CREATED: Relationships

[Read Genesis 1:25-27 & 2:18-23]

There’s a famous quote from a man named St. Augustine that says, “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” (Confessions). Not only did Augustine see that truth in the lives of others, but more importantly, he saw that truth deep within his own heart. 

I was reminded of that truth again last weekend as I spoke with my parents about my early childhood. When I describe my early childhood, many people ask if I grew up in a military family because of how often I moved. By the time I was in fourth grade I had moved from Minnesota to Alaska back to Minnesota to Montana back to Minnesota and back to Montana—with numerous house moves in between. In the first 10 years of my parent’s marriage, they lived in 11 homes. In the last 30 years of my parent’s marriage they’ve lived in 4—the last home being 22 1/2 years. What changed? They gave their lives to Christ. Their hearts were restless—always on the move, always looking for something that was missing—until they found their rest in God.

We are seeing this all over our current society. We have so much wealth, so much luxury, so much comfort, but our society is filled with anxiety, depression, fear, and meaninglessness. Why? All of these things are the result of restlessness. On the outside it seems like they have everything they could ever want, but on the inside they KNOW something is missing. They aren’t satisfied with what they have. They are restless. And they will continue to be restless until they find their rest in God. 

That’s because we’ve been created to be in relationship with God. We see that in Genesis 1 when we read, “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, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26–27, ESV). Being created in the image of God connects us to God in a unique way. Remember, what we talked about a couple weeks ago. Being created in the image of God means we are called to reflect His glory in the world. We are representatives of God in the world. But that ALSO means we must be connected to God—in relationship with God—as we fulfill those tasks. If we are not in relationship with God, we cannot reflect his glory and we cannot be his representatives. That means, if we’re not in relationship with God, we cannot fulfill our purpose and have no meaning in the world and THAT’S where the restlessness comes from. 

We see this truth in our other passage as well. We read, “It is not good that the man should be alone…” (Genesis 2:18, ESV). Now, later we’ll talk about how this applies to community, but don’t miss the other application of this statement. It’s not good for man to be alone APART from God either. We’ve been created for relationship. We cannot live life alone, completely self-sufficient. We need God because we’ve been created for God. 

Take a look at this passage from 1 Samuel, “For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself.” (1 Samuel 12:22, ESV). He has created us for himself—which means we’ve been created to be in relationship with Him. 

Or another passage that points us in this direction, Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17, ESV). Why should we do everything for the glory of God? Because we were made for him! Because we’ve been created to point people to Him and bring Him glory! And that needs to infuse every single part of every single thing we do. And until we realize this, embrace it, and live it out, we will be restless. 

We also need to realize that nothing else will be good until we get this right. This is a first priority. You can have all the money in the world, but if you’re not in relationship with God, you’ll be restless. You can have the best family in the world, or be surrounded by the best community, but if you’re not in relationship with God, you’ll be restless. That’s why Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5, ESV). If you aren’t connected to God—if you’re not in relationship with God—nothing else will work or feel right. You’ll be restless and wanting—always seeking but never finding. Yet, when you’re attached to the vine—when you’re in relationship with God—you will have life, you will bear fruit, you will find rest NO MATTER where you are or what is happening. 

That’s an important reminder when we move to the second point of this message: We’ve been created for relationships with others. Again, we are reminded of this truth when we read, “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”” (Genesis 2:18, ESV). It’s not good for humans to be disconnected from God AND it’s not good for humans to be disconnected from each other—alone, all by themselves.

And notice one important point that comes next. We read, “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. 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.” (Genesis 2:19–20, ESV). Animals couldn’t fit the bill. They were not good enough to fill humanity’s loneliness. Adam needed someone who was like him. 

I don’t want to make this a major point, but I feel the need to make this point nonetheless. Animals are not humans—and that includes pets. They are not created in the image of God AND they are not able to fill your loneliness. It didn’t work in the Garden of Eden and it won’t work now. So, don’t try. Of course, dogs are a good pet and can be some form of companion (I’m still not sure about cats…lol), but they cannot replace the role of people. And it shouldn’t be a surprise to us that the more our society denigrates the value of people, the more it raises up the value of animals. As Christians, we should not begin to think like the rest of the world. Animals and humans are different. And, when God wanted to fill the emptiness of the human race, animals couldn’t do the job, only another human could do it. We were created to be in community with other human beings. 

And we know this, don’t we? A couple months ago I mentioned the television show Alone—a show where people are sent into the wilderness alone to see how long they can survive. Why do they send them out alone? Because it’s HARD. Every single person on the show talks about how difficult it is for them to be out there completely alone, never coming into contact with another person. Besides, when we decide to punish someone severely in our society, what do we do? We put them in solitary confinement. We separate them from other people and make them live alone. That’s a punishment BECAUSE we’ve been created to be in relationship with other people. 

This also connects with bearing the image of God. Don’t forget that we are finite beings imaging an infinite being. So, how is God’s infinite being more fully represented here on earth? His image is placed on a bunch of different people, with a bunch of different personalities and gifts, who are living together and working together. Herman Bavinck says, “Not the man alone, nor the man and woman together, but only the whole of humanity is the fully developed image of God, his children, his offspring.” (2.577). Each of our different gifts and talents and personalities point to a different nuance of God’s character—each gift and talent and personality a different color or brush stroke painting a clearer picture of God in the world. 

Yet, there’s a warning in the midst of this. There’s a book that I highly recommend. It’s written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and it’s called Life Together. I read it at least once a year, sometimes twice. In that book he says, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.” (77). In a sense, Bonhoeffer is reminding us to keep our priorities right—to keep our relationship with God above our relationship with others. If we cannot handle being alone, but must always be around other people, we will make community an idol and abuse it. We will begin to rely on the community more than we rely on God. We will begin to trust the community more than we trust God. We will look for the community to ease our restlessness, rather than God. 

YET, we must also beware of the other danger. If we are never in community, but always “alone with God,” we can easily make ourselves an idol. We can easily become selfish and turned in on ourselves. If we are never in community, we can easily think we are the smartest person with all the answers. We are never challenged by others, pushed to think beyond ourselves, and meet the needs of others. So the warning stands: “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.” (77).

These truths are baked into the mission of this congregation. I should probably talk about this mission more often. I do place it in the front of every study booklet of every preaching series. But notice how our mission statement begins, “Worshiping the Triune God…” That’s the priority. That’s the primary mission of this church. If we don’t get this right, nothing right will come from anything we do. This is all about making sure we are in relationship with God. 

Yet, we don’t stop there. Our mission is “Worshiping the Triune God IN community…” I hope you immediately notice how this flows directly from what we’ve been talking about this morning. We’ve been created to be in relationship with God and with others. So, the mission of this church NEEDS to reflect that. So, we MUST be IN community with other people. And that means more than just gathering together on Sunday mornings. It means living together in community. It means encouraging one another, bearing one another’s burdens, laughing together, working side by side. 

So, we need to be doing BOTH, and we need to be doing both ALL THE TIME—not just on Sunday mornings. Our worship of God is not just a Sunday morning thing, it’s an every moment of every day thing. Our living IN community is not just a Sunday morning thing, it’s an every moment of every day thing. 

But, as we do both, we need to keep the priorities in line. Remember what Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37–39, ESV). Don’t forget this. The FIRST commandment is love God. The SECOND commandment is love neighbor. We cannot get those two backwards. There’s a strong temptation to sacrifice our relationship with God for the sake of our relationship with others. We are regularly tempted to water down our God-given convictions in the name of “community” or “relationships.” That’s not how this should work. Remember, if we sacrifice our relationship with God for our relationship with others WE WILL LOSE BOTH. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33, ESV). 

This reminds us of one of the most repeated lines throughout God’s Word: “You shall be my people, and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:28, ESV). There again, we see the connection between our relationship with God and our relationship with others. He is our God and has created us to be a people—a community. Not only that, but when Jesus came to earth to live and die for the forgiveness of our sins, he did those things so that we would be HIS PEOPLE. He saved us into a community—a community that stretches from the beginning of time throughout eternity, but also a community right here where we live. 

Notice what happens right after Pentecost. Filled with the Spirit, Peter steps out and preaches the gospel to a large group of people. We read, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:41, ESV). And then what did they do? Did that all head off to their own homes to do their own thing as individuals? NO WAY. We read, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers…And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42–47, ESV). They immediately formed a community because Jesus has saved us to be in a community with other believers. We were created this way. 

But, as soon as we enter into community with other people we’re going to realize something. There’s other people there who do things differently and think differently than I do. And, since we live in a fallen world and the church is filled with people who are struggling against their own sin, messed up things will happen in community. Things aren’t perfect in the church and not everything is hunky-dory. And when we begin to notice these things, it’s easy to become frustrated with our community. It’s easy to begin grumbling about our community because it’s not the way we think it should be. It should be better!

In this Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a couple words of warning/rebuke for us. First, he says, “He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial” (27). We must not love the IDEA of community, but the REALITY of the community in which God has placed us—THIS COMMUNITY—even if it doesn’t measure up to our standards and desires. Doesn’t matter. This is where God has placed you and THESE are the people God has given you. Love them, not your dream. 

Along these same lines Bonhoeffer says, “If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.” (29). 

While it’s extremely important that Jesus Christ saved us to be part of a people—a community—it’s much more important that he saved us so that we could be in relationship with our God. Apart from Jesus Christ you CANNOT have a relationship with God. Let me say that again. Apart from Jesus Christ you CANNOT have a relationship with God. Apart from Christ, the bible says we are “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12, ESV). Apart from Christ you are without hope and without God (and without community). 

Yet, in Christ—when we trust in Him for the forgiveness of our sins and give our lives to him—we enter into a relationship with God. We are no longer separated from God because of our sin. We are reconciled to him and drawn into his presence. And, since we are in the presence of God, and renewed in our relationship with Him, we are no longer restless—always seeking and never finding—because we’ve found what we’ve been restlessly looking for and we have rest—both now and into eternity.