Don't Eat From the Wrong Tree

Today, we're starting a one-month conversation.

And it's called Whatever You Do, Don't.

Whatever You Do, Don't.

And this is very much in the vein of we're at the beginning of a new year.

We want to have as good of a year as possible.

We want to be prepared for all the good things that God has in store for us.

We want to be ready for all of the difficult things that life might throw at us.

And so the mindset that uh that we're going to take for this month is whatever you do, don't.

And I admittedly know that that sounds a little negative.

Right?

I haven't actually done many messages where the focus is is don't.

Um, but it's not.

It's not negative at all.

In fact, instead of worried about the word don't for a minute, think about the word whatever.

Like whatever.

That can be an incredibly negative word depending on the context.

Like let's say hypothetically, you have a 13-year-old.

Um and you say something and they say whatever.

That's negative, right?

That means you're stupid, I don't care about what you just said, leave me alone, go away.

That's what that means.

But in the right context, the word whatever is like the best word that you could ever hear.

For example, let's say uh someone takes you out to dinner and they're buying, and they say, order whatever.

In that context, the word whatever is the sweetest word that anyone has ever spoken to you, right?

You're like, or another hypothetical, let's say it's it's nighttime and you're watching TV next to your wife, which means she's watching TV, and she hands you the remote and she says, watch whatever you want.

And you're like, really?

Because you don't trust her?

Because you think that this is like a test?

And you look at her hypothetically and you say, You mean we don't have to watch a cooking show or like something British?

Like we can watch something with explosions, we can we can watch something where someone gets punched in the face repeatedly?

Like that's you're okay with that?

And she says, Yes, whatever.

In that context, hypothetically, that is the best word you could ever hear.

The word whatever is a word that communicates freedom.

And God, our God, the God, is a big fan of freedom.

He's a huge fan of freedom.

We see this at the very beginning of scripture, the very first stories that we have with God, Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

It says, Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made.

The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground, trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit, and in the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It goes on to say, the Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it, but the Lord God warned him, You may eat freely the fruit of every tree in the garden.

Eat whatever.

Except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.

It's so interesting.

It's actually really profound because we tend to see God's will like a tightrope.

God's will in terms of what God would want you to do, the choices God would want you to make.

We have a tendency to look at God's will like it, it's a tightrope.

Many of us were raised to see God's will like that.

That there's one good choice, there's one good option, and everything else is bad.

I see this a lot in my role with people who are struggling through big decisions in life, and they'll they'll ask for prayer and they'll say, we just want to make sure we we choose God's will.

Some version of that.

Maybe they have a job decision that they need to make, or some big decision with their family, they're moving.

And oftentimes, there's nothing wrong with that, like you shouldn't pray for God's will.

But oftentimes there's this nervousness in their voice, there's this fear that they're going to accidentally make the wrong decision and step out of God's will.

They don't want to do that.

And beneath that is this idea, this belief that God's will is a tightrope, that there's one good choice and everything else is bad.

But that's the exact opposite of how the garden is.

The Garden of Eden is the clearest picture we actually have of God's will on the earth.

You could argue that it's the closest we have ever seen of what God's will on the earth looks like because it's the way God started things, it's how he got it going, and it hasn't even been tainted by sin and selfishness yet, at least at this point in the story.

And there's not one good tree that they're allowed to eat from, and all the others are forbidden.

It's the opposite of that.

God says, hey, whatever.

Eat whatever.

Whatever you see, that tree, that tree, that one over there, eat from it, eat as much as you want, eat freely.

Oh, but don't eat from this tree.

This one's bad.

There's tons of good options and one major pitfall to avoid.

And I think what we're gonna find over the course of the next few weeks is that as far as us having the best year we can possibly have at the start of a new year, I always want to have the best year I can have.

It's not so much about walking a tightrope.

It's much more about avoiding major pitfalls.

And so we're gonna talk about whatever we do, let's make sure we don't do these things.

And if we can avoid those major pitfalls, we find ourselves really well positioned to have the best year we can possibly have, no matter what life throws at us.

We're gonna start by actually looking at the story that we just started looking at, the story of the garden, and this message is pretty simple.

It's whatever you do, don't eat from the wrong tree.

Whatever you do, don't eat from the wrong tree.

Let's go back to Genesis and jump to chapter three.

It says, The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made, and one day he asked the woman, Did God really say, You must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?

Of course, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, the woman replied.

It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat.

God said, You must not eat it or even touch it.

If you do, you will die.

Interestingly, God didn't say that.

That's one of the reasons it's so important for us to study Scripture and to know God's word, because when we get it wrong, it leaves us in really bad places.

You won't die, the serpent replied to the woman.

God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.

And the woman was convinced.

She saw the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her.

So she took of the fruit and ate it, and then she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it too.

And at that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness.

So they sowed fig leaves together to cover themselves when the cool evening breezes were blowing.

The man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden, so they hid from the Lord God among the trees.

And then the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?

He replied, I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid.

I was afraid because I was naked.

Who told you that you were naked?

The Lord God asked, Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?

The man replied, It was the woman.

I love that.

It was her.

He's like, it was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit.

He basically says, You made it effective woman, God.

Come on, what did you do?

Blame God, blamed her, just doesn't take any responsibility.

Adam, come on.

It says, Then the Lord God asked the woman, What have you done?

And we know the rest of that story, even if you haven't grown up in church, you know that story.

Like it spirals, the world gets really bad, Jesus comes to rescue it.

It's what sets everything in motion.

And it all started from eating the wrong fruit.

God said, Eat whatever.

Whatever.

Eat freely, just avoid that one.

Now, if you've been part of his hands for a long time, you know that the story of the garden is a very foundational story for our church, specifically.

The tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, if you walk around our hallways, there's trees everywhere.

Uh the tree of life is it's our logo for crying out loud.

Like it is our the tree of life is our logo, like two hands holding a tree.

That's that's the logo that we've chosen.

In fact, if you walk in our lobby, uh this morning you may have noticed if you came in the main lobby, that there's all these projections of that logo on the ground, and they surround that big light fixture that we have in the lobby, and that's not arbitrary.

There's 300 light bulbs on that fixture.

Every time someone gets baptized, we light another one up.

And then once it fills up, we go back to zero and we start again.

It is almost full.

So at some point in the next few months, you're gonna walk in and you're gonna think the light fixture's broken.

And it's not, it's just that it filled up, and then we start over, and when that happens, we put another projection of that tree of life logo down on the ground.

That each of those represents 300 people.

And so, which is really cool, yeah.

Um in fact, that'll mean whenever that happens, you know, we're not in control of that, but whenever that happens, that'll mean we will have crossed over 2,100 people baptized since we started as a church, which is super cool.

Right, but that's my point is that you see that tree everywhere.

Like that's it's on our t-shirts, the tree of life.

We actually describe ourselves as a tree of life church, and that idea comes from this really foundational teaching that our founding pastor Steve Craig gave years and years ago.

Steve uh is a he's amazing.

Many would say the second best pastor in the history of his hands church.

That's I mean that's what I've heard.

Uh top two for sure.

And in the early days of our church, Steve taught on the Tree of Life.

I think actually, had he had this teaching before we started, we probably would have been called Tree of Life Church.

It was really early.

I'll never forget where I was the first time that I heard this teaching.

It was February of 2007.

And I know that because Megan and I drove from Kansas City, Missouri, all the way down here so that that I could interview for the youth pastor job.

I did not think I was going to get it.

I was 23 years old.

I'm 40 now, it was a long time ago.

I was not qualified, my experience level, I was surprised I even got an interview.

And I'm so grateful because the very first conversation I had with Steve, my first interview, Megan was sitting next to me and she made me a promise.

She said, if you're talking too much, which I have a tendency to do, she said, I'll squeeze your leg.

And that means shut up.

She squeezed my leg at least 17 times.

Like it was just, and it worked.

Like I would be like rambling, she'd go, and I'm like, you know, that's that.

We're good.

When we left, after a whole weekend of interviews, I had no idea if I was gonna get the job.

Like I wanted them to say, Hey, you're the guy.

And they didn't say that.

They were like, Well, we'll be in touch.

And I was like, Oh, alright.

And so we we got in our car, we made the long drive back to Kansas City, but as we were leaving, they gave us three CDs.

They said, Hey, these three CDs each have a message on them.

This is back before podcasts and smartphones, you know, messages on CDs.

They're like, listen to these sometime soon, because these really will tell you what our church is all about.

These three messages will give you an idea of what we really value as a church.

And so we had a long drive to Kansas City.

We we popped the first one in, and I'm gonna be honest, I don't remember anything in that message.

So it could have been that important, right?

Like, I remember nothing.

It was a frankly, Steve, if you're listening to this, it was a dud.

It was just a dud.

And I don't remember anything.

Not memorable at all.

The second one was blank.

We put it in the CD player and it just said cannot read.

We tried it like multiple times.

It was blank.

There was nothing on it, and that got me thinking like either A, someone made a mistake, or B, this is a test.

Right?

Like, think about how brilliant that would be.

Because if they call and say, Did you listen to the messages?

I'm like, oh, I did.

All three of them, they're amazing.

Aha! One of them was blank, now we know you're a liar, you do not get the job, right?

You lose, you get nothing.

Good day, sir.

Like one of those moments.

And uh turns out someone just made a mistake.

But to this day, I don't know what that teaching is.

Apparently, it was very foundational.

I don't know what it was because they never gave me the replacement.

But the third C D it said the tree of life.

We put it in, we listened to it.

And as soon as it was done, I'll never forget, Megan and I looked at each other and we're like, that was that was fascinating.

Megan spent her whole life in church.

I started going to church in fourth grade, and we looked at each other and said, How have we been in church our our entire lives, most of our lives?

We've never heard this perspective before because it was so obviously from God.

It was it was it was powerful.

And so I haven't taught on this in a while.

It should honestly be something we teach on every year, so I'm really glad that we're starting with it today.

And rather than me do my best impression of Steve, um, a couple years ago we sat down with Steve and we we interviewed him and and we got him to sort of give us his his take on the tree of life because that was so foundational.

And the last time I shared this was about two years ago.

Seven minutes long, and it'll be Steve telling you all about the tree of life.

Okay, we're gonna look at this together.

Now I want to say this before we show it.

Last time we showed this two years ago, he got a lot of emails saying we missed you, but you are definitely the second best pastor in the history of the church.

Justin, this is so much better.

And that was honestly, guys, it was rude, it was hurtful, it was unnecessary.

So I'm just gonna say, don't do that.

If you know Steve, if you have connections with Steve, just leave him alone.

Um, I'm teasing.

No, this is this is really powerful, and I'm actually really grateful that we get to listen to this because it is so foundational for who we are as a church.

Whether you're here for the first time or you've been here for years, this is a big part of who we are.

So let's take a look at this, watch it, learn together, and we'll come back.

Understanding the tree of life and God's Word, I think, is the key to understanding all of God's Word.

It's actually the key to understanding our relationship with God.

Um there's a tree at the very beginning of the Bible in the garden, the tree of life.

There's two trees of life at the very end of the Bible in Revelations, they're on either side of uh of a river.

In fact, those leaves of those two trees of life heal the world, it says, that heal the nations, or the world is as we would say it.

But the story of the tree of life is so misunderstood, and God so clearly started uh his communication with us with that story.

And so you know the story.

The there's this uh beautiful garden, Adam and Eve are there, they've got a relationship with God, they walk with him in the morning, they talk with him.

Uh they're completely free, they're not worried about what they're wearing, they're not worried about their appearance.

Uh they've got someone that they love, they're in a loving relationship with God, they're in a beautiful place, they've got responsibilities that they enjoy.

And there's two trees in the garden.

One is this tree of life that God says, you know, you can eat freely from this tree.

Come, you can, you know, picnic under the tree, you can just uh be with this tree of life.

And uh the other tree had this forbidden fruit.

It was the one that if you eat from this tree, it it says you will surely die.

And so when we think of this tree, we have a lot of things to jump in our mind.

You know, what kind of forbidden fruit?

Is that a sexual sin?

Is that greed?

Is that in the, you know, what what types of possible things could be this forbidden fruit?

But the tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Uh it was simply the rules.

Uh that is the tree that would cause death.

So Satan came along and said, hey, this will make you like God or godly, we would say, if you just know the rules.

But God in his ultimate wisdom and how he created us, uh, he knew that we had this choice.

The choice was do we want to be in relationship with God, a life-giving, loving relationship, or do we want to focus on the rules?

And so Adam and Eve got to choose for us, and they didn't do so bad because we've all made the same choice, probably would have made that same choice in their position.

But they chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and immediately uh things changed.

Uh, all of a sudden, you know, what they wore was good or it was bad, how they looked was good or how or or or was bad.

Everything was through this filter of good or bad.

And and and so from that sprung the old law.

And so we look at God, many of us, I would say most people, and we view God as schizophrenic, and we don't really understand it, and we're not sure which God to believe, because we've got this harsh, mean God in the Old Testament that would uh wipe out nations, he would do all these types of things, he would demand all these types of things, and then all of a sudden Jesus comes along, and he's nothing like that.

You know, he's loving, he's merciful, he's compassionate, he's for the uh for the for the underdog.

So so what should which is the real God?

And the question is not which is the real God, the question is which is the right tree.

Because what God was giving us was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Here's the rules.

This is what happens when you decide that you're gonna justify when I decide I'm gonna justify myself by the rules.

And you know, sometimes whole nations aren't living by the rules, and so in that case, I guess they get wiped out.

Thankfully, the New Testament talks about Jesus coming and and and preaching to people and saving whole nations.

But the the point is God has never been a schizophrenic God, He's never been an unloving God.

That even in the Old Testament, a lot of people he healed, a lot of people he blessed weren't even necessarily Jewish people that even knew his law.

There were people with good hearts that were seeking him.

Um and so the idea that we can pursue right and wrong, that where most religion falls.

It's this is good, this is bad.

Do good, you're good with God, do bad, you're not.

And that is living at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Well, what we need to do, and I think it with his hands, what we try our best to do is live at the tree of life.

We're encouraging each other.

We're talking about the good things.

You know, Paul goes on a discourse in the New Testament saying, give us all the all these good stuff.

He says, think on these things, you know?

And so that's that's the place to live, is at the tree of life.

And so when Jesus comes along, over and over he calls himself life.

Um, and then now all of a sudden, we're not under this curse that Adam and Eve chose.

We get to choose ourselves.

We get to decide where we want to live.

Do I want to live in shame?

Do I want to live in guilt?

Do I want to live in remorse?

Do I want to live separating myself from God's love?

Uh or do I want to pick the tree of life?

Is that where I want to live?

Do I want to get back where I can picnic under that tree, where I can eat that fruit, where I can hang out with God?

There's a natural pull in the world to get away from the tree of life, to get back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But if somehow together as a family, we can all say, hey, no, we're gonna live at the tree of life, it it changes everything.

And God sharing that with us has changed my life, it's changed the church, you know, it's done so much.

I think that uh Marlon took that uh message from from the Holy Spirit and uh painted all these beautiful uh trees.

The the first one uh he did um was when When God Laughs, and it's one that I have and and uh Cherish, you can see them all through the halls.

And if it's somebody's first time here, you might be what's with all the the trees, and that's what it is.

It's just different depictions of the tree of life and how we're committed uh with God's help to live at that tree.

And thankful.

I'm I mean, just thankful that God would show that to us.

And so we can no longer be living under that curse of the rules, but enjoy the freedom and life of a real relationship with God.

That was pretty good.

That was pretty good.

Steve is one of my best friends and mentor, and that teaching, like I said, I remember where I was when I heard it for the first time, that perspective.

And it it really did create a whole new paradigm for me.

What it actually did in many ways was it sort of sparked all these thoughts and all these realizations.

I look back to that story and I thought about all these things I'd never noticed before.

You know, I I grew up believing and being taught that sin separates us from God.

But the sense that that was always taught in was that when we sin, God separates himself from us.

Right?

Like if if God sees us and we're in the midst of some sin and we have some struggle, and and God knows how many how many of those I have.

Um He like looks at us and goes, ugh, you know?

Like he throws up in his mouth a little bit, like, ooh, and he he leaves because he cannot be in the presence of our sin.

That's not how that story went at all.

Like Adam and Eve sinned, they they went against God.

They decided that we get to be the ones who choose what is good and what is evil.

We'll define that for ourselves, and we don't have the right to do that as people.

God is the one who decides.

What is right and what is wrong.

When we decide that we'll define that for ourselves, we we're really bad at definitions.

And when Adam and Eve do that and they disobey God and they do what God tells them not to do, they sin.

They choose what they want over what God says is good.

There is separation from God.

That does happen, but it is not God leaving them, it's them separating themselves from Him.

Right?

He shows up to spend time with Him.

What do they do?

They hide.

They try to cover themselves and they hide.

They're the ones that separate from God.

I remember thinking about that, going, My goodness, how many times in life have I done that?

We all do that if we're honest with ourselves.

When we think about ourselves and God and life through the tree of knowledge of good and evil perspective, we're always measuring ourselves.

We're always wondering, how well am I doing?

If we've had a bad week, do we want to go to church on Sunday?

A lot of times we don't.

It's like I don't want to go there.

I've been bad this week.

And if I go there, I'm gonna feel guilt, I'm gonna feel shame, I'm gonna feel like I'm a failure.

It's easy to want to avoid like the presence of God or anything that might remind us of the presence of God when we feel like we're we're failures because when we're thinking in those terms, you know, we're bad and I don't want to be there.

Has anyone ever done that?

Like just does anyone have the courage to say I have avoided church or God stuff because I just feel, yeah.

Try giving the message on Sunday after a really bad week.

I'll tell you that.

There are so many Sundays where I just do not want to do this because I haven't had a good week.

And if I'm living with that perspective, if I'm thinking in terms of good, bad, and what side of that line am I on, and I'm on the bad side, I haven't had my best week, I haven't been my best, I haven't been pursuing God like I ought to.

I mean, who am I to stand on this stage and try to teach after the week that I've had?

I just want to run and hide, but I can't, because it's my job.

I'm glad actually, because it makes me go, oh, that's not how God actually is.

Like we're the ones that tend to separate ourselves from God because of sin.

Because we we think about things through the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

That's the lens that we're often looking through, and through that lens, it's always good, bad.

Where do we fall on that line, right?

Are we on the good side, the bad side, and we're on the bad side?

We better hide, we better cover ourselves, we better pretend, we better fake it, we better distance ourselves from God because otherwise God's gonna come and in our presence he'll just be like, ooh.

No.

And see, then Jesus comes and he solidifies this for us that that is not the way that God is.

That's the that's the wrong perspective.

We're eating from the wrong tree, because that's not what Jesus is like at all.

Just think about some of the forbidden fruits that Steve mentioned in that video.

The first two he said were sexual sin and greed, two things that no one in this room has ever struggled with at all.

So we're safe to talk about it.

You know, those are two of the things that we would just imagine must disgust God the most.

And so, what would happen if God encountered people in the midst of sexual sin or greed, or we might say materialism, whatever you want to call it.

Well, we know what would happen if God encountered people in that, because Jesus is God.

He's God in the flesh, and he encountered people like that all the time.

So, for example, we have John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

The Pharisees, the religious leaders, bring someone to Jesus.

They say, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.

So this is happening.

This is fresh.

This is not some distant issue that she's had.

She was just caught in the act of adultery.

Many scholars would say she's most likely a prostitute.

It says the law of Moses says to stone her.

What do you say?

They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and he wrote in the dust with his finger.

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, All right.

But let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.

And then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

And when the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.

And then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, Where are your accusers?

Didn't even one of them condemn you?

No, Lord, she said, and Jesus said, Neither do I.

Now go and sin no more.

Here's Jesus, God, encountering someone in the midst of sexual sin, and he doesn't shame her, and he doesn't condemn her.

He tells her the truth, he challenges her to change, sure.

But he loves her, he saves her life, he shows her compassion.

It doesn't seem to disgust him, it doesn't seem to throw him off.

It's not the only situation we have with this, by the way.

There's the woman at the well, there's this woman of ill repute who who pours perfume all over Jesus' feet, and there's a man in that story who's like, if Jesus knew what kind of woman was touching his feet, and Jesus knew exactly who she was, and he actually said to that man, She is so much better off than you.

See, the the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that line of thinking would tell us that those are the types of people that should stay away from God.

But yet we see exactly how God responds to them in that exact situation.

Or take greed, for example, right?

Zacchaeus, it's a classic story.

Luke chapter 19 says that Jesus entered Jericho and he made his way through the town.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

There was a man there named Zacchaeus, and he was the chief tax collector in the region.

That just means that he's essentially a very corrupt political figure who steals from people.

He uses his power to leverage money with people, he's manipulating people, all kinds of things.

It's horrible.

He's a thief.

And at the very least, he's unbelievably materialistic.

He cares deeply about his things, his possessions, his wealth, how wealthy he is compared to his neighbors, you know, that kind of thing.

It says that he was very rich and he tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd.

So he ran ahead and he climbed a sycamore fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

And when Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name.

Zacchaeus, he said, Quick, come down.

I must be a guest in your home today.

And Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy.

But the people were displeased.

He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner.

They grumbled.

Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, I will give half my wealth to the poor.

Lord, if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.

Here we have Jesus, and he encounters someone in the midst of one of those forbidden fruits as we would see it.

And Jesus isn't disgusted.

He doesn't say away with you.

He says, No, I want to spend time with you.

And it changes Zacchaeus.

See that the funny thing is, I grew up in church at least from fourth grade on, and these are like basic Bible stories.

You know, if you're someone who was raised in church, you you learn these as a child, most likely.

And it's incredible because I knew these stories, and I believe these stories are true, but yet for most of my life, I believe that, yeah, yeah, that that's what happened with them.

But if Jesus encountered me in the midst of my sin, it would look very different.

When I was battling with an addiction to pornography, my thought was always, man, I must just be so disgusting in God's eyes.

I just must be the worst.

And if and if God looks at me, he must be so disappointed.

And that feeling, that shame, that guilt, that often caused me to distance myself from God.

But that's not how God is at all.

That's not how he was in the garden.

That's definitely not how Jesus is, and Jesus is the clearest picture of God we have.

Hebrews says he is the exact representation of God the Father.

If we want to know what God the Father is like, we look at Jesus.

Time and time again, Jesus upends this whole tree of knowledge of good and evil perspective.

He comes against it left and right, not just in his interactions with people, but in what he teaches as well.

So for example, in Matthew, or rather, let's look at Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Jesus tells a really interesting story.

He says, Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else.

Let's pause there for a second.

When you eat from the wrong tree, when you define yourself and your relationship with God through the filter of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you either end up as someone who is very ashamed, very fearful of what God thinks about you, has a tendency to distance yourself from God, to hide from God, like Adam and Eve did, cover yourself, hide, or you become like the Pharisees were.

You become prideful because you believe that you're one of the good ones.

And you believe that everyone else is wrong.

They believe the wrong things, they do the wrong things.

You either become fearful and afraid, or you become boastful and proud.

And Jesus encountered many people like that.

And so he tells this story.

Two men went to the temple to pray.

One was a Pharisee, the other was a despised tax collector.

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer.

I thank you, God, that I am not like other people.

Cheaters, sinners, adulterers.

Certainly not like that tax collector.

I fast twice a week and I give you a tenth of my income.

Like, see that?

I do the things, I follow the rules, I do the stuff.

I'm great.

But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed.

Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.

I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God.

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

It is hard for us to appreciate how groundbreaking this teaching would have been.

Like we've heard this, at the very least, we we believe this.

The teachings of Jesus have seeped into culture for thousands of years and taught us that humility is valuable and we're not as good as we think we are.

But man, in Jesus' day, to say that the tax collector was better off than the Pharisee, that's like, that's unheard of.

That's crazy talk.

But Jesus teaches on this kind of thing all the time.

In Matthew 16, it says, after they crossed the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered that they had forgotten to bring any bread.

And Jesus kind of seizes on this mindset that they have as they're talking about bread.

And he goes, Watch out.

Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn't brought they hadn't brought any bread.

They think Jesus is talking about actual bread.

And Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, You have so little faith.

Why are you arguing with each other about having no bread?

Do you not understand even yet?

Don't you remember the 5,000 I fed with five loaves and the baskets of leftovers you picked up, or the 4,000 I fed with seven loaves and the large baskets of leftovers you picked up?

Why can't you understand that I'm not talking about bread?

So again I say, Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

And then at last they understood that he wasn't speaking about the yeast and bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

What was that deceptive teaching?

It was that you can justify yourself before God based on what you do.

You follow the rules, you do enough good, you avoid enough bad, God looks at you, there's some type of equation, you know, take the good, subtract the bad.

If you have a positive number, you're good with God.

And it's funny because on at face value, we hear that, and we're like, yeah, that's silly, but that's what we do so often.

That's how we live.

Because we, just like Adam and Eve, have a tendency to go to the wrong tree.

We go to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

That was the forbidden fruit.

I think about that all the time.

Like, the forbidden fruit was knowing right from wrong.

That's that's so strange.

And every time I think about that, I think about my kids.

And those of you who have children, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

When your kids hit that age where you know that they know right from wrong, that they're aware, and now you have to discipline them, now you have to hold them accountable.

Because before they know about that, before they know about that, it's like they can do anything.

Like they can they can do horrible things, but because they're ignorant, they don't know that it's wrong, it's like funny.

You'll laugh at it.

You know, like there's parents that take videos of their children who can't say things the right way yet because they're still learning how to speak.

And sometimes when kids are learning how to speak, certain words come out wrong.

You know what I'm talking about?

And so, like a very a very normal sounding uh word to us may come out in a very different way.

And it's cute.

You know, people post videos of, oh, look at my kid, look at the word they're saying, they're they're like they're child, it's just like a two-year-old cussing like a sailor, but you laugh at it, because it's like, oh, that's so funny.

They don't know.

If that kid's 10, though, it's a very different video.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, like I remember a couple years ago, I think I told this story, and and my youngest son Eli, I apologize to him in advance for this.

But um, one of my children came out and was like very alarmed.

They came into our room, they said, You gotta go get Eli.

He's outside.

And we're like, well, great.

Children being outside, that's a win.

Like, no, he's naked.

We're like, what?

Like immediately.

We live in a cul-de-sac, like we do not live in the woods by ourselves.

Like, I run outside, and there is my child totally naked in our front driveway.

And at this point in time, he was old enough to know, he was plenty old enough to know that that is not okay.

And I was kind of stuck because he he he looked at me like little kids will do this where they're gonna test you.

And he was like, kind of looking at me and then looking down the sidewalk.

You know, like I'm like, get in here.

And he kind of looks away and I'm like, what do I do if he runs?

Like you cannot chase a naked child down a like that's you get arrested for that, you know what I mean?

Like you can't do that.

And so I'm like, you if you run, I saw it in his eyes, I was like, if you run.

And so thankfully he came in.

And and the thing is, had it been like a year earlier, I would have just laughed.

And our neighbors could have been outside.

We'd be like, I'm so sorry you had to see that.

He's a little baby, you know.

But at his age, it was bad.

You know, when we're innocent of right and wrong, I think God wanted that kind of relationship with us.

Where we would do something stupid and he would just laugh, like all, because we don't know any better.

But I think God knew that once we ate from that tree and our eyes were open and we're in that knowing right from wrong dynamic, now he has to hold us accountable to what we know, and now he becomes a disciplinarian, and I don't think he ever wanted to be that.

That's the impression that we get, but but that's that's what we did.

That's where we're at, and so here we are.

Here we are, and and like Steve said, Jesus brings us back to the garden.

And we get to choose again.

We get to choose every day.

Which tree am I gonna eat from?

Am I gonna spend 2024 in terms of my relationship with God, trying to live by the rules, to do all the right things, to avoid all the bad things?

I'm gonna feel like I'm a winner some days.

I'm gonna feel like a champion, I'm gonna get online and I'm gonna see new stories of silly people in the world who do really terrible things, be like, I'm glad I'm not one of those, you know, like the Pharisees.

Or am I gonna spend the whole year feeling like a failure, being afraid, feeling like if God sees me in this state, like he must be so ashamed of me.

I need to distance myself from God.

I'm gonna spend months and months kind of hiding, pretending, covering up.

If we live that way, we're either gonna be proud and boastful, or we're gonna be afraid, terrified, we're gonna feel like failures.

That is not the way God wants us to be.

That's not the right tree.

Or are we gonna spend 2024, and as far as it goes with our relationship with God, which by the way is like the most important part of your year, whatever your health goals are, your financial goals, your big achievements, you're trying to, that's all great, but your relationship with God is the most important thing.

Like Jesus said, what good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul?

Like, focus on that first.

And as far as your relationship with God goes, it's a simple choice.

Tree of life, tree of knowledge of good and evil.

You get to choose.

Jesus brings us back to that choice.

Because he forgives us for all of our sins, all of our past.

It's all wiped away, it's gone.

Total forgiveness, total mercy.

And now every single day we have that choice.

Which tree am I going to eat from today?

Is it gonna be all about the rules and my righteousness and my goodness, or am I gonna go to my Father and receive what he has?

The tree of life, it's just you humbling yourself, going to God and saying, I need what you have.

And he gives you his love and he gives you his mercy and he gives you his grace.

Hebrews chapter 4 says, Let us go boldly to the throne of our loving Father and ask for exactly what we need, and he will give us all the help, all the mercy, all the grace that we can handle.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

I'm paraphrasing slightly.

But he gives us compassion and he gives us wisdom.

He gives us forgiveness, not just for ourselves, but enough forgiveness that we can extend to others.

He shows us who we really are.

He teaches us and he's gentle and he's kind and he's good.

And even when he corrects us, it's like it's it's good.

I mean, he corrected Zacchaeus with dinner.

You know, he saves that woman's life, and then he says, now, now please go and sin no more, like leave this life.

He he absolutely does that, but it's so gentle and it's so good.

And if we go to the tree of life, if we make that our focus this year in terms of my relationship with God, I'm going to that tree.

We will experience all the goodness, all the joy, all the love.

And when those thoughts creep into our minds where we go, man, I'm not good enough, or I'm better than that one, we go, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Wrong tree.

And we sit at the feet of God and we receive from him, and it's beautiful and it's wonderful.

That's what he wants.

And so here we are at uh, yeah, cool, that's the my cue to stop.

It's actually right on time, too.

So here we are.

We are at the very beginning of a year together, and we have a choice.

We're gonna take Lord's Supper now as we as we close this out.

If you're new, by the way, we take Lord's Supper every single Sunday.

It's this little meal that Jesus asked us to take.

And if you're like, I don't have one of these, at the back tables, there's cups with bread and juice, and it's a tree of life church.

You're not breaking any rules by standing up and going to get one right now, right?

It's feel free.

Don't want you to miss out on this.

Um, Jesus takes us back to the garden.

This this meal symbolizes the death of Jesus on the cross.

The bread that we're about to take, it's his body.

And the juice is his blood.

He died as a sacrifice for us.

You know, it's interesting in the garden, when Adam and Eve realized that they were naked, God actually clothed them.

It says that he went and he made them clothing.

And that clothing was from an animal's skin.

And so blood was shed to cover their sin.

And this reminds us, is this meal that we're gonna take, that blood was shed to cover our sin.

But it was once and for all.

Jesus's death on the cross covers all of our mistakes, all of our failures, all of our addictions, all of our struggles.

They do not define us anymore.

They they still affect us.

Like if we live that way, we're gonna feel the brunt of it in many areas of our life.

But in terms of our relationship with God, Jesus has wiped away all of our sin.

And he takes us right back to the garden, and now we say, you know what, I'm not making that choice again.

I'm not going knowledge of good and evil.

I'm not gonna define myself based on how well I've done this week or this month or this year.

I'm going to the tree of life.

I'm gonna receive from you.

I just want you, Jesus.

I just want all of you, more of you.

Whatever you have for me, I want it.

We get to we get to make that choice again, and it's it's wonderful.

And so as we take this bread, as we drink this juice, let's let's be very conscious and very intentional about choosing the right tree this year.

Because how sad would it be for him to do all this for us, just for us to go right back to the wrong tree?

Whatever you do in 2024, don't eat from the wrong tree.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this piece of bread.

We thank you, Lord, for what it represents, what it means.

You shed your blood, you gave up your body on the cross to pay the price for all of our sins.

We we chose the wrong tree, and you paid the price.

And now, Jesus, you give us the chance to go back, to choose again.

You are life.

You said that you are the way, the truth, and the life.

And we want to come to you, Jesus.

We want to receive from you, we want a relationship with you.

We want to remember that we're defined by your love for us and nothing more.

So help us this year, Lord, keep that in mind.

Show us when we get off track and we start choosing the wrong tree again.

Help us course correct quickly.

Remind us how much you love us, and we thank you for your grace.

Let's take the bread and drink the juice.