Teaching #3

Part 1

There’s this interesting thing in the Bible - Often when someone is going to face a test, it happens in the presence of a tree.

  • I’m sure you’re familiar with the first recorded human test - the one with Adam & Eve

    • They lived in a garden w/ lots of trees - nice-looking and good for food.

    • There were 2 very important trees: The tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

      • Tree of life was God’s blessing, His offer of eternal life with Him

      • Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would bring death

      • God said, “You can eat from any tree (including the tree of life!) Just don’t eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad please, because then you’ll die.”

      • Important Choice - Will Adam & Eve be obedient to God, trust in His wisdom, and choose the tree of life? Or will they disobey, trust in their own wisdom, and take what looks good to them?

    • Genesis 3 shows that Adam and Eve chose the tree that looked good to them.

    • Genesis 3:6 – “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.”

    • Adam & Eve chose to act based on their own wisdom, and so they were cut off from the tree of life, and cast away from God’s presence and blessing, and chaos ensued.

  • A very similar thing happens later in Genesis 12

    • The Lord appears to Abram by a ‘great tree’ called Moreh and said, “to your offspring I will give this land.” It’s a promise of God’s presence, bringing life. (Sound familiar - Tree of Life)

    • A few chapters later, in Genesis 16, Abram and Sarai had no children and were getting pretty old. Even though God had promised them children, they were growing impatient. So, they were presented with a test – a choice. Wait on God and His wisdom, or do what was good in their own eyes?

    • Genesis 16:1-3 – “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.”

    • Abram & Sarai faced a test. They chose their own wisdom instead of being obedient to God’s wisdom. Chaos ensued. Hagar despises Sarah, Sarah abuses Hagar, Abraham gets stuck in the middle of a cat-fight. The pattern is clear through the repeated language – choose to do something your way instead of God’s way, and there’s a result of death and chaos.

  • Same story is echoed throughout scripture. Time and again, humans stand before trees, facing great questions of faith. Sometimes they choose right. Often they don’t.

Part 2

But what I’d like to argue tonight, is that if we were to focus our attention on the Tree of Life, it would be far more pleasing to the eye than anything on that other tree. Adam & Eve and Abram & Sarai got tricked. And so do we.

  • God is the best thing in our lives. He is what our hearts truly long for.

  • But we get distracted by other things that glitter

    • Wealth and status and power

    • New things, keeping up with those around us, being busy as if it is a badge of honor

    • These things are tempting - Because they appear to be good

  • And, if we’re honest, at first glance God’s ways often don’t look appealing at all

    • First is last & Last is first - What is that?

    • Forgive your enemies & Turn the other cheek - No thank you!

    • We like the idea of having orphans and widows and refugees cared for, but we want to be able to maintain limits to what it will cost us

    • We’re told to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we want that neighbor to be someone who looks and acts like us, someone we feel comfortable loving, someone who has the ability to repay us in some way.

  • And yet, our favorite stories, the stories that stir our hearts and propel us forward into living the kinds of lives God intends for us to live

  • They are stories of sacrificial love

    • First Responders who ran toward the burning buildings

    • Passengers of Flight 93 so that it won’t be flown into another target

    • Four Chaplains - February 3, 1943, the troop carrier, Dorchester, was hit by a German torpedo off the coast of Greenland - 902/230 survived - Who gave away their life jackets & spend their last moments ministering to the dying men of the Dorchester.

  • Love is a beautiful thing - Love is the most beautiful in our world - it is irresistible

    • And our God, who is Love, is irresistible

    • We love the story of the Four Chaplains because it is an echo of God’s love story

      • A survivor of the Dorchester sinking watched the chaplains give away their life jackets to four scared soldiers, “It was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven.”

      • They gave up their life preservers in order to offer a chance of life to four other men - Jesus laid down His life to offer the chance of life to us all

      • The chaplains preached courage and prayed for the people around them, as they perished - Jesus prayed forgiveness over his executioners, gave the hope of paradise to the criminal suffering on the cross beside him, passed off the care of mother to John

      • And while the four chaplains were last seen with their arms linked and feet braced against the slanting decks of the Dorchester - Jesus hung there alone, with nothing to stand on

    • Jesus is the only One who faced the tests of life and consistently chose to trust God’s wisdom - To choose Life

      • Nothing about Jesus’s death looks appealing - No part of it makes sense to human understanding - UNTIL His resurrection

    • When His death becomes the most beautiful act of love the world has ever seen

Part 3

The Irresistible Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart of Jesus

  • Strong Back - Made the choice for God’s wisdom every time

    • Chose the Cross to redeem us

    • Refused to be deterred or distracted from His mission of love

    • People were His treasure—not power, wealth, fame - US

  • Soft Front - Knowing they would hurt Him, He made Himself vulnerable

    • Engaged in human relationships

    • Offered His love even though many would reject it

  • Wild Heart - Of a Hero

    • Embraced a risky adventure

    • Traveled to the ‘far country’

    • For a beauty who needed rescuing - For US

Special Music - “How Beautiful Is The Body of Christ” by Twila Parris

Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart Living for Jesus

  • Braving the Wilderness by Brene’ Brown

  • Strong Back - Truth: Jesus is Life (He is everything beautiful and good in the world)

    • Knowing how He has fought for you, fight for Him

    • Guard the important from the urgent

    • Make space in your life - schedule Him in on your calendar

    • Soft Front - Truth: You are the love of Jesus’s life

      • Be captivated by Him as He is captivated by you

      • You can bring your real self to Him

      • With Him you are loved, you are safe, and you belong

    • Wild Heart - Embrace the adventure that Jesus is offering to take you along on

      • Shift our eyes from staring intently at what we want from Jesus, to staring intently at Jesus as what we want.

      • Ruth Haley Barton - “…choose not to look to the lives of others as a blueprint for our own but dare to say yes to the risky invitations of God.”

      • He wants to be a part of the adventure of life with us