Please note. All Bible quotations and references are for the English Standard Version, ESV, unless otherwise stated.
This message was developed using Nate Johnston's book The Wild Ones as a key resource. The book is available via Nate Johnston's website.
The Garden
There’s something about being close to the Lord’s heart that seems to keep at bay the taming nature of religion and all the external influences that daily try to take our wildness away. - Nate Johnston
It all started in the garden. Can you imagine the beauty and the rugged landscape that the garden of Eden was? Eden, which means “delight,” was God’s masterpiece, His dream; man and woman were tangible poetry that He placed within it.
The garden would have been stunning, bursting with smells, tastes, and the vibrant colors of plants, trees and fruit. There would have been constant sounds of the wildlife everywhere you turned. It was the place of intimacy where God would walk in the garden with Adam and they would speak face-to-face, and this was God’s original design until man chose to eat from the wrong tree and the garden was closed off. Instantly, everything changed. The enemy had tricked man and woman, and they were suddenly aware of their sinful state, having the ability to choose life or death. Instead of face-to-face relationship with God, life became about rules and customs, sacrifices and atonements, and always reminded them that things weren’t the same and they would never measure up again. Humanity lost the garden and lost their wild.
The Three Gardens
Eden – we were cut off in the garden of ‘delight’ because we were created for us to enjoy God and God to enjoy us. We were not meant to live by rules, but in relationship to our God. (See Genesis 2:8–25.)
Gethsemane – Jesus stayed up all night praying and interceding in the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane means “oil press” and represents the crushing and wounding that Christ would endure for us to be able to reconnect to Him. (See Matthew 26:36)
Garden Tomb – Return to the garden. This represents the full circle redemption plan of God to bring us back to the place where it all began, and all went wrong. The tomb was unnamed, but was owned by Joseph of Arimathea. (See Matthew 27:57-61)
You may have heard the description of the gospel as the story of a father who lost his children in the garden. So, He bankrupted Heaven to get them back. This eloquently tells us our Father’s heart, but more than that he set up something beautiful in how he orchestrated His rescue plan:
- Joseph – means ‘double’
- Arimathea – means ‘high place’
- The Father’s mission was not just to take us back to the garden but to give us ‘double for our trouble’ and for us to ascend and be with Him in heavenly places.
On the cross Jesus fixed the sin issue and the access issue, and reinstated us back where we belong – back to our roots, in Eden, with Him.
The Counterfeit
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Matthew 23:13–15.
Old Covenant / Old Testament – in the absence of the Garden religion was the replacement. Religion is but a pale shadow of the real thing – a counterfeit – and it was a constant reminder to the people of Israel that they were falling way short of the mark.
New Covenant / New Testament – today we have access to the real thing, we can re-enter the garden, but we see people still acting as if they are bound. We see a church that is intent on keeping people locked in these chains of bondage – just like in Matthew 23 above.
Religion closes the gate, shuts the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven, it numbs people and blinds them to the resources and reality that they have access to.
John the Baptist was a Wild One – he paved the way for Jesus:
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force Matthew 11:12.
Right now we see the signs all around us that God is awakening a people who would forsake the trodden path of religion and go back to the garden, back to their origins, and back to where it all began – and dare begin the quest of the wild!
Why Go Back?
Coming back to your original design and purpose unlocks a level of creative birthing you just cannot access through religion.
- It breaks all bondage to and all agreements with the demonic or religion
- It ushers in freedom into your life you didn’t have before
- Creativity is rebirthed
- Your voice is rebirthed, and
- Your authority is activated
School of the Spirit not Man
Staying in submission to the Holy Spirit is a journey that requires constant taking stock and analysis of what we are following, feasting on, agreeing to, and with whom are running.
Jesus said it like this:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6:24.
Money, fame, power are what often pull people away from God.
Beware coming under man’s yoke – under ungodly authority. Brothers and sisters in Christ can be helpful mentors and Holy Spirit led teachers and evangelists, but they are no substitute for submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
When you trade your freedom for unhealthy alignment, it only creates disastrous fruit, and eventually you become discouraged and disillusioned regarding your call.
Protect Your Calling
Stay wild!
Protect your calling
Protect your anointing
Protect your own legacy by not allowing man to make small modifications to you that over time steal from the purity of who you are
Additional Scripture
Paul’s Concern for the Galatians
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
Example of Hagar and Sarah
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,
“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than those of the one who has a husband.”
28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
Galatians 4:8–31.
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