How God Made A Way: A Journey Towards The Cross - Part 1: The Garden & The Gate


Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our

lead pastor, Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message

would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you

to the life changing love of Jesus.

May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow Him today.

We begin with our confession. We just sang the words.

You're worthy of it all. And then we sang I surrender

all. It's weighty.

It's a meaty confession. And it leads us to this truth

that we declare our confession is that we are badly broken.

Yes, you are. Grace and peace to you.

Surrender is a big thing. It doesn't come easily or

lightly to surrender to someone or to something implies if it's

not forced. If it's not demanded or coerced,

it implies a measure of trust. It implies a measure of.

Confidence in the. One to whom we are surrendering.

And again, that's not easy. Especially when we talk.

About surrendering to God. To surrender to.

God that we can't. See in the same way that we can

see each other. In a way that we can.

Understand certain things. In our world, we can surrender

to gravity. We have no choice.

We can surrender to some things, but to surrender to God?

Why is that so? Difficult Well we read in

Genesis chapter 3 verse one. Now the serpent was the most

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, did God really say you can't eat

from any tree in the garden? Genesis. 3 is the account of the

fall from. Eden from the pinnacle of God's

creation to exile. And what's interesting to notice

about the account of the fall? Is it didn't begin with the

serpent offering the fruit? The first thing that the serpent

says is not you should eat that. The.

First thing that the serpent. Did was reframe who God was the.

Serpent calls into question. The command.

Did God really say because if we can question the command.

If we can wonder. Well, why would God say that?

Then we can question. What that calls into question is

his character. If if God said that and we don't

understand it, maybe there's something wrong with God.

Maybe God is not trustworthy. Maybe this God who calls for my

surrender and my obedience, maybe he's not actually that

good. Maybe he's not actually for me.

Maybe I stand to lose more than I stand.

To gain and. Once that distrust enters in,

then we. Have fracture.

The relationship begins to break down.

So by the time that we. Get in Genesis.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Chapter 3 Towards the end, by the time we get to Eve reaching

for the fruit, her hand was reaching for something that her

heart had already taken hold of. Her heart had already grasped

that. Thing that had been offered to

her. And so the last.

Image that we see. In the Garden of Eden, isn't a

tree the first, the last thing that we see?

In the garden of. Eden, it's not.

A river. It's not a plant, it's not

fruitfulness, the last thing that we see.

In the garden is a gate. Verse 22 The Lord God said since

the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he

must not reach out and 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 had

been 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.

God fashions humanity. He places him in a garden

already in bloom. He wakes up to the.

Scent of orange blossoms and cherry blossoms in bloom you can

feel the cool of the breeze very breath, the spirit of God

filling his lungs and the. Original creation was.

Mankind, male and female, His image walking and working freely

with God. His presence among them, known

to them by immediate experience, able to see and know and

experience God and his goodness and His freedom and His love.

And then by the end, driven out, sent away into the world and the

way back to the garden, blocked, guarded by an Angel and a sword

swinging every way. The imagery is inside and

outside and up and down every path, blocked.

And since then, from that moment.

We as a species, as a race. As creation have existed outside

the gate, separated from the world and the life and the

fellowship that we were created to know the very fiber and

fabric. And design of our.

Being now separated from the place where we were placed and

we feel it. When we wrestle.

With anxiety and fear and anger and control and depression, we

feel the separation, we feel the distance from Eden.

But that's Genesis 3. That's not where the story

begins. Before.

The gate, when God created mankind, where he called it was

home. He says it this way.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

There's an intention, there's an expression of intent, of design

in the creation. God was there and he decided to

create. Now the earth was formless.

It doesn't say it was. Nothing, it said.

It had no shape, it had no purpose, and it was empty.

Darkness covered the surface of the watery depths.

In ancient creation narratives, the waters are the.

Source of. Chaos, they are a source of.

Fear. They are source of.

Trouble they are. The great unknown and God says

the Spirit of God was hovering over those waters and then God

said let there be light. When God began to create, it was

unformed, it was empty. The picture is it was

uninhabitable, it was unfit for humankind or.

Beast or anything like? That and So what?

God begins to do is. He begins to speak.

He begins to speak into the chaos, He begins to speak into

the formlessness. And what his words do is

separate. It says let there be day and

night. He separated the dark from the

light, and he said let it be called day.

He separates in day two. He says he separates the waters

above from the waters below, and he creates the sky.

He. Creates atmosphere he creates.

Breath day three he separates the.

Water from dry land and he creates world and now what was

formless and. Chaotic has shaped.

But it's still. Empty.

And so God's not done speaking yet on day.

Four we've already had day and night and day and night and day

and night and on day four he speaks to what was empty, and he

fills it with. Sun and moon and stars.

So now we have. Seasons.

We know when to plant. We know when to harvest.

On day five He speaks to the waters above, to the sky, and he

creates the birds and he speaks to the waters below, and he

creates all the sea creatures and they're full.

And then on day six he speaks and he creates land animals and

pinnacle mankind. He creates humanity in the

garden. Speaking to.

Chaos and bringing shape to formlessness.

Speaking. To emptiness and filling it.

The world wants formless and void now teeming with life.

And at every step of the creation narrative we have this

refrain. And it was good, and it was

good, and it was good when it was just day and night.

It was good. That separation was good.

It was important and the sky above, and it was good, and it

was good and it was good. And all of God's goodness had

filled mankind and filled the world.

And so we come to the beginning of chapter 2.

And it says so the heavens and the earth and everything in them

were completed. They were finished.

They weren't just formed and filled.

They were good and on the 7th. Day God had completed his work

that he had done, and he. Rested on the 7th day from all

his work that he had done. And he blessed the 7th day, and

listen, he called it holy. Holy is.

Separated it is set apart, it is called out.

He set the 7th day aside and He blessed it on it.

He rested from all his work of creation.

This account of God resting is important that we wrap our heads

around it. God didn't rest for the same

reason that I rest. I rest because my back's a

little sore and my knees hurt and I've had a long day.

God didn't rest. Because he was tired, God

rested. Because he was finished.

Because he had done what needed to be done in that moment.

All of Eden fashion and beautiful and was beautiful to

behold. There was color.

Imagine color of trees without air pollution, without light

pollution. Imagine the size of the fish in

the waters without water pollution and food scarcity.

Imagine the trees blossoming and blooming, fully nutritionalized.

Soil everything. That they could possibly need.

Senses must have just delighted. More smells than we can imagine,

More colors, more light, and more brightness.

But it wasn't just beautiful because it delighted the senses.

It was beautiful because it worked.

It was beautiful because it was generative, See.

When we read the. Story when we read about Eden in

chapter. Two, what we read is there were

rivers that flowed out of the garden, but there were no

boundaries. There were no borders that the

garden contained. There was no end of the garden,

but God didn't say that the garden filled the whole earth.

Either, that's why he placed mankind there to work the

garden. But to work without.

Hurry. There wasn't a burden.

There wasn't a rush. The work of mankind.

Because the garden was already in bloom, There was no food

scarcity. There was already enough to eat.

There was already enough to drink.

They were already there together.

There was fellowship with each other and with God.

And so they weren't without exhaustion.

They worked without toil. They ate fruits.

Without frustration, they didn't curse the lack of rain or kick

the dirt for lack of crops. And what it says is as they

walked in that space, the way it describes them is naked and

unashamed. And it's not just about being

physically without clothes. It's being perfectly laid open

before all of creation. It is vulnerable without.

The fear of being rejected is to be seen without concern or fear

of being condemned. It is to be known and expected

to be loved. No Fear in the creation, in the

presence of Almighty God and all.

His. Holiness, there was no lack and

there was no limitation. Now we read the story in Genesis

1 and 2, and we read about gardens, and maybe you think

about Grandma's garden back home, or you imagine the thing.

That you would have heard and we think about gardens.

And that's a relatively limited experience, the 1st.

Reason this story didn't come at the.

Creation this didn't. This wasn't God's hand detailing

the account, this was the account given to.

Moses to tell the. People of Israel after they left

the slavery in Egypt to say this is the God and this is what he's

done for. And what they would have heard

when they heard about this garden, they would have heard of

a garden. But what they would have heard

when they heard about God sitting, they would have

thought. About a temple where?

Deity resides where He sits over his creation with authority.

And Dominion and. Power and rule.

This isn't just a. Garden This is the place where.

God lives, but this isn't like the gods of Egypt.

This isn't like the gods of the United States that are separated

and far away from their people. God shared his temple with

humanity. God placed them in the garden

and that is where he sat. God had the authority to speak

creation form and filling into emptiness and void, and he

shared that with us. God created a partnership.

Can you imagine such a thing? Explains it this way day 6 has

come and now the earth is filled with life and we read in verse

26 God said let us make man in our image now what do you think

of when you hear image let us make mankind in our image

according to our likeness they will rule the fish of the sea,

the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth and

the. Creatures that crawl.

On the Earth. So God created mankind.

In his own image. He created him.

In the image of God and. He created.

Them male and female, that is the image, the completion, the

fullness of God, and it says God bless them and he said to them

be. Fruitful and multiply fill the

earth. And subdue.

It rule the fish of the sea and the birds of the.

Sky and. Every creature that calls.

On the Earth see when we read about image in the biblical.

Literature what we are. Reading about isn't that.

God had shoulders like we. Do a nose like we do a hairline

like we do. We're grateful for that.

When we read about an image in Scripture, when we read about

the image of God, what we're talking about is representation.

You would go into a Pagan temples and there would be an

image of their God in that sanctuary to say this.

Is what our God is like. This is what the bales look

like. This is what the Astra look

like. This is what our God is like.

And instead of a pole or a statue.

What God created was humanity, male and female, and he gave

them authority in a holy place, which was the garden, and that

partnership was. The shared.

Responsibility and authority. In the command to fill and

subdue, when he said fill the earth and multiply, he said go

to the very edge of the orange garden, and with under the

leadership and in the presence of God himself, multiply it.

Make sure that there are oranges to fill the earth.

Make sure that the plants and the animals dig irrigation, Dick

practice, animal husbandry. Make sure that this space that

God created to be good expands and goes till everything is

full. Of God's goodness.

God filled, performed, and filled the world.

And he invited us to do the same.

Man, that is a deep and a heady vocation for humanity.

That is a beautiful thing to be given and it's important that we

contend with this, that we. Wrestle with this.

We had actual authority in the garden.

This was no task list. This was no, hey, go check these

boxes and come back for me for round two and I'll tell you what

to do. This was no micromanaging God.

Look what we read in chapter 2, verse 15.

The Lord God. Took the man and placed him in

the. Garden of Eden to.

Work it and to watch over it. As God sat on his throne above,

He's watching the man, man who then watches his creation to

notice when this one lives and this one moves on and when the

animals migrate and how the trees bloom and how the orchards

go. When we go down to verse 19.

And the Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and

every bird of the sky, and he brought.

Each to the man to see what he would.

Call it and whatever the man called the living creature,

that's what its name was. What's that, Adam?

That's an aardvark God. You bet it is.

There's no sense of manipulative divine oversight.

No, no, Adam, that's an ostrich, buddy.

And this power of naming the scripture is powerful.

When you give your child a name, you set an identity on that

child and up to this point in the scriptures.

Only being that names is God, he says you.

Are Adam and Eve and then? He sets them in.

Creation and says go and do likewise.

Fill the earth with goodness. You can just sense the joy of a

proud father watching his boy grow up.

Watching him walk in the goodness that he was created

for. Seeing him exercise his

authority and dominion. Now it's important to notice

that. Adam and Eve didn't have

ultimate authority. Ultimate.

Authority is the authority to take something that doesn't

exist and create something that exists to call something from

nothing. That authority resides in God

alone. Ultimate authority is to take

something that was created for one thing and to use it for

another thing. That would be ultimate

authority. Mankind doesn't have ultimate

authority, but he does have real authority.

He does have real agency in a good world.

He does have real ability to take goodness and expand it and

multiply it and spread it. God.

Actually involved. US.

In the. Actual work that he had been

doing. We know this in our bones.

We were created for meaningful responsibility.

That's why purposeless, meaningless work grates on us so

much. That's why in prisons, to demean

the prisoners, they give them purple purposeless work.

Dig a hole, fill it up. Dig a hole, fill it up.

It is exertion without meaning. It is action without

significant, and it goes against the fiber of what we were

created to be. It is the diminishing of the

very image of God within us. Man, that's wild.

To be given authority, but limited authority.

Authority with limits only works if we trust the one who sets the

limits. If we begin to.

Doubt that these limits are for our good and for our favor and

for our blessing. We will inevitably begin to

resist. We'll inevitably begin to

wonder. As long as we experience.

The limits as. Good we're.

Fine, and we're good with it. But when that trust begins to

fracture, when we begin to sense that maybe this isn't all for

our good, there's one response, one reaction.

It flows out of us naturally. We can't resist it.

It is this tendency to control. See, God has created us with his

image in us, with authority. And so we begin to use that,

that authority to control others.

And that's where we come to chapter 3.

The serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the

Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, did

God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?

Now He's cunning and he's wise. He knows that Adam and Eve had

been surrounded by goodness. They'd never known anything but

the fullness of God's creation. They'd never known anything

except it is good, it is good, it is good, and it is separated

for goodness, and it is flourishing.

Again, they walked. Into a garden that was in full

bloom. They didn't have to make.

They didn't have to wonder where their first meal was going to

come from. They didn't have to wonder

whether the rain was going to be good.

They simply had to take up processes already in motion and

continue to study them and see them and follow God and multiply

them and spread them. They were surrounded, my

goodness. And So what the serpent does

first is not blame God. He doesn't condemn God.

He doesn't say that God is bad. He just says, I wonder why not

that tree with all this goodness around that God is eager for you

to have. I wonder why he wouldn't want

you to have. Wisdom and knowledge.

So before he offers the fruit, he reframes the character of the

relationship. Verse 5.

The sermon speaks and says, in fact, God knows that when you

eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,

knowing good and evil. You see the reframe from God

sharing all the goodness of creation with you to God holding

back the best. And the woman saw that the tree

was good for food. He saw that it alighted her

senses. It was good for food, it was

delightful to look at, and it was desirable for obtaining

wisdom. So she ate some of its fruit,

and she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

To delegated authority wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough to enjoy boundless goodness.

They wanted to choose what was best.

They wanted to decide what the best use of creation was.

In other words, they weren't content to be with God.

They wanted to be God. And so they exchanged A

submitted partnership with a full experience of God's

goodness and fullness. They exchanged that or

subjective experience of reality for a little bite, a little

juice on the tongue, for a little whiff.

They change. They exchange their partnership.

See, that's the human condition. We still do this today.

We repurpose the good gifts that God has given for us in the

exercise of our own wisdom. God created sex as the means for

procreation. Procreation, creating life, is

how we experience as close in this life as we can experience

to partnering, of experiencing God, creating life, bringing

life out of nothingness. That's what sex was created to,

and He made it good. He could have made it purely

utilitarian and functional, but along the way we saw that it

felt good, and so we began to use it as an expression of our

desires to feel. Something to have dominion over

something and what we harvest and loneliness and pain,

separation. It undermines the very identity

that God placed in US. Work was not a result of the

fall. Work was not a result of the

curse. Before there was a fall, before

there was a curse. While the beautiful new sun

still hung fresh over the dew of Eden, God placed man in the

garden to work it fruit fruitfully.

But we have taken work, this thing that was supposed to be a

partnership, where we discover and experience God in the very

act of creating and and exercising wise stewardship over

what God has created. And we use it to build a world

for ourselves. My house, my car, my identity,

my place, my. Stuff.

And we suffer burnout and all kinds of addictions and fears

and anxieties over provision and will we have enough and will we

have more? And when things begin to break

down, we struggle and we fear even our very families, our

children. God gave us children so that we

could experience that thing that God felt in the garden.

To watch them, clumsily at first but ever increasingly skillful,

learn how to be wise stewards of the creation.

And instead we hover over them in fear, not sure that the God

who created them is able to keep them in the same manner that we

would. I remember when my son Jackson

was playing Little League baseball and after the games

were over and we would get in the car and come home.

And I remember how many times I talked to him about how to

properly catch a ground ball or a family ball or run the bases.

And I look back now and I think, what a stupid waste of time.

I should have just said, Jackson, how I love to watch you

run. How I love to see.

Your body. Do what it was created to do.

I love watching you think I love watching you play, but instead

I'm a ball player. I want to teach you.

I want to make you better. I want to.

Fashion you and my own image. And So what happens is instead

of lovingly letting go and shepherding and guiding through

the pain and the sorrow and the suffering, we clamp down and we

control because we're afraid we're outside the gate.

And my desire to control my world cannot possibly exist in

the same sphere as the one who actually does control

everything. It's like the Highlander, right?

Like there can be only one, but outside the gate, we struggle to

set up petty Thrones and petty temples where we are worshipped.

And we spend the whole of our lives trying to get others to

recognize our sovereignty. In verse 22 and 24 through 24

now in this condition with Adam and Eve knowing that they had

tasted and seen, knowing that that pursuit.

For more, more, always once more.

Once you've tasted it, you always want more, More control,

more flavor, more, more, more. Having seen this, the Lord God,

since he's become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he

must not reach out, take from the tree of life and eat

forever. God tells us why there was an

explosive. He tells us why exile exists.

So the Lord sent him away from the.

The Garden. To work the ground from which?

He was taken. He.

Drove the man out. Does it sound cruel?

It's mercy. We find mercy in exile.

Because if we were to take that fruit and live forever, there's

no coming back. There's no coming back from the

endless unfulfilled. Search for more.

He drove the man out, and he stationed the cherubim and the

flaming whirling sword east of the Garden of Eden to guard the

way to the Tree of Life. Distrust was sown, and when it

was sown it bore. Fruit of fracture, there was

distrust. God did say, why would God say

that? Why would God hold back on me

and from that fracture? Exile.

But you heard God's own words. He must not reach out, and he

must not live like that forever. And so the last image of the

Garden of Eden is a gate, the sword, and an Angel.

The way black, the way back home blocked.

And that's the ache that we all feel when we drink deeply of

everything this world has to offer us, and we're still

hungry. There's never enough power.

There's never enough money. There's never enough pleasure.

There's. Never enough vacation there's.

Never enough comfort. We drink, we get all that we

can, and we're dissatisfied. That is why for the last 1700

years, the church, the capital Church, has practiced Lent.

Lent is not an exclusively Catholic practice.

It just came about at a time where the Catholic Church was

the only church that existed. They don't get the rights to it.

They don't have a copy mark or a trademark on it.

The season of Lent is the 40 day experience where we

intentionally and deliberately with conviction, resist

distractions, where we intentionally put up barriers

around things that God created to be good so that we could

experience what was ultimately good.

For 40 days during Lent we face the fracture, we live into it

deeply, and the hope is that we are practicing, waiting for our

return. Lent ends with Easter, with

resurrection, with a new world in Jesus's image.

But between now and then, we spend time fasting.

I am on the staff. We are intentionally giving up

food one day a week or two days a week until sundown.

You wake up in the morning and we miss breakfast and we skip

lunch and we eat dinner at night with our family whenever we can

so that we can feel the hunger, so that we can understand.

Lord, I am not good when I'm empty and we pray and when we

are hungry and when we have headaches and when I am cranky

at my kids and I remember all the ways that I numb and dull

those things that keep me from practicing the image of God in

my world. Lent is about sitting honestly

outside the gate and remembering that we're not home yet.

But like I said, this story of creation, of the garden and of

the fall and of the exile, it didn't come to Eden.

Adam and Eve never read the words Moses.

These. Words were given to Moses and

Moses. Shared these with the company of

Israel as they walked out of slavery in Egypt and think about

that slavery in Egypt. It was a ruler who looked over

them and said you will create for my benefit, for my good.

Where we see the goodness of God in creation sitting over his his

people and sharing authority with them in Egypt we find

Pharaoh A taskmaster, cruel and brutal, demanding ever more and

ever more from his people and relinquishing ever less and ever

less and Moses tells the story of a God who is not like that.

But now they're outside of Egypt.

They're across the Red Sea once again in a borderless.

Wilderness with the promise of milk and honey on the horizon.

And they're confronted with the story of a garden that they

could never return to. But in Exodus 25, eight in that

wilderness, in that wild space, God says they are to make a

sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them.

God's heart had never turned away from being his people.

He has waited for us. He has made space in our world

for us. The.

Gate that keeps us. From Eden cannot keep God from

you. And so for the next six weeks,

we're going to trace this way that God made away, even in

exile. Lent is a season of waiting.

It is a season of letting our hunger remind us that we were

made for home and we're not there yet.

It is a way. Of stripping away all of those

things that we go. To fill that gap.

Ever so in completely. And it exposes us.

It leaves us afraid. It makes us want to control

things. It makes us want to resort to

things that caused us, that drove us from the fall anyway.

We want to feel more, we want to control more.

We want to see more. We want to have more.

We want to. Do more and instead we're called

to simply wait and. See what it's?

Like to live for the hand of God.

And so for just a few minutes left, I want to see if we can

just create some space. Will you close your eyes?

And what closing your eyes does is it just removes the awareness

of all the things that are going on around you as a way of having

a private place. And what I'm going to do is I'm

just going to guide us in prayer.

But a lot of this is going to be your response.

And let me say this, a significant part of walking by

faith is the belief that when we ask God to speak, He will do it

into our hearts and into our minds and into our souls.

And so as we pray, I invite you. You're not going to shock God.

He was there at the beginning. He saw the original fall.

He saw glory dissipated. He saw exile.

Father God, we thank You that you gave us this story of a good

creation. We have doubted Father, your

goodness. We have doubted that your love

and kindness was for us, and we have instead reached for

control. And now I want you and your own

space to begin processing. What does that look like in your

life? What do?

You trust yourself to. Do or others to do.

Rather than trusting the Father, confess to God.

God, I have put my trust in what?

Father, we feel the distance and we ache.

Or home, and you identify that ache.

Maybe it's a physical pain or a chronic illness and you know you

were created for wholeness. Maybe it's the addiction that

won't let go, depression that makes you dark and numb.

Or the anxiety of loss, or maybe it's greed or lust.

We feel the distance, we ache for home.

And we thank you that the gate does not keep you from us.

So the question for you is, where have you sensed his

movement today? Where have you felt him speaking

into your wilderness? And that same temptation will

echo in your ears. He can't be trusted.

Father. Teach us to trust you as we wait

for your return. In the name of your son Jesus,

we ask all of these things. Amen.

Thank you for joining us today. River City Church is all about

experiencing and expressing God's love in our lives and

community, and we hope that you've been able to experience

that today. As grateful as I am that you've

spent this time listening in this morning, this podcast is no

substitute for full participation in a local church.

I love it when River City people listen to other pastors.

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May the Lord bless and keep you in all grace and peace.