The Quest for Eden
Genesis 1:26 – 2:3
INTRO
When people ask us about our charges as pastors and we speak of our time in Bermuda the response is generally the same – “that's tough but somebody has to do it.” No doubt the idyllic island with its Aqua Ocean, towering palm trees and gleaming sands of beaches like Horseshoe Bay cannot be ignored. The pastels and bold colours of houses and vehicles, the breath-taking botanical gardens or the aroma of fields of Easter lilies is really a reflection of the spirit and the heart of the people. When we think the Garden of Eden, the home of the first created human beings one could easily generate a picture similar to the Bermuda Islands.
• Garden of Eden in Genesis – many theories and hypothesis of its original location, time-lines. Finding Eden is about as challenging as trying to find the lost city Atlantis. Suggested places include Mongolia, Ethiopia, India and Turkey. We could spend a lot of time talking about many fascinating details and theories about Eden
• Genesis’ information is critical though not detailed. Eden – picture of “heaven on earth”... productivity, rest and relationship; being in harmony with all of life and creation ... perfection at its highest
Eden is a fascinating story of God creating life and after all his creation he decided to finish his work with the icing on the cake, the jewel atop the heap – he created us in his image! It is then we lived in Eden, and the story is a story of love, innocence and sadly, betrayal. The end result was expulsion from Eden, broken relationships and incomplete lives.
Since that time the human race lives in pursuit of Eden. Unlike the Genesis account, Eden is not a place but an experience. It is not a garden in the East but a garden of the soul. The human spirit is always on a quest for something more, something better. We think having this or doing that will mean we’ll reach the pinnacle of fulfillment, only to arrive there and discover nothing’s really changed. The reason has something to do with the fact that God “planted eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We were made for more than “this”.
We can only hope to experience Eden when we understand it is a lifestyle not a landmass. God invites us to walk with Him and live in Eden! Eden is the experience of wholeness in the world you inhabit. You don’t need to book an international flight or leave it behind after a few days! Eden can be your dwelling experience for the rest of your life! God invites us to live fully satisfied with the knowledge of who we’re wired to be and knowing that, to walk the glistening beaches of purpose, take in the aroma of the gardens of relationship and experience the gentle touch of the Divine.
If you want an Eden experience today and tomorrow and the day after that, it involves understanding
1. YOU WERE MADE TO RULE – 1:26, 28b; 2:15
• A.k.a. work
Work was never intended to be a curse ... the purposes we’ve attached to work make it burdensome and tasteless as well as the sense of urgency for survival’s sake.
Author Nancy Ortberg writes about work. She highlights the attitudes prevalent in society such as “Thank God it’s Friday. I hate my job. I can’t wait until I retire so I can start living.” She notices how work is meant to be another way of working out the image of God that resides in us. She says, “Christians think we need to separate our “work life” from our “God life”. What we fail to realize is that work can be one of the primary places of spiritual formation in our lives.”
Work was meant to be wholesome, pleasurable and fulfilling. It was only after Adam and Eve disobeyed God and in doing so reaped God’s judgement on labour being hard and the ground not yielding its crop that work became a nine-to-five legislation, or a means to an end … I work to get a pay check so I can have things and go places. That’s not Eden. That’s an epidemic. Recapture the truth you were made to work.
Reaching Eden involves realizing
2. YOU WERE MADE TO REPRODUCE – 1:28
At first we assume this instruction of reproduction means having children. It is certainly that but even more than that. To reproduce is to copy, replicate, duplicate, or imitate. To imitate God is to give oneself to a life of creation and community.
• Other ideas of reproduction:
• It’s been said, “To read the Bible is to know that creation does not remain in the past tense.”
• Someone else once suggested, “We’re never godlier than when we give.” I suggest an addendum to this by offering we’re never godlier than when we create (i.e. reproduce) – e.g. The value and satisfaction of planting a garden (I’m going to regret that comment!)
A critical and explanatory commentary notes, “God is represented as pausing at every stage to look at His work ... Every object was in its right place, every vegetable process going on in season, every animal in its structure and instincts suited to its mode of life and its use in the economy of the world.”
God is recreating, reforming, remoulding and reshaping people and events every day. It’s called REPRODUCTION. His reproduction of the human race is an ongoing development until we reach Home!
The original design of the reproduction cycle is hampered by the flawed reality of Fallen nature. Our imperfect condition gets in the way of reaching our potential as people, as families and workers, as churches, cities and nations. St. Paul – “we groan to be clothed with our house from heaven.” (2Cor 5:2) or his words of Ro 8:17-25 …. Paul speaks of the “19anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God…”21creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption…”22the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”
We and nature will continue to groan with discontent until heaven appears. It is only then we’ll finally be complete. When we live life apart from the original design and purposes of God, life will never yield enough to fulfill us.
Reaching Eden involves knowing
3. YOU WERE MADE TO REST
• Natural rest – 2:2
• E.g. have you ever done a job and stood back to admire it; to analyze it and think, “That’s a good job I did there.” So too God…
• God rested not as one weary but as one pleased
• This rest allows us the comfort of being justified to take a break because I worked hard and did a great job!
Then there’s focusing-on-God rest – 3:8
Adam and Eve were use to working through the day and aware of God in the process. But there was that time in the week when they stopped their work and took time to just be with God for no other purpose other than to enjoy his company.
When God breathed life into our human frame on the sixth day, being the last thing created, the sixth day ended – “there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Ge1:31). The day started in the evening and ended in the morning. When God formed us and we took our first breath, the first thing we did was enjoy God through relational rest!
• E.g. New-born … enters the world, cries and then sleeps!
Mike Breen is rector and team leader of St. Thomas’ Church in Sheffield, England. 80% of his church is under 40. He used the principles of Lifeshapes to grow the largest church in North England. His counterpart, Walt Kallestad, is Senior Pastor of Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona, a church with more than 12,000 members.
Principle 2: Living in Rhythm with Life (picture from LifeShapes)
• Created in rest that leads to work (abiding/relationship) to (fruitfulness)
• Our tendency toward primarily work and sometimes swing toward rest ... out of order, out of rhythm
When the order is wrong (work to now-and-then rest) we become subject to the syndrome written of: “Human life can become dwarfed and mean if provision is not constantly made for rest and for worship ... monotonous and unbroken toil is killing.”
Sabbath rest involves a day a week to not work and have time to worship God, rest, relax, and experience peaceful abiding! Though society tries to acknowledge the value of rest by creating laws that give people a day off, it’s been terribly secularized. People don’t understand the rest day, Sabbath day, as an opportunity to be refreshed with God and family but use it for anything other than those purposes.
It’s been suggested that as Christ was resurrected on Sunday morning, so the Christian church should view every Sunday as a day of resurrection. The commentator explains Sunday as “resurrection from the dust of earthiness, in which life so often may be buried...”
WRAP
• In your frazzled, harried, high-stress and high-strung life, God wants you to walk the paths of Eden, that experience of balance in working, producing and resting.
• All three are critical to a balanced life and God should be worshipped in all three realities.
• Your desire for this balance was given you by God. When your spirit groans for one or the other he is calling you to balance.
• All of this order and balance is a picture of heaven to come!
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(The following was a handout to provide practical steps to help people this week to take control of their lives and begin experiencing Eden)
On the Road to Your Personal Eden
1. If you are not in the habit of planning your time as in keeping a schedule, start now. By keeping a planner you will control your time rather than allow all the other demands control you.
2. Consider Sunday as your resting into the remainder of the week. Do everything you can to make Sunday a worship-and-rest day. You must be careful here not to do the stuff that is regular to the rest of the week. It must be special and distinct from all the other days.
3. On Sunday, pull out your planner and schedule personal time first before scheduling anything else. Schedule at least one four-hour window. This could be just for yourself or with your family/spouse/friends.
4. Make a list of everything (your work) you have to do for the week. Then, place them in your planner so that you spread them out over the next six days (Monday to Saturday).
5. When you plan your work week, somewhere in every day plan a “coffee break” …. Go to a coffee shop with a friend; plan a walk in the park or on a nearby trail. Use your imagination!
6. In every day on your planner, block a 15-minute opportunity to read your Bible or an inspirational book by a Christian author that will incorporate Scripture into your reading. Keep a prayer journal and write a few thoughts to God from what you just read or take the last 2-3 minutes of your devotional time to quietly listen for God or offer a prayer.
