Happy Easter! We count it our great privilege to be able to come alongside you, to help you find God, to follow Jesus, to encourage your faith. This morning we’re starting series of messages called “Wrestling with God.” In the Bible, we read about a man named Jacob who literally wrestled with God. At first, he didn’t realize it was God… but once he did, he wouldn't let go of God until God blessed him! That very day God gave Jacob a new name, “Israel," which means “he who strives with God."
What is true of Jacob is true of everyone in this room. We all wrestle with God in our own way, for our own reasons. Isn't it true that we all want the very best God can give us? We want to be blessed, to live long, to live healthily, to prosper. We want things to go well for ourselves and our families. But life is filled with so much agony. Instead of feeling blessed we feel disillusioned, discouraged, tired, even angry. We doubt God, we pray demanding answers.
Whenever a wrestler realizes he’s about to lose, he has the option of “tapping out.” In our struggle of faith how close are you to tapping out? Do you continue to trust God? Have you resigned yourself to fate? What would you say?
It isn't just men who wrestle with God. The Bible says God also wrestles with us! In Genesis 6:3 the Lord says, “My Spirit will not {remain} with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” Remain is a mild translation. Other translations say, “My Spirit will not contend or strive… with mankind forever.” Talk about flipping the narrative! Why might God have to wrestle with us?
Genesis 6:3 forces us to consider God's perspective! What's it like for God to contend with us? What’s it like for God to be on the other side of humanity, on the other side of your prayers and mine? As summer nears, we’re going to look at how a variety of people wrestled with God and found God to be faithful and good.
This morning I thought we should begin with Adam, since he’s the first person named in the Bible (and our oldest ancestor). Genesis 2:7-9 says, “Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
There are three types of trees mentioned in Genesis 2:9. First, there are “general trees” that are “pleasing in appearance and good for food.” I have to admit I’m a sucker for flowering trees. Every Spring our crab trees put off spectacular array of color. Maybe you have trees that produce fruit, or nuts. Trees remind us that God is our Provider. He gives us every good, perfect, and pleasing thing needed to sustain our physical life. Psalm 107:9, “For he has satisfied the thirsty soul and filled the hungry with good things.” Trees also remind us God is the source of all beauty, hospitality, goodness and enjoyment. Things don't just serve a utilitarian purpose (good for food), God makes what is pleasing to the eye and senses.
Second, in the middle of the garden, is “the tree of life.” To whom or to what do we give our lives credit? For centuries science has searched for an impersonal, material explanation for all of life. How did we morph from dust (star dust?) into living breathing souls? How did dust self-author itself into life? How did dust self-script, self-design, self-shape, self-breath, self-energize, self-create itself into a single irreducibly complex living cell much less human being? How did dust nurture itself, sustain itself, preserve itself, and come to reproduce its own offspring according to its own kind? The scientist says there absolutely can only be an impersonal, immaterial cause of life.
But what if life isn’t because of a “what” but because of a “whom?” The tree of life is a reminder that God is source of life itself. The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. All things were created by him, for him, and through him. There is one God, the Father, Who is the Source of all things. In him we live and move and have our being. And my God will liberally supply your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Third, in the middle of the garden is “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” This third tree is the tree of “wisdom.” There are a couple of ways you can gain wisdom in life—one is deadly, and one is wise. You can gain wisdom through “personal” experience. In Ecclesiastes Solomon leaves no stone unturned in his insatiable quest for wisdom—but it quickly ends in despair. He can't find anything of eternal meaning, purpose, and value apart from God. The other way you can gain wisdom is through trust. We don’t have to taste every good or evil thing to learn what is good. Proverbs 3:5, 6 invites, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight."
What was Adam’s fatal legacy? Every good, pleasing, and perfect thing he could ever need in life was easily within arm’s reach. Whatever good. Whatever need for enjoyment or pleasure. He had life and immortality in God, within his grasp. He had God’s perfect wisdom to morally guide and preserve him. But instead of trusting God, he turned away from God. Ever since Adam turned away from God, man has been seeking satisfaction, eternal life, and wisdom. Yet apart from God, man’s dissatisfaction, death, and evil only multiplies. Adam had it all in God, and yet threw it all away.
There is a haunting passage in Genesis 3:22-24 where God has to make a decision about what to do with Adam. “The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.” There is no more hellish place to find ourselves than East of Eden. Yet this is where Adam found himself—East of Eden, without hope and without God. Without sustenance, without life, without wisdom. The reason we don’t find satisfaction, life, and wisdom outside God (east of Eden), is because these things can only be found in God himself.
Did you know that in Scripture, there is a second man named Adam? The first Adam we read about in Genesis 1, but the second Adam we read about in John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. . . The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
In Scripture, God sends forth a “second Adam” to undo the legacy of the first Adam, and enable humankind to have full Life in God. Unlike the first Adam, the second Adam entrusted himself fully to God. He found pleasure and satisfaction not in bread, but in trusting God. He found life, by breathing in God’s life-giving Spirit. He fully embraced righteousness, living obediently according to wisdom of God!
The Bible contrasts the first Adam with the second Adam Jesus this way: Death came through the first man; resurrection life and hope through Jesus. In Adam all enter into a death spiral; in Christ all are being made alive! The first Adam became a living being; the second Adam came as a life-giving spirit! The first Adam was from the earth, a man of death. The second Adam Jesus came from heaven. It is our choice whether we follow the legacy of the first Adam or the second Adam! It is our choice whether to be like the man of dust or the man of heaven. It is our choice whether to be born into the image of the man or dust, or whether we bear the image of the man from heaven! The first Adam wrestled against God; the second Adam demonstrated true life in God is found through submission, faith.
This Easter God is inviting us to find satisfaction and enjoyment, to find life, and to find wisdom. It’s not found East of Eden (running from God), but through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the way, truth, life. He is the gate, the good shepherd who lays down his life. He is the resurrection and life.
It’s our privilege not just on Easter, but every Sunday to celebrate the communion that is available with God through Jesus. There is nothing more sacred to us than our bodies, our own flesh and blood. We wouldn't exist as flesh and blood creatures if God hadn't made it so. Our flesh and blood existence is a gift from God.
But at communion we celebrate a deeper reality and truth. The truth is that God so loved the world, he spared not the flesh nor the blood of his One and Only Son, Jesus. Rather, God gave his son up freely, causing him to take the penalty that was against us, to once again open a way of fellowship (a way for us to eternally enjoy communion) with God.
In Christ we find everything we need for our daily sustenance and enjoyment.
In Christ we find life and life more abundant, life welling up to eternal life!
In Christ we find all the mysteries and treasures, wisdom and knowledge—so that we don't have to live life recklessly, foolishly, fatally… without hope, without meaning-purpose. But we can live life righteously, in trust, in peace, in fear of God.