The Three Trees – Genesis 1 28 – 2 17

Genesis one, begin a verse twenty eight, now Genesis one in Genesis two. There's a beautiful relationship between the two chapters, and it can sometimes be confusing because in Genesis one we have this view of creation from thirty five thousand feet right. It's the big picture of what God did in those six days of creation. And then in chapter two, after man has already been created male and female, we have a picture of God creating Adam in the garden from the dust and creating Eve from his side. So it's obvious that what has happened in chapter two is that we have backed up, slowed down, and honed in on what God is doing in the creation of man. But we also see more than that, which I'll show you at the end of chapter one. We have what's often referred to as the cultural mandate or the dominion mandate. And then there is a bridge paragraph those first few verses of chapter two, and after that we have Adam in the garden actually carrying out the mandate that we saw at the end of chapter one. And the juxtaposition of these things is very important if we are to understand what that mandate means and what it looks like because so many of us, you know, as Christians, will go, Yes, the Lord, you know, told us to be ruthful and multiply and subdue and exercise dominion. And it's great. And how do you do that? Because you know the subdue and you know dominion stuff, And we don't know how to answer the question. Why do you do what you do? Why do you go to work every day? Well, you know, I'll go to work because you know I feed my family. Okay, great? Is that? Is that all? Is that the only reason that you do it? Why don't we build structures the way we build them? Why do we do anything the way that we do it? Those questions are answered foundationally right here in these two overlapping texts. So let's start chapter one, beginning of verse twenty eight. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and of the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so, and God saw that everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Now here's the bridge paragraph chapter two, verse one. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. 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. That was the transition paragraph now verse five. 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 caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and a 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 site that is good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the world the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Delium and Onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Kush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows around east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now there is much here to address, but let's take these in turn. Shall we. First the idea of the cultural mandate. The cultural mandate is to the Old Testament what the Great commission is to the New When we think about this mission that God has given us as his church, we think about the Great Commission and the New Testament. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of Panta ta ethne, every ethnic group, every people group. Right, that is our commission. Well, the Old Testament version of this is found in this first paragraph that we looked at in Genesis chapter one. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, exercise dominion over everything. Now, unfortunately, there are many who believe that this mandate in the New Testament has somehow supplanted usurped, or replaced the mandate in the Old Testament that now as Christians, we are always and only about people hearing the Gospel and coming to faith, and we have nothing to do anymore or with this cultural mandate. This is why we look sort of askew at people who would say, no, we're not just establishing a Bible college. We're actually establishing a classical Christian liberal arts university. Because, after all, if the only thing that matters it's people learning how to repentit our sin and come to faith in Christ, why are we worried about these other things? And quite frankly, folks, this is why, as Christians we have given up this other ground. This is why, as Christians we haven't been interested in the rest of the world. This is why as Christians we have so limited ourselves and so limited our focus, and so limited our influence and the fruit that we have borne because we have forgotten about this other mandate that I'm going to argue has gone absolutely nowhere. It is deal our mandate today. But how do we carry out this mandate? The connection of these three movements answers that question. First, I want us to see work and why we work. And again, we could spend a month worth of Sundays just talking about work and how we do it and why we do it. But we won't do that because we only have the time that we have remaining here. But work, Why do we work? And some of you may have caught it already in that transitional paragraph chapter two, verse one. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his what what he finishes work. On the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his what work that he had done. And in case you didn't get it the first two times, so God bless the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. Now go down with me and look at chapter two and verse fifteen. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Folks. Work is not a product of the fall. Work is a product of creation. In fact, creation is first a product of God's work, and then our work is a product of God's creation. God is now and in the business of the work of redemption and the work of recreation. This is why Jesus says, I must work the work of him who sent me while it is day, for the night is coming when no man can work. It is not work that is a product of the fall. It is the arduous nature of our work that is the product of the fall. It is the difficulty and the opposition that we face in our work. And quite frankly, it's our attitude toward our work that's the product of the fall. That is why today modern man's attitude is I want to work while I have to, and then I want to not work anymore. But in this unbiblical concept of retirement, folks, man was not made to retire. We were made to work until we die. Amen, somebody today, not only do we want to retire, but now we want early retirement. Huh, that's the picture of success. I retired early. It's a great book that addresses this, written by John Piper called Don't Waste Your Life, and he opens it with the juxtaposition of you know, the lives of two different people, and one who you know, they work and save up all this money and then they, you know, get the RV and go and drive and whatever, and you know another who actually invests their life. I am not arguing that you need to do the same job for the rest of your life. It is a beautiful thing if you can work and save, and then after you've worked and saved, you can leave that and go do something that you're passionate about, perhaps even give your life to the Lord's work in the second half of your life. Amen. So I'm not arguing against saving and preparing and moving on to something else. What I'm arguing against is this idea that I'm going to work so that I will not have to work anymore, especially this idea of early retirement. What are you gonna do. You're in your forties, you just stop being an idiot and now you're gonna leave with all your knowledge. That is absolutely ridiculous. You just learn how to do something and you're quitting. Come on, people, that is not the picture that you get from the scriptures. You get to the height of your powers and then lay it down. Absolutely not. You get to the height of your powers and then you kick it into overdrive, and then when your skills begin to wane, you find somebody that you can teach your expertise to so that when you finally can't do it, anymore. You've replaced yourself and now you can go do something that doesn't require as much physical energy. Huh. That's the picture. We work not just to feed ourselves, but we work because we're made in the image of God, and God is the first worker. We work because God created us to work. Here's a news flash. We're gonna work in the new heavens and the new Earth. Huh. By the way, that's good news, y'all. Because if we're honest, especially men, If we're honest, most men don't want to go to heaven. Amen. Most men don't want to go to heaven. Now, we'd rather go to heaven than go to hell. But we won't want to go to heaven. Why because there's this picture that's been painted of laying on a cloud and playing a heart for all eternity. There is nothing in the heart of a man that rejoices in that we lie. We lie. Somebody stands up, Oh can I wait to be in heaven? Can I wait to be with the Lord? But we will, you know, we'll be playing you know what men and men are going. Amen? And on the inside, not really, that's not how we were created, made in the image of God. It works, and that's why we work. We need to teach this to our children because our children don't understand the value of work. One of the things we do at Acus we have a student labor program, so all of our students are part of the student labor program where they are actually learning how to work, earning part of their school fees through working in a student labor program. Two years we've been at this and in both years, you know, you have a banquet at the end of the year and the students talk about how they've been impacted. It was amazing to us how every student, every student, whatever else they mentioned, they mentioned the student labor program. I learned how to work. I learned how to enjoy work. I learned how to love work. I learned how to take pride in my work. How many of us have hired someone to do a job and then had to take a day off work because you have to supervise them to make sure that they don't cheat you by taking a shortcut every step of the way. Because we do not understand the value of work, we do not understand the reason for work. We do not understand the very purpose for which we work, and that we work because we're made in the image of God, who works in creation and redemption, and in recreation. God works, So we work. Amen, So we work well? But how do we work? And this is where the last movement comes in. And again we're skipping over a lot of this, but we have to in order to get all this together. Now move forward with me, if you will. We saw that God took the man and put him in the garden. But look with me in verse well, before we get there, qot me the verse number five, because I have to make a comment about this. First, when no bush of the field was yet in the land, no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not 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 was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. I have to comment on this because we live in a world, and we live in a time where the radical environmental movement, the green wing nuts, the tree huggers, as we call them where I come from, have created this false dichotomy, and we speak about human beings as though there is nature and then there is humans, and humans are and infringement upon nature. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are a part of nature. It is not nature or us. We are a part of nature. Not only are we a part of nature, we are the crowning glory of God's creation and all of nature was made for us. Do not fall for this, young people, I know you're hearing it everywhere you go. Do not fall for this. Nature belongs to us, not the other way around. This is why our stewardship of it is so important. Listen, Nature is more productive because of us, not less. What else contributes to nature like we do? Huh? You let this plot just go and is it going to become more beautiful and more productive or less? It's going to be less. So don't buy this false bagotomy. Don't buy it. We are the grounding glory. Listen, we are part of nature. Why do you think that we can go and take plants and from them derive medications to treat us Because we're made from the same stuff. That's why, That's why there's a symbiosis, as scientists call it, between us and the rest of nature. Why can we eat the plants because we're made of the same stuff. Why can we eat the animals because we're made of the same stuff. Therefore we can process it. It's not nature versus us. Amen. All right, that was extra. Now let's get to this verse eight. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, 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, good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These three trees are essential. These three categories of trees are essential because we know that we work and why we work. We work because the God who works made us in his image. Amen. We know where we work. We work here in God's creation that he made for his glory. Right. But how do we work and why do we work? This is the question that we have to answer, the how and the why. And these three categories of trees answer this question. Now, there's some obvious answers, and we'll get to those and flesh them out. You know, for example, you know, it wouldn't take Adam long to figure out. You know, there are things here that give me food. Okay, I'm here to work the garden and take care of it. I have to take care of these things that give me food so that they can continue to give me food. Right, excellent, All right, great, that's why that's there. This tree of life, tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that's there. God's going to explain that to him and all that. But here's the thing, and this is the moment for me, that's the aha moment. And this is what separates cultures. By the way that tree over there, I don't see any fruit on that tree. Well, Adam, that's because I didn't make that tree for fruit. Huh. Then what good is it? It's beautiful. The first category of tree teaches us that we work, at least in part, to reproduce and enhance the beauty that God has put in creation. There are some things that God made just because they're beautiful. This separates cultures people. There are many cultures in the world that don't do things because of esthetics. They don't do things because of beauty. But we're made in the image of God, this is the difference. We use this illustration of the bridge right now, I have to get from this side of the river to the other side of the river. And in many cultures, it's just okay, fine, we have to get from here to there. What do we have. We get some rope, we got some vine. Just take that across to grab that crawler, crefine we got to the other side. And then there are cultures that build bridges that are so beautiful that you'll go one hundred kilometers out of your way just to drive across it. Huh, what is that difference? And here's the amazing thing that just my eyes were open to even before we came to live here. I couldn't. I just I couldn't. I couldn't wrap my head around it that there is among black Africans throughout this continent an absolute, unwavering belief in the superiority of white people. It may not be stated, but it's believed. And so you come into a building like this and you go, ah, white people, you see something that works, Ah, white people, That is not the answer. When you see things that reflect the beauty of creation, what you are seeing is not the superiority of an ethnic group. But what you are seeing is the result of the deep impact of the Gospel and the biblical worldview, where we understand that there are some things that God created just because they're beautiful, and we go out of our way in order to reflect that beauty and express that beauty, not just in what we put on ourselves. Most cultures will do that right, things that will put things on ourselves that are colorful or whatever. But even in the homes that we live in and the churches that we build, what wouldes that look like. Let me give you an example. If you have ever been in nature, and if you've ever been, if you were writing, for example, down the Amazon River, one of the things that you would see that God does in nature is that when there are trees on two sides of something, eventually those trees grow and they're designed to sort of reach toward each other, and as you ride through, there will be a natural canopy where the branches of the tree will reach toward the branches on the other side, and it will automatically cause you to look up in awe, that's not there because it's what white people do. That's not there because it's what Westerners do. That's there because architectural design at its highest is reflecting the glory and grande of what God does in nature. That's why even the juxtaposition of stones that look like their natural form that you find have their own beauty. You look at a mountain, a mountain will crush you and cure you. And yet we stand and stare in awe of just the natural beauty of stones stocked on top of one another. But then there is a completely different kind of beauty when man exercising dominion subdues those stones and makes them smooth, like down there the natural beauty of South African rosewood. And you cut a rosewood tree down, and you sand it and plane it and polish it, and you organize it in such a way that you now create a useful piece of furniture that is not just functional, but it also screams of the beauty that God has put in creation. This right here is a picture of what it means to take dominion. It's a picture of what it means to subdue. It's a picture of what it means to reflect the beauty that God has put in creation. And the first set of trees teach us that and there's the second set of trees. We have beauty, but we also have goodness. This set of trees, they're good for food. And now it didn't just say that they were edible. They produce food. It's good for food. There's two kinds of goodness here when it comes to food. One is the goodness of the food that nourishes us. So food has a nutritional value. That's the goodness of food. Amen, it's fuel for us. I mean, that's how we survive. You gotta have it in order to survive. You can't go very long without it, right. So it's good for food. But the goodness of food is not just in its nutritional value. God has put thousands of taste buds in your mouth. And there is also the goodness of food because it brings pleasure when you eat it right. And when you have these contrasting flavors that come together, the sweet and the sour, and the hot and the salty and the anah, it's just good. And it's amazing how there are certain things that sort of occur together in nature, and when you cook these things together in the right way, they just explode with flavor. Because goodness is not just in the nutritional value. But folks, you know you eat with your eyes first, and then you eat with your nose and with your hands and with your ears. How can you just hear a wonderful piece of steak sizzling on the fire? Ah? What's on the weed? Ah? See? This is also goodness. So when we talk about goodness, we're talking about things that are good for us, and things are the good to us, things that are pleasurable, and we do things for that pleasure as well. And this is another thing that we sort of lose when you know, cultural mandate. Yeah, that was for them, but you know, we have the great commission. One of the things that you notice about people who think like this is that they also think like this, if it's pleasurable, we probably shouldn't be doing it. You can't say amen, you ought to be out to say out right. Some of you grew up in that environment, right, some of you grew up in that environment where it's like, ah, man, if it's true, if you like it, that's probably because See, godliness is about foregoing pleasure, says who says who My Savior made the best wine last? Hello, goodness, goodness, which is why again there's the one culture that you know, hey, we got to get from here to the other side of the bridge. Let's just throw a rope over there, or let's just do whatever. There's no sense of the goodness of that. By the way, here's what goodness also does for us. Because it's good for us and good to us, we cultivate it in such a way that we can continue to enjoy it. That's the difference between a culture that cultivates plants and cultivates animals for long term enjoyment and those who think nothing of it, that will hunt something into extinction or eat all of it and then starve the next year. These are biblical concepts. Let's make a bridge. Fine, let's make the bridge. Let's just functional get across there. Terrible materials, it's not beautiful, and we're probably gonna have to replace it in a few months or at most a few years, because we did not pay attention to goodness. This is not white, this is not Western, this is not cultural. This is biblical. Amen. There's another set of trees tree, the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life. What are these trees teachers? These trees teaches truth, truth, beauty, goodness. This is where our ethics come from. There are things that are right and there are things that are wrong, and there is a God who determines what things are right and what things are wrong. So now let's go back to our bridge and we're going to apply truth, beauty and goodness. There's something on the other side that we need to get to. Fine, Let's build a bridge. Excellent, let's do that. Let's use good, sturdy material that's going to last. Let's do it in such a way that it will be esthetically pleasing, beautiful to the eye. And let's do it in such a way that it will be safe for people to cross. Because people are made in the image of God and life needs to be protected. That's why we need universities that don't just teach pastors, but also teach architects, engineers, lawyers, doctors. Because no matter what you do, truth, beauty and goodness must guide all your work. I don't care what that work is, it has to be rooted and grounded in truth, beauty and goodness. It has to be it must be. One of the things we've been talking about is part of our student labor program is outreach right and so doing works in the neighborhood and some things like this. And you know, one of the things that we're talking about is doing the sidewalk, where we are like fixing up the street and doing a sidewalk, or we are and doing a little pamphlet about sidewalks, because it's amazing. I mean, it's just amazing to me, you know, coming from the United States, it's amazing living in Lusaka, where the overwhelming majority of people walk everywhere they go and nobody build sidewalks, whereas in the United States, the overwhelming majority of people drive and everybody build sidewalks. But why do people build sidewalks Because of the value and dignity of human life. A culture that doesn't build sidewalks is a culture that is not expressing the value and dignity of every human life and the responsibility that we have to protect it. And so, you know, but the whole flyer, why is it? Why is this you putting in a sidewalk? Here's why, because here's what sidewalks say, truth, beauty, goodness. But there is a connection between these two, between our great Commission and this cultural mandate, and it's connected by three trees. The trees of the garden we've seen. But then there is the Tree of the Cross, because right after the Tree of the Garden, there's a fall, and our federal head, Adam, who represented all of us, fell and became an enemy of God and put himself and all of his posterity under the wrath of God because of his sin. And from then on there is this promise of a redeemer who will come. And what will this redeemer do. This redeemer will wrap himself in flesh, live a perfect life in order to get aiin righteousness for those who are under his federal headship, and then die a sinner's death that he does not owe in order to pay the penalty that Adam and all of his posterity owh So Christ becomes our new federal head because of another tree. But it doesn't end there, because the Bible moves forward and it ends with another scene. Go with me to the end of the Bible and look at Revelation chapter twenty two, last chapter of the last book and the Bible, and we'll find something amazing there. Revelation chapter twenty two. Then the Angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river the Tree of Life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. By the way, what happens when you put a huge tree on either side of a river and give it time to grow, they will reach out for each other. And we end where we begin trees which teach us truth, beauty and goodness. And almost immediately there is a fall because of a misuse of a tree. And then there is a promise which eventuates in the god Man dying on another tree. And then there is the completion of not only our redemption, but the redemption of creation and the final tree. You see, the Gospel is not just about us escaping the penalty of our sin. It is about us being made new from the inside out. Because the fall didn't just alienate Adam from God. If you read the curse in chapter three, now all of a sudden the ground is cursed. There's thorns, and there's thistles, and there is the sweat of his brow. The fall also alienated man from Creation. So now Creation, according to Romans Chapter eight, is even groaning for its redemption. So now the God Man Christ, our new federal head, comes and he dies on a tree, and we come to repentance and faith in him. And not only does he renew our relationship with God, but he also renews and restores our relationship with Creation in itself, so that Christians now are not only changed inwardly, but we're changed outwardly, and our very environment begins to reflect the newness of the man within. Beyond that, the Bible says that God is also about the business of creating through the souls of men, a dwelling place for God. So this building motif is carried throughout until we get to the New Jerusalem, which is another building that is yet to come. So as we build things like this, we are also expressing outwardly and inward yearning that God has put into us for the building that is yet to come that we will inhabit and be a part of. Do you see, Do you see all of this is connected? You see why you can't separate the saving of your soul from the way that your saved soul interacts not only with God but with your fellow man, and with everything else around you. Do you see why we can't just take a job and go to work just to get a paycheck. Do you see that? Do you see why we ought to have purpose every morning when we wake up. Why we ought to be grateful for strength and our limbs, Why we ought to be grateful for the opportunity to work. Why we ought to be grateful for the opportunity to express truth, beauty and goodness everywhere we go. Oh, dear Christian, the next time somebody from you know, any out, next time somebody says to you, ah, your building is beautiful, here's the only ways to say. I's just say it it is. It is. It's beautiful because you know, there's a God who created the world, and we work because he works. And when we work, we pursue truth, beauty and goodness. And as fallen men, we wouldn't really get that, not to its fullest. But because of Christ, who redeemed us, we're not only saved to have a right relationship with God, but we expressed that relationship with God through our continued pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness, to the glory of our Lord and Savior. Of Jesus Christ. I don't know about you. That's a lot better than yeah, thank you. It is nice again. This is not east versus west, This is not black versus white. You look at the world today and you look at the places where truth, beauty and goodness thrive. You look at where humanity thrives, and what you will find is places where the Gospel has had free, broad, deep and lasting influence and impact, and where people have thought deeply about issues like this and actually applied it to the way that they did everything. Truth, beauty, goodness. Let's pray God. We thank you for everything that you have done in creation and redemption, and everything that you are doing and recreation. We thank you for the trees of the garden that teach us truth, beauty and goodness. We thank you for the tree of the Cross that redeems us from the fall. And we thank you for the tree that has yet to come that we will enjoy for all eternity. Grant by your grace that we might embrace these truths and be embraced by them. Grant that all of our lives would be defined by this pursuit of truth and beauty and goodness. And Grandfather that as a result of it, people will see your church and recognize not only our inward spirits will change, but this outward manifestation of it that says we're different. And we pray that you would grant this not for our glory, but for your own. And we pray this in Christ's name.