Main idea: Turn to the Lord your creator to find (refresh) your purpose and place in His new creation work.
0:13
Good morning, faith, Bible Church, it's good to see you all this morning. It's glorious, a glorious day. Hopefully you were thanking God as you drove in and you saw the beauty in all of the fall colors after messages in in Genesis about God's creative goodness. It's just hard to not keep over swelling up with those I've heard just really encouraging things about how that's going in group life. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis, two, four through we're going to read four through nine today. And this passage is for everyone who knows this life is not paradise, which is everybody. It's for everyone who knows their body is in steady decline, or if you go to a certain age, a nosedive. I turned 57 on on Friday, which is my wife celebrated, which is very kind, but on Tuesday, I saw my surgeon, who needs to give me a hip replacement like, you know, it's a slow glide, and then there's a point where it just starts going like this. You know, if you look at this passage, and we know we're not there, but you want to know what was lost, what was lost. And we want to know, can it be found again? We're going to look that at that today stand with me for the reading of God's word, and I'll read Genesis two, four through nine.
1:54
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God 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 yet caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and the mist was going up from the land and watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground. Formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And 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 sight and good for food, the tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, this is the word of the Lord God. We do indeed. Thank you. We are not left in the dark about how you started all of this. We know where it came from. We know what you did at the beginning. We know what we have brought to the table, which is our sin and suffering. And we know that you are not only a Creator God, but as the Bible unfolds in this very garden, there is a promise of life through the seed, through Christ. And today we, we want to really examine what was in the garden, what you formed Adam to be. I pray that we would be what you have created us to be, and in Christ, what you have recreated us to be. I do pray that you would encourage there are, there are many here who clearly know it's not paradise and their body is in decline. Give them good courage from this word, from your Scripture today, I pray that You would help our our families, these young couples who are going to get married, those who have recently been married, help them grow and flourish in new things called marriage. We pray that You would help our singles and our widows and widowers to flourish at a time where they're in between things. I pray that You would help us as a church faithfully serve each other. That's that's, ultimately what's going to show up here is you. You help us be people who cultivate other people. I do pray for our churches around our city and as me, Ian was here this morning, Kyle, her dad's preaching at Indian Trail. Pray for Kyle and ask that you would encourage help him and the congregation there, they're commissioning Aaron badly, who was here, trained up here, finished his training there, continue to encourage Aaron. Just Calvin as they seek to plant Princeton Avenue Church. And we pray that You would help us in all the areas, our neighborhoods, various places that we'd be faithful in proclaiming the gospel and with this family that you've given us here, help us be faithful to build each other up in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. How old were you when you realized this world is not paradise? I mean, maybe it was your first spanking. Hey, by age seven, I come from a blended family, which should have been an indicator that I was not in paradise. By age seven, two of my grandfathers had died of heart attacks. I was a public school kid in Cheney, where we got a very good education. And just I always have to remind my wife that just because I grew up in Cheney doesn't mean all of us were terrible, just me. Just don't blame me, Cheney on me or me on Cheney. I remember walking into Cheney junior high. We got the new junior high. I was just a couple years old, and it was a modern concrete tilted up wall building, and it was like a series of concrete pods that stretched out in two directions, long hallways to go into concrete, tilt up walls with no windows, concrete and no windows. Guess what? Everybody called Cheney junior high back then the prison. Yeah, which all the high school teachers said. That's exactly what you need to do with middle schoolers Junior hires just lock them in prison until they're sophomores, and then they can be real people again. I mean, we had a three year one. They didn't even want freshmen out of out of that. I mean, you know, you walk into junior high, and I don't care who you are, every junior hire knows that the definition of junior high means it's not paradise. Your body's awkward. Your friends are awkward. Everything is awkward. At a certain point, your body starts the descent into death, and then the incline increases. That is what happens to us, just as well. We should bring up what we add to the equation and just remember, no mom has ever said, Hey kids, let's mess up the living room. We have company coming over. Chaos is normal. Who's ever looked in the mirror and said, I got to stop working out? I mean, the moment you straighten up the living room, it descends. The moment you stop sweating from your run, you know that everything else is going down and then there's wreaking havoc on our environment. You have defiled others by your complaining or gossip or violence or manipulation. You maybe you're a cactus and no one wants to get close to you. Some of you have defiled your mind with sin, greed, substances, bitterness, others have damaged your body. You're paying the price for what you've smoked, drank or eaten. Maybe you're paying the price for self harm. A surgery that hoped would finally make you happy has made you opposite of your creation. Maybe you're wearing long sleeves because all the scars of self harm are in places. This passage is the beginning of good news for you. This passage is the beginning of good news for you. You're going to hear me say it a lot through Genesis, the same God who was there at the creation is here today. The same God who is in the story of Cain and Abel is the same God who is here. The same God who is there with Noah is the same God who is here. He hasn't changed. I want to show you who you were made. For how you are made, who you are made for, what you are made for. And before we're done, we're going to tie it to the storyline of the Bible. We'll do it a couple of different ways as we go through this today, because what God does through Jesus is offer a new creation work, the second Adam, the final Adam, so to speak, God himself, is going to take on human flesh, and he is going to come to die, and he is going to offer new life. The same good god who was there before the fall into sin, is here offering redemption through the second Adam, and he wants to show you what you can be doing to participate in his work today, until he returns to restore all things. This passage is extraordinarily good for us to look at. Here's the big idea that I want us to look at this morning. Turn to the Lord your Creator to find depending on where you are in your spiritual journey, or refresh depending on where you are in your spiritual journey, your purpose and place in his new creation work. You can be a new creature in Christ, you can get a new start. What I want you to be able to say when we're all done is, I know I'm not in paradise yet, but I know my God. I know my place until I get there.
11:31
30 ticket, three parts, we're going to recount our noble purpose. We're going to return to the Lord our craftsman, and we are going to be refreshed or renewed in the place that he has put for us. We're going to look at the garden to come as we do that. So first, let's recount your noble purpose. Recount your noble purpose. God made mankind as image bearers to rule his world under his loving authority. We learned that in Genesis chapter one, he speaks everything into existence we're going to find here. He forms Adam out of dust, but he is making image bearers to represent him in the world. And Genesis unpacks how we get where we are as we jump into the second major section of Genesis, we find a phrase that you'll get used to seeing. Verse four says, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, and when they were, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. You can see the heavens and earth. Earth and Heavens, kind of forms, what they call a chiasm. And right in the middle of it, you're going to find the Lord. But let's just start with this. These are the generations this. This phrase is a marker for every new segment in Genesis. It feels kind of odd because every other time it's used with the name of somebody. Chapter Five, these are the generations of Adam. Chapter Six, these are the generations of Noah and so on. You can write this in your margin, because it's not just a genealogy. When you say, These are the generations of you could translate it pretty well. This is what came from. This is what came from. It's telling not only a history and a genealogy, but a story of what came from it. This is the story that comes from creation. It begins with Adam and Eve placed in a garden. They fall into sin, a redeemer is promised. Cain kills Abel. Lamech becomes a tyrant, and the world desperately needs salvation. That's chapters two through four. Now what I want you to see here look at this is the first mention in the Bible of the word Yahweh. In the day that the Lord God made the earth. It's translated in your Bible, you always know it's the word Yahweh, the I Am as L, capital L, O, R, D, means I am or the living one, always living. And it's first here and here's, there's many things about it, but I want you to at least notice three. It comes in context where God's going to display his commitment. He makes covenant promises. As the high king over a people, and He wants His people to make promises back, not necessarily a specific covenant here, but it's covenant like there is commitment. Second, there's faithfulness. You. Whenever we see that name unfold, and the Israelites first heard it as the people, the people who got this book, not from Genesis, but from Moses, who brings the name into Egypt to tell the slaves, the Hebrew slaves, that they're about to be delivered. Yahweh is sending you. Yahweh is going to be faithful to His promise. To Abraham. You're going to see these promises unfold over and over. Mankind goes back on his promises. God never goes back on his promises. And third, what I want you to notice about is this word that's almost always associated with God's covenant purposes is steadfast love. Has said. It's not in our passage, but when you start walking through the passages of the Bible and you see steadfast love, faithfulness, has said it's associated with this. You see it visibly as God stoops down, so to speak, to breathe life into Adam, the living God, who is faithful to his promise and loyal in his love, made the heavens and the earth, and He made the heavens and the earth with a people in mind, he was going to love them and be faithful to them, even if mankind fails. Now look at verse five. We see what God made man for, and it's it's interesting because it's with a set of negatives. It's not that there was something wrong. There was something incomplete. We jump backward a little bit in time. So Genesis one gives us the picture of the transcendent God. Genesis two gives us the sense of this personal, close, imminent God. And we see that as we step back to the middle of day six, God is setting something up. Verse five, when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up. Two negatives, no bush of the field, no small plant to the field, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land. There's no rain third, and there was no man to work the ground. There's something missing, not something wrong, but something to be set up. And a mist was going up from the land and watering the whole face of the ground. Notice those nose. No Bush, no small plant, no man, no rain. We find out some key details about the plants, and it should cause you to have some questions, because from reading Genesis one, it looks like all the vegetation was planted and was growing on day three. Here, it says there's some things missing. What's going on? What it says in Genesis three is that all the plants, all their seeds, were planted. Many of them were growing. What it says here in Genesis two is there were two kinds of plants really making up one kind. There's one kind of plant that was not yet growing. Seeds were there. The growth was not what is it? Bush of the field. Plants of the field, small plant of the field. Think of it this way. There are field crops, there are garden crops. Both of those require tending and watering, and so God has set into the system a requirement that field crops and garden plants need a tenderer, a Gardner. There's no man to work the ground. For God's part, he had not caused it to rain. And so we see embedded in a mutually independent system, mutually dependent system, the field crops, the garden crops, need man to bring water, or or to at least irrigate, or they need God to supply the rain. So here God is the Creator, sustainer, and all things need God, and the plants and mankind need each other. Says a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. God made the world and mankind in an interconnected way. So when we read exercise dominion is subdue the earth in chapter one, that's the two great leadership commands. The first example is cultivating. He is to work it. There was no man to work it, which is a word that you could translate very well here, as cultivate, as in cultivate the crops.
20:17
It's a hard wire, wired principle in mankind, we were made to cultivate. As we explore the creation mandate, we're going to see that cultivation expands out. The end of chapter four, you have the father of all tended animals, livestock. You have the father of all musical instruments you have, the father of all forged tools. All of those are taking the things that God has provided, providing order, structure, development, to bring in culture. Now, one of the problems that that comes up here is, is what to do with the there was a mist going up from the land. There was no rain. When you read that, what's going on? I just always start with some study Bibles. Study Bibles basically just don't even mention it. What are you talking about? No rain. So there's I read seven sources. Two didn't mention it. The five that mentioned it had five different answers about what this means, which gives me a lot of confidence of what I'm about to tell you, the best two in my mind are this, the idea of no rain yet could simply mean that God was waiting to put Adam into the garden to provide rain. It could also mean that a mist came up out of the ground. And a lot of translators talk about a flow of water, as in springs. God just had springs. And in either case, you have a need for mankind, either to dig trenches so that you could plant irrigation ditches, put irrigation ditches and move the water in place, or that man needed to tend it, and he was waiting for rain from God. I vote for number one all the no's speak to God giving man a glorious responsibility to co labor in his creation, which should blow us away. God doesn't need man. He spoke all the world into existence, all the animal life, all the plant life. He just set it and it happened. But he's setting up a system in which his creation, Adam Eve mankind, would be his image bearers by cultivating you. We're made to co labor with God, and this cultivation dependent on God, because he has to provide all the resources. So here we have culture making. It's the highest and most noble purpose in existence to be a cultivator. We jump across the story, across sin, and even so, you'll find man in the image of God, being ranchers, herders, farmers. They forge tools. They make music. Cultivators this. This is a noble purpose. You have a role. You are. You are made by God to cultivate people around you. How do you cultivate people? By helping them get what they need, practically by speaking in a way that builds them up and fits them and outfits them for their very best work. It fits the life of the church profoundly well. You're you cultivate your a Christian family, you cultivate your spouse, you cultivate your children. If you're single, you cultivate others by very, very simply serving their basic needs and speaking in a way that brings the Word of God and grace so that they mature aren't and are equipped you. You think about this spouses, your job is to cultivate your spouse, to make them flourish in who God's made them to be. You're not first takers, you're first givers. You. Yeah, now we know we're on this side of sin. We know we're on this side of sin. This is the original creation. We're going to look at what Christ has recovered when we run, when we finish this off. I'll get to that in the last few minutes. So first look, look at that purpose. Look at that purpose. Second, return to your Lord and craftsman, return to your Lord and craftsman. This, this idea of the personal nature of God shows up then in verse seven, in making, in the making of mankind, we find God intimate and personal. We go from transcendent to virtually kneeling in the dust forming man together. Says, Then the Lord God Yahweh Elohim formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. Every other thing, every other creature, was just spoken into existence, flocks of birds, herds of animals, schools of whales, just words and words and words and God certainly couldn't have, could have done that with Adam. Why does he make Adam out of dirt?
26:36
Because he is creating a interdependent system, the special purpose and intimate involvement
26:57
the God who led Israel out of Egypt and slavery is the God who stooped down to speak to form man. Notice this, and then the Lord God formed, the man from the dust. This word for formed is used in a variety of contexts, if we're talking about a Smith who is taking his kiln or his oven and heating the metals or melting it down and casting it. The process of of moving the bellows, heating it up, hammering it into something useful. Same word forming. We talk about a potter at a wheel of clay. The potter sits and starts spinning the wheel, and he takes the warm clay and he throws it on to the wheel, and as he spins it, he shapes it. He brings its height, he makes its shape, he creates its usefulness, beautiful, useful. So the word form here is a word for craftsmanship. Man is handcrafted by God, the One who spoke the stars into existence, hand crafted man. God forms him from the dust of the ground. On one hand, this humbles us. On the other hand, it amazes us. The first king and queen are made from dust. We are both dependent on the earth and rulers over the earth, God has made the world in such a way that all living things depend on him. Man depends on God. Vegetation depends on God. Man rules over it. My mind fast tracks to solve some Psalms. You can write these down, Psalm eight, for instance, Psalm 139, they'd be just really useful before you go to growth group to to absorb what's going on here the psalmist writes in Psalm eight, what is man, that you were mindful of him, and the Son of Man, that you care for him, yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. The psalmist looks at the heavens and he's amazed, because he knows how small he is and insignificant he is. I remember my my basketball coach at masters College, now masters University, fondly used to say, I'm a dirt ball with dignity. We're humbled because we're. Brought out of the dust. And that intimate involvement doesn't stop. It doesn't stop with the creation. It goes on into God's providential work as he creates people. Psalmist 139 says, You formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. Don't you love seeing the first ultrasounds. Now the ultrasounds, you can see the shapes of the faces, and you could see them when they're in the womb. That looks like grandpa Ian.
30:47
Up as I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made Wonderful are Your works my soul knows it well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, this same God who knelt to the earth to breathe life into Adam is the same God who knits babies in a mother's womb. I know, I know some of you here are saying, I mean, that all sounds good, but it's too late for me. I mean, you don't know what I've done to the people in my life, how many places I've ruined you don't know what I've done to my body. You don't know what I've done to my brain. And it's true enough, I don't know what you've done, but this God who stooped in the garden to breathe life into Adam actually took on human flesh and died. And
31:56
he did it so that you would experience new life. I mean, look, look at the scene when the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed life into his nostrils, the breath of life. You You get this picture, and there's no record of God kneeling down and stooping into the mud, but you get this picture of this intimacy of God stooping into the dirt and taking the dirt and fashioning the dirt. He is the master craftsman, pulling together the DNA and all of the intricate forms and putting the lungs in, putting the mind in, and all of a sudden, breathing life. What does it say? It's breath of life. It's a strong wind. It's like breathing life. And there is a soul. There is a living being, Ian,
33:03
this God who is intimately involved with Adams creation is intimately involved with you,
33:16
if you would, but throw yourself at Jesus feet, like the woman who had bled from a hemorrhage for 12 years, or like the woman who was probably a prostitute in the city and had met Jesus and goes into a banquet filled of Pharisees in Jesus and weeps at Jesus' feet. If you would bow at King Jesus feet, he would give you new life. Whatever you have done to your body, whatever you have done to people around you, he would give you new life. And if you know him, listen to what Romans eight says. Is Romans 810, but if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness, if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Walk by that spirit, searching out His will and His character and his word, praying to this God who gives you his spirit and this steady process of trust and repentance, and trust and repentance, he will give life to your dead body. He'll change your mind. Eight spiritual death becomes life. He gives life. You can find forgiveness, new meaning, purpose. Instead of being a chaos maker, you can be transformed to a cultivator. If you're a follower of Jesus, Paul says this, For by grace, you have been saved through faith that is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast, For we are His workmanship. That idea is a poem. Poema crafted. We are His workmanship, created in Christ, Jesus for good works, which God prepared, prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You were made as a cultivator. You can be redeemed. And it might not be dirt and plants. It may be tools, tech teams of people. Interestingly, every person who has a lead role here, Adam is going to be exercising dominion, and He does it by cultivating Husbands are to nourish and cherish their wives, to cultivate them. Do you know how your wife needs to be nourished and cultivated, cherished and honored? Do you know husbands? It's good to know wives, do you know how to cultivate your husbands? Parents? Do you know not just how to survive your children, but cultivate your children? Managers, bosses, leaders. We're people cultivators. You and the same God who breathed life in Adam can breathe life into your mortal body, body and spirit. Leaves us. Number three, revel in your place. Revel in your place. Follow me through. Here. We have three steps, the first garden, the new creation that is the church and the eternal garden in the new heavens and the new earth. We look at Verse eight says, And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden Yahweh Elohim, imminent, close, personal, all powerful, planted a garden. Gardens are a place a sanctuary, something set apart for growing the most beautiful and productive things to provide refreshment. God made a garden. I mean, if God took all of the wonderful things that he had made and then made a special, special place like this has got to be a really special, special place. Remember, a garden is ordered, planned, arranged for beauty, productivity. The word Eden sounds like a word for delightful or pleasurable. It was a pleasure garden. It's translated in the first Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, as paradise. Paradise, from dust to paradise. God planted a garden paradise. And if you'd know, if you have a garden, gardens take constant and attentive care, otherwise they just grow wild. From Moses' perspective, it's somewhere East. He planted a garden in the East. And I don't know what this looked like, but if I take the order as consecutive instead of and also, by the way, it's as if God's leading this man that he just breathed life into. Imagine the first minutes Adam is created as intelligent as any person has ever been no sin. Adams created just taking it in, if the language is right here, he was created in an area that was undeveloped, and he was put or brought into the garden. I mean, just imagine him taking it all in, God the garden. God the garden. And look at verse nine and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And Adam is standing there while the pear tree and the mango tree and the barley and the wheat are growing in front of his eyes, the tomato plants and the Yeah, the broccoli it's growing. Flowing before his eyes, and it looks amazing out of the ground. The Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight. I don't know if you got to stand there and watch in minutes the cherry tree ripen, Blossom, fruit and bear to walk over, pluck and eat. But it happened in front of his eyes, beautiful, fruitful, and Adam was the first Gardner. How many of you are plant people? I belong to the camp of plant people and cat people. I raised both hands. Who are just plant people? There are surprisingly few plant people at Faith Bible. How many are wish you were plant people? How many kill every plant that you're given, new heavens, New Earth. You'll know how to do it.
41:09
I quoted Robert last week, my farmer friend, first hour he's here this like farmer. We got farmer
41:17
like plant people.
41:21
Plant people. That's hard wired in you're born built to cultivate. And if it's not plants or pets, it's herds and animals or people you're built to cultivate. It's hardwired. It's one other thing to notice. In this first garden, we have one garden, two trees. Two trees are especially noted. Verse nine, the tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you get the idea that these were somewhere near the middle next week, Josh is going to unpack the rivers, the precious stones and metals. It's a glorious place. Two trees. Each tree was searching for a word, a parable of a reality, the tree of life. He could go, really go eat it, you'll find out. And perhaps it was part of the ongoing dependency of eternal life. But it is the parable, or the symbol of God as life. God as life, the tree of garden, the tree of life is there. We don't have any record one way or the other. They had time to eat it or not before sin. No reason why they couldn't have we know they were banned from returning to it after the fall, so whatever it did, they weren't allowed back to that source again. They're now going to need to trust the promise, not the tree. See the promise in coming weeks. You the second tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It also has beautiful fruit that is tasty, looks good for food, and it is the parable. It is the symbol of the moral wisdom of God. The moral wisdom God is the standard. His will and wish is the standard for Good and Evil. We know that they will SIN. They will eat it. They will say in their hearts, I want to be like God. I want to write my own rules, and I want to follow my own rules. Josh is going to unpack those next week. What's clear is that man was to submit himself to God's standard of right and wrong and not become autonomous and make up his own rules. But he does. Man falls into sin and rebellion. And you know, and I know, we're not in paradise with perfect bodies. Ian,
44:45
on this side of the fall and the cross, you have rebelled against God. We have cultivated our sins and our satisfaction in ourselves, and we have produced the fruit. Of unrighteousness and damaged others. What we cultivate today is our selfish pride, our self righteous rules, our bitterness, our hostile world. Words are controlling of every situation, tendencies, we cultivate our sins, we indulge them. Which leads to the promise of the second garden. God has sent Christ to give you new life, the fact that your heart is far from the garden, far from Paradise, far from paradise. Your emotions. There's no selfless care. This is that rejection. Your heart feels dry and unproductive because of the distance you have from your creative your Creator. You you try to make personal paradise, but you always do at other, at others expense. You're both guilty and dead inside and in Genesis three, there is a promise of one who will come and redeem, destroy the works of satan. Here's one to turn to. I was thinking about it this week. What's the opposite of a garden? I mean, you have two choices, desert or jungle. Opposite of a garden is a desert. Nothing growing productive or helpful. It's all Prickly, thorny jungle. Poison, spiders everywhere, snakes that want to eat you alive. Gardner jungle, actually, there's, there's one worse place than a garden, than a jungle, one worse place than a desert. We find it in the Bible and it's a cross. You
47:04
in Luke 23 Jesus is crucified with two criminals in the morning, when they're both when all three of them are nailed to the cross, they're tilted up and they're in agony, and two criminals rebuke Jesus and taunt him. Oh, you know you're so great. You're with us. By the afternoon, one is still at it. Why can't you take us down from the cross? If you're who you say you are, and and the other criminal is finally realized by watching Jesus respond to His cross rebukes him, and he says, and we indeed are here crucified justly, for we're receiving the due rewards of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong, and he said to Jesus, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus says, Truly, I say to you today, you'll be with me in paradise. Paradise. Jesus is both the source of life and wisdom to return to God. If you call out, you can be restored. You can become a new creation in Christ, Jesus emerged into the second garden that we would call the church. I mean, throughout the Bible, there is a garden theme in a tabernacle, the first place God was willing to dwell with His people, as Moses was given directions. Inside embroidered are all kinds of plants, productive plants in Solomon's temple, the permanent place for hundreds of years. Pomegranates and other forms of plants decorate the inside of the tabernacle. It is a garden God is going to dwell in a paradise. Ian
49:23
local churches, Christian families are now God's garden, where he has new crops growing. Jesus uses the metaphors readily, he says to His disciples in John, 15, five, I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me bears much fruit. The father is the vine dresser. The apostle Paul uses a meta. Four based on creation in First Corinthians, three, nine. They're all squabbling over who's better? Paul says, We are God's fellow workers. Adam was the first co laborer with God. We are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. Says, I planted Apollos watered God caused the growth. The church is considered a garden of God, and we each have people to cultivate. That is to get the water of God's word and the practical care and service to flourish. So again, in this garden, you start with the family that God has given you. If you have believing members of family, if you have unbelieving members of the family, your task is to cultivate them, not to rule them, to get your way, to cultivate them, to get them to grow.
51:13
What a remarkable thing, what a remarkable thing to be a rebel who is redeemed now is a cultivator of people. What a grace of the infinitely merciful God to call us into His family, to call us into his field, to employ us as His gardeners,
51:41
if you were actively serving other believers, be encouraged. It's what God created you for. It's what God created you for. Here's here's a call out just followed up from last week. Take time to thank God for all the things that he's made. Thank God for the people who have cultivated you who took time to serve you be an example and equip you to be useful today. Thank God for the cultivators in your life. I was starting with the Lord Jesus and His Holy Spirit, but God has gifted people to cultivate you.
52:35
Sometimes it's It's the simple example of steadfast trust in God when life is really hard, that cultivates you. Sometimes it's a specific word of encouragement. Sometimes it's the needed a calling up short, hey, hey, stop doing that. This is a bad direction for you. People have cultivated you.
53:09
There's a second garden called the new creation, and then there's the third garden, the final garden. This is where we're all going to because even here, with all the joys of a local church, and we have a joyful local church. You are well equipped, and you are equipping. You are going and making disciples. It's abundantly obvious we're not in paradise yet. In fact, the body and the world are still pretty hostile to us.
53:50
In Second Corinthians Paul, the apostle Paul, routines, returns to this theme of strength through weakness, what magnifies God like no other, is for God to do something with things that are absolutely incapable on their own. And it doesn't start with the fall. It starts with dust. God starts with dust which is incapable on its own forms. It fashions, it breathes life into it so that that person, that people, can be fruitful for him. Second, Corinthians talks about the sin side. Talks about a world that's hostile, a body that's falling apart, and sinners that are against us. And you say, I know you built a garden, God, the church is really great, but it sure still. Still seems hard to me. God has a reason for this. First Corinthians, one nine, the apostle Paul, who had suffered more, whether it's sickness or shipwreck or persecution, he says this, indeed, we felt that we received the sentence of death and all the trouble that we have gone through as we're bringing the Gospel to people, but that was to make us not rely on ourselves, but on God. God still works. In fact, you might know that God is working when you feel absolutely weak and helpless, and yet God still does things, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, which we would do if we were very successful, continually, but on God, who raises the dead? Who raises the dead? You?
56:24
In Jesus, who was as helpless as it gets dead, God raised him to life, conquering death, so that the God man would be Victor over death, and he is the first flower of a full garden of those he is going to raise from the dead. Paul looked forward to God who raises the dead. When Will God raise the dead when he comes in glory, to wake up their bodies from the earth or transform their bodies at His coming and make them like his glorious body. Sibs says about this. Richard Sibbes one of my favorite Puritans. It says he will make a more glorious body his second works are always better than his first
57:35
turn to the last page of your Bible, Revelation, 22 trajectory, we're all headed for the garden city.
57:53
The themes re emerge here. This is your trajectory if you are a new creature in Christ, if you're a new creature who has been born again to a living hope, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month, the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations the ongoing health. Adam and Eve might have regularly eaten from the tree as a parable, a symbol of dependence on God. That might well be true here, too, no longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him, and they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads, the 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. The God Who Adam into being will your body, when he calls it from the ground, he will bring it up to the Lord Jesus on that glorious day of His return, soul and body reunited to populate a new garden city where you will reign with Christ and what is reigning cultivating you.
59:45
We have this hope. The same God who was in the garden with Adam is the same God who is here, and he's the same God who will be there. God we. Praise you and thank you for the story line of the Bible. We see what we rebelled from your personal and close, intimate creation, your godly wisdom, we rebelled. Forgive us. We look to Christ. The only hope for us. We know we are your workmanship, created in Christ for good works. We want to do that now, as we meditate and think about this, I pray that You would help us continue in awe and worship and service for those who are yet your people in our evangelism, those who are your people who need to be built up into maturity. And we would pray that we would be a bright and shining testimony to your new creation work, Christ's name. Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
View Resources by Dan Jarms
