Introduction
Imagine a beautiful place. But not just any beautiful place
… imagine the MOST beautiful place on
Maybe the beauty of this place isn't so much about what it
looks like physically but maybe it’s more about how it makes you feel when
you’re there: calm, peaceful, content, rested, full of energy, happy.
Take a moment and imagine this beautiful place—the one place
where, if you were able, you would stay forever.
If you wouldn't mind sharing your answer with the rest of
us, where do YOU think is the most beautiful place? And why?
(wait for answers)
Imagine what it would be like if you actually COULD stay in
that place forever on one condition. You could stay in this beautiful place
FOREVER and EVER … if you only could do this one thin. And that one thing is … to resist your greatest temptation.
Would you be able to resist your greatest temptation in order to stay in the most beautiful place in the world?
I won’t ask you to volunteer what you think is your greatest
temptation this morning, but I’m willing to bet there is at least one thing
that has popped into your mind thinking about your greatest temptation.
So, would you be able to resist your greatest temptation in
order to stay in the most beautiful place in the world?
This week, we read about how well, or actually how NOT-SO-well,
Adam and Eve did with this very challenge to resist temptation in the Garden of
Eden, the most beautiful place on earth.
SCRIPTURE
Genesis 1:26-30 (bottom of p 2)
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our
image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in
the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild
animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along
the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful
and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule
over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living
creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant
on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.
They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth
and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the
ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green
plant for food.” And it was so.
Genesis 2:15-17 (p 4, 1st full paragraph)
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in
the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And
the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in
the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Genesis 3:1-7 (p 5)
3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the
wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God
really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from
the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit
from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it,
or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the
woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was
good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who
was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were
opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together
and made coverings for themselves.
The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of the
Lord endures forever.
The One Thing
So, it turns out the Bible doesn't tell us exactly how long
it took them to give in; all we know is that on page two and three, God created
them, and by page five, they fall into the clutches of temptation.
That sounds about right to me. As much as I’d like to think
I could hold out for longer, I’m pretty sure I’d only make it a day or so
before I gave in and ended up getting myself kicked out of that perfect place
forever too.
That sneaky serpent slithers his way up to innocent,
unsuspecting Eve and begins to whisper in her ear about the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil … THE ONE THING GOD TOLD THEM NOT TO TOUCH in the
perfect place of the Garden of Eden.
Eve tells him that God said that if they did touch it, they
would die. And the serpent replies, “You will not surely die. For God knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,
knowing good from evil.”
In this perfect place, there was no death. And there was no
need to know good from evil because it was all good. Adam and Eve were made in
God’s image, made to perfectly reflect his perfect character in all situations.
It was paradise. It was perfect.
And they only had to do that one thing to stay in that
perfect place forever: resist their greatest temptation to eat the fruit and
become like God.
"Be Like God" v. "BEING God"
Normally in church, you hear the preacher talking all the
time about how it’s GOOD to be “like God.” That’s actually the point of this
whole church thing, to encourage us to be more like God each day.
The very first chapters of the Bible tell the story of how
these first two people were made in God’s image—they were created to “be like
God,” perfectly reflecting his love and generosity and grace and holiness and
righteousness. It was like if Adam were to look in a mirror, he would see God
looking back at him. He was created to be exactly like God on earth.
So it makes sense that to “become like God” was a GOOD thing
… but if Satan, disguised as that sneaky old serpent, is advising it, there
MUST be something wrong with it. Why is being “like God” such a temptation? Why
would that be a bad thing?
Because it’s not just that Adam and Eve will be like God … but it’s that they will want to BE God—they would want to put themselves in God’s place, to run their own world and their own life, to be totally in charge and in control, answering to no one but themselves.
God gave Adam and Eve many good gifts when he created them—a
beautiful place to live, work to keep them busy and give them purpose during
the day, a helpmate to keep them warm at night. They had EVERYTHING they needed
… but they wanted more.
They wanted more. Instead of just being like God, they
wanted to BE GOD.
And because God gave them the free will to make their own
decisions, they were able to choose whether or not to eat that forbidden fruit
and know good from evil.
And they gave in to temptation. They sinned. They did the
one thing God commanded them NOT to do. Instead of being like God, they were
the exact opposite of being like God.
And as a result, they were exiled from their home and his
presence.
Bearers of a Broken Image
So, what does this mess have to do with us, years and years
and years later?
When Adam and Eve sinned, the whole human race sinned. It’s
like their sin changed their DNA so that sin was passed down from generation to
generation to us, like freckles or curly hair or really smelly feet.
And when you stop and think about this stuff, it all sounds
more than a little hopeless: we’re doomed from the beginning, we never even had
a chance to get it right.
But there’s good news.
Adam and Eve were created in God's image, to perfectly reflect His character. And were too. We were created in God’s image, and even though 9 times
out of 10 we will choose, like Adam and Eve, to sin rather than to reflect
God’s image, it’s still there--God hasn't given up on us.
The image of God is still in us, but it’s not clear anymore; it’s like looking in a foggy bathroom mirror--we can sorta see God’s image, but it’s blurry and cloudy. We still carry the image of God in us … but we are now bearers of a broken and blurry image of God.
And while there is now a separation between us and God, the
“upper story” (which we will be talking about a lot as we read through “The
Story”) is all about God’s grand plan to bring us back into relationship with
him--to pursue us and chase us and display his love for us in amazing ways.
God is always working to close that gap and providing a way
back to him.
The challenge for us, in our “lower story,” is to look for
all the ways God is pursuing us and chasing us and calling us back to him; to
look for the times and the places where we can clearly reflect God’s image in
our decisions and in our actions.
The calling God has placed on each of our journeys of faith
is live out our “lower story” in a way that mirrors God’s image and imitates
the “upper story,” to do the best we can make life “on earth as it is in
heaven.”
Conclusion
Just as when Adam and Eve sinned, we all sinned, when they were kicked out of the garden, we were kicked out too.
Living life outside the Garden of Eden is sometimes not very
much fun. On this side of heaven, we’ll never really know the kind of intimacy
and relationship Adam & Eve had with their Creator God, who would walk with
them and talk with them in that perfect Garden.
But one day … one day, when our time here on earth is over,
we’ll be invited back into God’s
Friends, until that day comes, remember that God is never
far from us.
Even though we are sinners.
Even though we are exiles.
Even though
most of the time we’d rather BE GOD instead of “being like God.”
God is never far from us, because we were created in his
image and though that image is a little broken and a little blurry right now,
it’s still there. God is still with us. And he is working each day to bring us
back a little closer to him.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Amen
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