going to feel the most comfortable, and the most happy, and like, we thrive when we're doing that. And, and, and what's really interesting about that, you know, like, we've given we've gotten this, we've, we've gotten this, this task and this role of Dominion, but the dominion was supposed to be over God's created things. We were supposed to subdue God's creation. But really what we've done is we've created an environment where we have made things in our image instead, we've we've created certain technologies that are in our image and not in God's image. At that point, you know, we we go from stewarding God's creation, to injecting ourselves into our own creation. We surround ourselves with human creation, and because of that, something in our spirit seems off. Something in our spirit seems off. So we've exercised our dominion inappropriately. And because of that, something in our spirit doesn't seem right. And it causes all sorts of issues. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of an example of how this works. So Marina, and I got married. And right after we got married, when we were talking about having kids and we didn't have any kids yet, we did what a lot of couples do when they're thinking about starting a family. We get a starter kid right couple puppy. And yeah, so you know what I'm talking about us. We live in Arizona at the time and in Sierra Vista, because I was in the captain's career course. And we go when we get this Bloodhound, because we picked the dog that we thought was super cute. And this puppy was so cute. This puppy was like yay big with ears about this big. And whenever she would run, she tripped over him and fall and roll around. And it was the cutest little puppy ever. So we get this bloodhound in Arizona. And this puppy loved it. We had a huge, like Walden backyard, we had so much time to go play with her and run with her and everything because we didn't have kids yet. And, and there was a lot of space for her to play. It was a climate that she was built for. She's a dog that doesn't have a lot of fat and a lot of hair. So being 100 degrees outside was great. She loved it. And and she thrived in that environment because it was what she was bred to be in. So fast forward, we moved to Washington and I get deployed. And she goes and lives on my sister for a while in Alabama. And then gets huge this dogs like 7080 pounds. And she's super strong and my sister and that they they weren't training her often on a leash because in Alabama us let dogs do what they want, run around and play. It's Alabama there's no rules. So we get back and we get we get our Get our little puppy back who's no longer a little puppy. And we take her to Washington because we lived in Tacoma Washington Joint Base Lewis McChord at this point, and we had this back yard, that that they would be envious of a Colorado backyard to tell you how small it is. So for those of you who live anywhere else, other than Colorado, the backyards here, nothing to write home about, they're really tiny. In Washington, they're even smaller, like little postage stamp. So this gigantic dog is in a tiny little yard. And the weather's always wet and cold. And she's not happy. She's not happy, she goes outside, she shivering. She doesn't want to be outside, she wants to come inside and play. But she's super big and strong. And we have a little kid, she knocks him down the stairs a couple of times, she breaks things, she chews things up, because she's not where she was supposed to be. And then we moved to Colorado, and it was more of the same and it gets worse. So so I get deployed, again, when we get to Colorado, and Marina is at home. And at this point, like we're expecting our second child, Ezra. And so Marina is pregnant for the majority of my deployment and, and has the baby while I'm gonna go to come home for a couple of days. And then I go back. So Marina has a newborn baby recovering from having a baby husband's on the other side of the world. And she's got this big old puppy to take care of to. And his big puppy won't walk on a leash nice and actually pulls her down on the ground whenever she tries to Walker, and then breaks out of the fence because the puppy needs to be in the environment that puffy supposed to be in right. And she's something in her spirit was unsettled, because she wasn't getting what she needed to do. And, and the last, the kind of the last deal for us was she broke out of the fence and the pound picked her up, it was super expensive to get her back. And it was just not something Marina can manage with me being gone. So we found a farmer that's in like the Aspen area has a bunch of acres of land up near Aspen, Colorado, and other bloodhounds. And this person wanted another bloodhound to add to their family. So you know, I was like, You know what, this is probably the best thing. We're gonna put her someplace where she can actually thrive in an environment that's close to her natural habitat, where she can grow and be the kind of puppy that she wants to be. So let's take that illustration. And then let's talk about it from like our perspective. I know we're not puppies, I'm not comparing us to dogs. But I am saying that we, we have similar things, you know, we we've, when we when we have things that are foreign to our nature that we're we're integrated in all the time. It does the same thing to us. It starts causing us all sorts of issues. So we've built things in our lives to make us more comfortable. We've got TV, we've got treadmills in our basement that have little fans and little little outdoor scenes on it to make us feel like we're running outside. But we're not we're in a basement. And Riley brought up Google Goggles. Oh my goodness, I don't know what that is. But it sounds scary. But it's right along the lines, you know, we've created an artificial reality, so that we don't have to get out in to God's reality in his creation, because we think it's going to be comfortable. We think it's going to make us happy. But what has happened at the same time, is that we've got rampid anxiety in our society. We have rampant depression. We have all sorts of delusion on Grand scales like we've never seen before in our history. We've got everything from from from now natural order to gender, and right and wrong, all these things have had have exploded in ways that I never thought I'd ever see in my parents and grandparents surely hadn't at the exact same rate that our technology has increased. And why is that? You know, why is that? So let's go back to Genesis for a moment. I'm not going to make you read it. But I want you to think about Genesis one, and maybe you can skim through it while I'm talking that might be good. But when God initiated creation, what we see is God is bringing order to chaos. He's bringing order to chaos, there was a void, he brings, he divides the land and the water. He divides the light from the darkness. He establishes celestial rhythm rhythms that make up the universe's function. He creates life. And when he creates people, he has this wilderness that's still out there. And the wilderness still represents chaos. So what does he do? He plants a garden, an ordered garden that is perfectly suited for man to thrive, and not only thrive, but thrive in relationship with him. And that's our natural habitat. If you need any further evidence that this wilderness concept is chaos, you know, look at the Israelites experience. Look at Jesus's tentation encounter, he goes out to the wilderness to confront chaos, and then bring order to and the theme years that God brings order to chaos, and then created us in His image. So we have this innate desire in, in our spirit in our bones, you know, to, to bring order to the chaos. That's what we want. That's why we design all these technologies and these different things and try to supplant God's order for things because we're trying to do his job we're trying to get we're trying to constitute, you know, build Eden back. But we're not doing it in his way that He made us to be a part of, and that stewarding His creation, not our own. And yeah, I want to read a verse at Genesis two real quick. It says that the heavens in the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God bless the seventh day and made it holy. Because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. So I want you to look at this, these these couple of verses about the first Sabbath. And then I want you to think about all the other days of creation. Do you notice something different? You notice anything different? You said it was very good. But there's something else I'd like to hone in on. There's something that's included in all the other days of creation, that is not included in this day. What is it? I heard it Morning. Morning and evening. There was no morning, and there was no evening on the Sabbath. And why is that? Because it's still supposed to be happening. The Sabbath was never intended to cease the garden, the relationship with God was supposed to be an enduring state of rest that we got to enjoy with God. And then humans injected chaos, back into creation. So now we have to deal with the chaos again. When God had all the chaos ordered, the natural state was the garden. The natural state was relationship with him an environment where we could thrive. If you need any other evidence on that revelation 22 Five, it says, at night, there will be I'm sorry, and night there will be no more. There will be no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. That's what Revelation is. All the chaos has been dealt with. And we've returned to Eden with God. And that is our natural state. We were meant to live in this environment of perpetual and constant Sabbath. And we keep wanting to go back to that. The problem is when we try to reproduce Eden we are supplanting God's design for order. Instead of bringing order. We're injecting chaos. When we've been talking about Sabbath and nature, consider the implications of this. So So chaos is stress inducing. Stress has many second and third order effects on our health. Right so it has second and third order effects on our relationships, and pretty much every other aspect of our life. We removed ourselves from God's creation, which includes his relationships with people hang with him in our attempt to create a safe space. And in doing so we've created a cage, sort of like a zoo. And that's not where we're supposed to be. I mean, look at the animals in the zoo, they look happy compared to the ones that are out in the wild. I mean, if you watch Free Willy, I mean portal free Willie's fans all left over the you look at you look at the killer whales out and out in the ocean, they're not their fans standing up, they're happy. You know, like, that's the message. You know, we don't want to live like that. We don't want to live like that. We don't want to create a cage for ourselves. So there's a book that came out in 2005 called Last Child in the Woods. Has anyone here read that? It is an amazing book. So the gentleman that wrote its name is Richard Loof. And I don't think the book itself is innately Christian. However, he does have a section of it that talks about the spiritual, the spiritual nature of of getting out into creation. But what he does talk about is that as we've removed children from the woods, and they don't have this time of unstructured play, like they used to have a couple generations ago, I think my generation may be the last one that got it regularly. And even in some places in the country probably didn't. You've had these just crazy developmental impacts on children. And he calls this this nature deficit disorder is what he calls it. But what it does is it's created this whole issue where you've got like ATD, ADHD, you've had anxiety, you've got all sorts of issues where people just can't deal with normal things. And it's very directly related to the amount of time people are spending outside in creation. And he discusses how he interviews these kids that actually do get to still go outside, he calls them the very exceptional children that get to go outside. And he talks about how these kids that actually go and spend time out in nature, are just filled with all and they're filled with wonder. And then he talks about how these people that are atheists, whenever they're advocating for, like, protecting nature. They're using verbs that Christians use, they're using language that Christians use to say that the that nature has spiritual connections to it, they talk about it as creation, that God's creation is what the atheist reason, they don't even believe in God. But they know that there's no other appropriate way to describe creation. And they lose their words for it. And really, I don't know what that says about them, they should probably take it and walk the dog a step further, you know, maybe they'll find God in creation. So Marina and I have thought a lot about this. And we've tried to institute it with our family. So we try, you know, once a week, once every two weeks to go out somewhere and go hiking, we actually kind of got this from the Hernandez family, they're doing this a lot. In Alabama, they're going out to like the walls of Jericho, and in all these other different hiking trails. And they really inspired us to start doing this. And we started getting the kids outside and letting them play. And then I've been trying to be intentional about going out and playing with them. You know, instead of just remaining busy inside and saying, hey, we'll get outside and come back at dark you know, I try to go out and do things with them, jump on the trampoline with them go go play with sticks with Ezra build things. At the same time, too. We we were looking for a school for Ezra to go to and the search was was kind of tough at first move in Alabama, a lot of the Christian schools are full up and but we knew we needed to get him into a school so that she could really focus on Emma's homeschool. And we found this amazing little school that does this thing called Forest School. And I don't know if anyone's heard of forest school or not. It's incredible. So they spend the majority of their day outside, doing unstructured play. And then when it's structured, they're building simple machines. They're building forts, they're going in finding animals in the creek out back. They're doing all of these things. And they're doing their Bible lessons outside in nature to because it's a little Christian school. They have an outdoor classroom where they bring their little chairs. And they have a saying that there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. So so they, they get they get integrated into creation, and they get to experience it and what the school presented to us at the orientation was really striking to me and it goes right along with what we're talking about. They've got all this research that Riley kind of pointed out some of it earlier in her talk. The kids that have anxiety issues at school that have all sorts of behavioral issues at school, that have ADHD, you put them in a forest school environment, all of a sudden that kids and a student is thriving. That kid doesn't have all these issues anymore and doesn't need the medication anymore because the kids are in an environment where he or she can thrive doing the things they were created to do and learn in a way that they were created to learn. And it's absolute incredible. I've noticed that with Ezra And he learned so fast in this forest school. And he's a very high energy, little boy, if you try to get him to sit in a desk for eight hours a day, there's no way he wouldn't be successful. He's not wired that way. He's not wired that way. But you get them outside, and you give him tools, and you give him sticks, and you let them use his imagination. And he'll thrive. Because that's what God created us to be. He created us to be creative. He created us to steward creation, He created us to, to have all in wonder in that creation. So the so this book, this this blue book that I mentioned, he talks about how this type of learning engages all of our senses. It engages all of our senses, when we look at technology, it gives us a very two dimensional way of looking at the world, right. And we talked earlier about how when you read something in the book, it's not the same as experiencing it, you can read about the watercycle, you can read about the way that the bodies in the heavens move. But until you see them and you experience it for yourself, it doesn't really become real. When you see the animals whenever you're when you're on your paddleboard out in the out in the water, you get an idea of how big a whale is, you know, if you see one of those, and it's all inspiring, but if you see one in a book, you know, it just doesn't have the same doesn't have the same impact. And I'm not talking bad about books, I think they're important, and they have a purpose. But there is something very special about engaging God's creation the way he created it, and encountering it face to face. And we need to be intentional about doing that and getting out of his creation and experiencing it in there. So when we go out in Colorado, in the mountains to hike, think about the way it makes you feel, you know, I know when we were coming back today from taking back my rental car, in the mountain peak through for a few minutes, and I can see the snow on it. That is the biggest burst of energy I've had in a while just because there's something on spiring about the mountains that captivates me. And in looking at it in a book just doesn't do the same thing. You know, whenever you see the animals, whenever you see the ocean, it brings all just like it does to those kids and they go outside and they're like, Oh, we'll get this book, we'll get this animal and they just get so engrossed in God's creation and what it is. Romans, Romans 120 says it this way for the invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature has been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. When we get out in nature, nature testifies of God's existence to us. It teaches us it teaches us about him. So the art of Sabbath thing is so related to this. It's so related to this Do you guys remember Senator Joe Lieberman that you ran for president, you know, back in the bush days? I'm not necessarily gonna say that. Anyways, he wrote an amazing book, he wrote an amazing book called The Gift of arrest. And he's, he's a Jewish guy. And I tell you what, he has some amazing insights in the Sabbath thing. And I highly encourage you to get this book and read it. So what he says in this book that I wanted to point out, he says, quote, when I said the Sabbath is sensual, I meant that it engages the senses, sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, with beautiful settings, soaring melodies, wonderful food and wine, and lots of love. It is a time to reconnect with family and friends. And of course, with God, the Creator, everything we have time to sense on the Sabbath, in quote. So creation, invites us to become aware of God's presence, and then inclines our hearts to commune with Him and to commune with others. I'm not talking about animism. And I think Riley gave this caution earlier to she's not talking about worshipping corn. And I'm not talking about worshiping anything else created. That's not the point of this. The point is that creation tells us something about the artist, because creation is art. It's his thumbprint. It's his thumbprint that we get to see him and it makes us aware of his presence. It's our natural habitat. So that one verse I took out of chapter three and chapter three, verse eight, in the Garden of Eden, the only reason I picked up that verse is because it says Adam and Eve, when they heard the Lord in the garden, they hid from him. How do they know it was the sound of the Lord in the garden? They'd heard it before. They knew how to perceive the Lord's presence there in creation. They didn't hear or they didn't see him. You know, they didn't touch him, they heard him, it, he their senses were piqued to his presence there. So when I go into a shop, or store anything like that, I get super mission focused. And I get tunnel vision because frankly, they stress me out. I hate stores. I can't stand it. They stress me out real bad. And I've had people that tried to wave at me in a store and say hi to me, I even see them. I just kept moving. And I hear about it later. And they'd be like, dude, what's going on with you? Like I said, hi to you. Mattamy. Oh, I'm sorry. If I had actually seen you, I would have engaged you. relationally. You see, I wasn't aware of their manifest presence in the store. I was dulled in my senses, by all the noise. It blocked me. But it had I become aware of their presence, I would have engaged them relationally whenever I was still coming out here for drill every month, I used to stay with Brad and Lucy THANK YOU GUYS publicly, because we're awesome. And I used to stay in their basement. And they would always tell me Oh, don't worry about waking us up in the morning, it'll be okay, I'll come out and have a cup of coffee with you. For you go, Well, I was gonna, when I was leaving, like four o'clock in the morning, I didn't want to wake Brad up. So I would be real quiet like a ninja. And I would go up there, I would make my cup of coffee. And I would leave the house. And Brad actually freaked out one day, he thought I missed drill. But because he didn't wake up, he wasn't aware of my presence in his home. So he couldn't come out and engage me relationally. And that's kind of how this works. God is all around us all the time. He's all around us. He's even in the midst of all the chaos, and he orders that for us. But if we're not aware that he's there, because we haven't trained our senses, we haven't engaged our senses and our senses have become dull, it's a lot harder to engage him on a relational level. It's a lot harder to. So I know this concept probably seems Elementary to many people in this room. And this isn't anything you probably haven't heard before, maybe even multiple times. And then for some of you this may seem super foreign, and you don't have no idea what I'm talking about. But I'm going to ask you to do so do an exercise. And that's going to help you. Okay, so Mike gave you a really amazing handout earlier that had some questions on it right. So I'm going to ask you to take Mike's handout with you. And I'm going to ask you to do a challenge. As you do a challenge, I want you to go out and find a place somewhere at least once a week. That's in nature. If you're in Colorado, you got a bunch opportunities, no excuse. If you live in New York, God bless you try real hard. Find a place in nature, where you can go and either be alone, or be with your family, to commune and Sabbath and nature. And if you don't like being outside, do it anyways. In addition to having Mike's sheet and doing what I do, and answering the questions on that sheet, I want you to write some other things down too. I want you to take a moment when you get there. And I want you to pray Lord, what do you want to show me in this environment? What does it say about you. And then I want you to write down everything that you see everything that you smell everything that you taste everything that you feel, and I don't want you to just write down the happy things. If you're in a place, and it's hailing and snowing and cold, or it's an Alabama, and it's as hot as the surface of the sun and you're all nasty, you need a shower after walking outside, I want you to write that down. And then I want you to go back and I want you to pray through that list. And say God, what is this attribute about your creation? Tell me about you? Why have you included this detail in your creation? Because all these details in creation, are linked together. And it really shows it really just shows the magnitude and the omnipotence and the greatness of God, when you start to look at how all these little things line up. And how even that that was probably has a purpose in in, in the ecological system of an environment. And that hot weather or you know, the Yeah, Brad shaking his head, no, or the rain or the snow or whatever else, you know, like all of these things have a purpose. So I want you to ask him about that. And I want you to try to do this for two months. Do it for two months, once a week for two months. It'll be a commitment. But we need to start to order our lives around what God wants us to do and around God's rhythms. And that's always going to be a sacrifice. And that's okay. But I want you to do it for two months. And I want you to go back and read all of them that you can read the highlights, read the notes, and then see what comes out of it. And I don't know what that will be for you. Because I feel like God is going to highlight specific things to each person in this room because he deals with each one of us individually. And he deals with our families in a certain way and he deals with our our spiritual families and stuff In a way, but I want you to hear what the Lord has to show you on that. Another piece I wanted to point out about God's created things are the relationships. So in Genesis 218, he talked about, you know, it's not good for man to be alone. And I know the context of this is marriage. And I think this speaks to something greater, though. And that is the need of humans to have relationships with other humans, because that's the natural process if you walk the dog between marriage, and then later, you have marriage, and then you have families and families, make communities. And it really speaks to our need for community and unity with one another. Jesus applied this concept whenever he Sabbath. And then he also applied this concept whenever he went to the garden. So, so think about when Jesus left the Passover Seder on the night that he was crucified, he went to go pray, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and then he took his friends. So he went to a place where he could encounter God in creation. And, and to try to find some sort of rest in the chaos and some sort of order in the chaos, right? It says, Then Jesus came with them to a place called a seminar and he told the disciples sit here while we go over there to pray. So that it speaks to Jesus's need for relationship to in that timeframe, where he had something big that he needed to bring before the Father. And relationships were always integral in the way he did things, and I want to do what Jesus did, because it speaks to something that we need to probably do too. So the creations of technologies like zoom or Facebook Live, you know, they've done incredible things, removing information and providing connections where we didn't have any other possibilities. The issue is, this doesn't need to become our standard for how we connect with people. So there are people that that post COVID, or even before maybe, like their only church context, is online. And while that's fine, they're here in the Word of God, they're missing a huge piece of the kingdom of heaven, because the Kingdom of Heaven travels relationally it travels relationally look at all the spiritual gifts, what is their purpose? What is the purpose, edification of the church, right? So I'm not going to challenge every pastor in this room, to cut their live feeds, to their to their churches. But what I would like for you to do is get real creative on how you Institute those. So if you have a church that's online, you need to have some way to connect with the people that are only connecting with you online. You need to have some way to engage them relationally. And if they're not local to you, and they're somewhere else, I encourage you to be real intentional about giving someone a task of helping them connect locally with some body of believers, because they need it. They need it. If if something happens, like heaven forbid, if what's going on our own spiritual family right now, if they were only connected with a group of people online, how much harder would it be for them to have spiritual support during this? We have to find a way to do that. Now I understand there are people that there's no way they can come in, they're shut in, they're in nursing homes, they don't have a way to travel. In those times, I implore you find a way to go to them. It'll be a sacrifice. But it'll pay dividends for them and they kingdom and for you too, as you build relationships with them. If you have someone in a nursing home, or it's a shot and bring communion to them, bring worship to them, come have a prayer meeting in their house, go to their house and clean it up. If they can't clean it up, and they're embarrassed about it, find a way to love them and be relationally intentional, to just be there with them. They need it. And you need it to if they're going to be in your spiritual family. They're under your covering. They're part of your, your stewardship role of creation, if God's given you that role as a pastor, or a spiritual leader of any of any capacity, and you have people that you're responsible for a ministry that you're responsible for, take ownership and responsibility of it. And those people are part of that. So I mentioned a moment ago, that there was more to say about about Jesus removing himself in the garden to go pray. And in this prayer that Jesus had in the Garden of Gethsemane before He was crucified, he was overwhelmed. He was in human form taken on the sin of the world, and it was too much for him to handle. There are times in our lives where we're going to be taking on more than we can more than we can handle. And what did Jesus do? He found people that loved him, and he took them to a garden to a place that he could incline his heart towards God and cut out the rest of the noise and focus on him. And I do believe that this experience that he had there was the Sabbath It doesn't sound like it or look like it because he, you know, it wasn't necessarily a Friday night to Saturday night thing. And it didn't look happy. He was going to petition his Father, Lord, let this cup pass from me. He was taking his brokenness. And as rod said, the other day, he was taking his ashes to the Lord and saying, Lord, take it. And that's really another part of Sabbath is it's us connecting to the heart of the Father, and bringing him our burdens, and our mess, and all the other chaos and noise that's been injected into our lives, and laying it down before him and saying, take it, and trying our best to find rest in that place. Now, rest doesn't always feel comfortable, but it's rest in Him. It's that rest in Him, and I'm not good at this. Marina can tell you I'm not good at this. I'm one of those people that's inclined to worry about things and distress about things. And I like to be the one to bring order to chaos. Because that's just how I'm wired. And it's hard. And this is an indictment on me. Whenever I was praying through this, I'm like, Yeah, you know, I almost feel counterfeit saying that, but it's something I'm working through, and the guys working through me. So I feel like I need to highlight it to you too, because I'm sure there are other people in this room that have trouble with that. And especially with what we're walking through right now, you know, we need to find a way that we can bring that before God and lay it down and say, God, I'm at peace with whatever is going on right now. Because I am resting in you. And I realize that you are the order Bringer to chaos. And I don't have the capacity to do it. And I am advocating my will and my desire before you to bring order to that chaos, because this is your role. This is not mine. And that is part of Sabbath. That's part of Sabbath. And that needs to be relational. We need to do that as a family. As we're contending in prayer. And we've been contending in prayer all week, I see this as an extended period of Sabbath, if you think about the Garden of Eden, that, that that that place of order, God was in that place of order, and that was where we go before Him and commune with God daily. That was the Holy of Holies. The context of Sabbath is in that place. And when we encounter God in that place, we're encountering God in a place of Sabbath. And I think we need to change our perspective a little bit. Whenever we come into prayer, whenever we come before the Lord, and we need to look at it that way, it's supposed to be a place of Sabbath, it's supposed to be a place of rest. And that rest doesn't always look comfortable. But it's always a place, that's good, because it's in the presence of the Father. Because that's what that's what Sabbath is. So I'm gonna pass it over to Marina, because Marina has got a testimony that she would like to share and a little bit and I'm gonna leave it there because I want you to I want you to mull that over for a little bit. And I'm it I don't even really know how to conclude from from that. Because like I said, it's an indictment that the God that God gave me as I was preparing this, and I'm still working through how to implement that properly. So some of you are real good at it. I wouldn't mind praying with you. Because I'd really like to get better at it. We must say yes to God's invitation, what a perfect plan he had and has for us. Who doesn't really like to rest. I guess my kids don't like it. But as an adult, I really, really appreciate whenever I'm able to rest and enjoy nature. I believe it's like going back to our own nature. It's what the Lord is calling us in this season. A season of rest. Have you heard the saying The mountains are calling and I must go t shirts and you know, I've seen it everywhere. But what do you think people like to go hiking, climbing and being outdoors? It's really because we all have the need to go out and encounter nature because we need to go back to where everything started. Well, this is really Gus invitation and a Matthew 1128 through 30 says in Mike read this in the morning, in the afternoon, it says Come to me. All who are we all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart. You will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burning is light. I will like to emphasize when we live in the same cycle of work of work mode and busyness and we don't give ourselves the free access to Sabbath to rest in nature, we come to the point of bursting, are thoughts will drag us, drag us completely down. And we will likely drag the people around us down to if they're not aware, God is calling all of us to come to Him, and He will find rest. And this is where I like to share a little testimony that the Lord did. When I was 14 years old, and I'm gonna read it to you, I want to share my testimonial on how Jesus set me free from a spirit of debt. I was, I was 14 years old. And I think I shared this with the youth a long time ago, a few years ago. And I didn't share the whole thing because I didn't want to scare them, but they're older now they can, they can hear the whole thing. So this spirit was messing with my mental health and my spirit big time. I was very scared and anxious about going out of my house. I remember having insider attack, insider attacks, panic attacks very often, and I didn't even want to go to school, and my parents didn't know why. I was scared, and I will that out, I was scared, I will die every single day. And someone will come and kill me when I will. I am out of my safe place. That was my house. I was drawn to listen to rock music and watch TV shows about witches and magic. I was so amazed. With this TV shows that I wanted that same power that I was watching on TV. I remember I started having nightmares of my friends and family. Being that one by one in different dreams. I went to all my classmates funerals in my dreams, and all my dreams were in black, black and white. This dreams just made me more scared of everything I didn't know. You need to pray when you have this kind of dreams. And this dreams were for like for like a year almost every single night. And so every night when I was in bed, I saw shadows in my room, some very tall and some short, trying to grab me into not let me breathe when I was asleep. I didn't know that my desire for magic. In my ears listening to this music will drag me to darkness. I didn't share this with anyone I was ashamed. Not even my mom knew about this, but even a year. But after a year, I was able to go to a youth camp. And I remember I went to the altar call. One of the nights of camp and the pastor's wife came directly to me. She didn't know what was going on. But she laid hands on me and prayed for freedom from the spirit of that, that was messing with my head in life. I was free that night. And I never edit that spirit never ever return. I decided to give the Lord everything. I stopped listening to rock music and watching those TV shows. So on time, demonic forces can use human creative things to influence our thinking and outlook. This is the door they used to impact me. So really old glory to the Lord for saving my life and for closing those doors and, and I tell you, I purposely wearing this t shirt that says victory because the Lord gave me victory over that spirit of that, that wanted to kill me wanted to destroy me. And I fell it every single day for for a year maybe a little longer. But I was going crazy. I was going crazy. A 14 year old going crazy you can imagine. So maybe this is you today are probably probably not maybe not. Or maybe this is you with a different story. But you know your mental health is not okay inside of your head. But maybe you need help. You don't know how to ask for it. Or maybe it's someone else in your house or someone else in your family that is going through this. And they can say it they can express it. They just can't and some will express them with the way they act. But maybe it's somebody in the family so It doesn't matter how old they are, the enemy will mess with anyone. And he is in this world to kill us into destroy us. Maybe I wouldn't be here today if I didn't say yes to the altar call that night at that youth camp. But the Lord had a plan for me. And he wants a good plan. And I'm gonna read again, a Matthew 11 says, Then Jesus said, Come to me, all who are all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest them victory. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart. And you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy to bear. And the Birding I give you is light. And I want to make an invitation really for anyone that is going through this or know somebody that is going through this. It's closer to your not to come to the altar. Say Yes to the Lord. I want to be free. I want this family member to be free. And I tell you by my head testimony of what the Lord did, there's freedom there is freedom for our minds for our mind. So if you are discouraged tyre weary to worry that's exactly how Jesus expected you to come to Him. This invitation is for all of us who are tired and know that need a Freya so so when everybody close your eyes so come to the altar and laid everything at the feet of the cross. I want to pray for you. Because there is freedom for all of us. And I'm gonna I'm gonna read Galatians five. And some verses here says so. Christ has a true has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. So I say let the Holy Spirit guide or your lives, then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and the Tsar desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucifying them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the spirits leading in every part of our lives. Thank you, father. Thank you, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Thank you for joining us today. Aaron ova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated NetCast international prayer Council network and numerous international seminary scholarships. Together, we are lighting the fires of revival, fueling prayer movements and raising up friends of Jesus in the nations. We invite you to partner with us in this extraordinary movement. You can sign up as a prayer and financial partner today by going to Aaron nola.org and clicking give. Please include your email address so that we can send you updates. That's era nova.org. Click give and become a monthly partner today. Invest in some of the most fertile spiritual soils on the planet and give the gift of faith and love today to those with a deep need and hunger to know God. 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