The Search for Ease

Illustration: play easy button commercial

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Don’t you wish that with the push of a button life could become easy???

And why shouldn’t we, life is just hard

giving birth - hard

going to the same job every day - hard

going to school and sitting through classes everyday - hard

Dealing with your annoying brother or sister - hard

visiting your mother - in - law - hard

A desire for easy is something that is natural to all of us its something that at the core there is a longing:

Scripture talks about this and in Romans 8 speaks to this that there is a discontentment in all of us and even in creation itself because there is a longing for something that is better.

We have an awareness that there’s something better

Over the course of the next few weeks I believe we need to ask these questions?

is our longing for ease something that can be exploited?

Is there a shadow side to the deep longing for easy?

Is Jesus’ greatest desire for you to have ease and be comfortable (being healthy, wealthy , successful) in this life?

Over the course of the next four weeks or so we are going to look at what is called a Biblical Theology (a Biblical Theology is where we trace the story of the Bible from beginning to end as it unfolds and see how this particular subject falls in line with that story.) So we are going to look at a Biblical Theology of the Good Life. So really this series is not four separate messages but one 2-3 hour message that we are going to break up over the next four weeks. (you ready?)

Let’s start at the beginning with Genesis 1 -3

Made for Beautiful, Relational Purpose in God’s Image

In Genesis 1:26-31 God creates man & woman in His image

Genesis 1:26–31 ESV

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 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 over 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 all 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, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

God makes Adam and Eve and its says He makes them in His image, now this is really interesting because up until this point when God makes animals their relationship is just defined its relationship to other animals (after its kind) but when God makes man He decides to do something special (He talks it out amongst Himself “Let us make man in our image” ) He makes man in relationship to Himself. He gives them a purpose to represent Him as His image bearers, that’s what an image does, it represents something else. And God gives them a stewardship - to take the good world that He has just created and rule over it, to be His partners in ruling His good world and cultivate it. He gives them a beautiful work to walk with Him represesnt Him (to be like Him) and to do good in God’s good world. There’s no rush to this, there’s no deadlines like a modern boss who is in a hurry for everything to be different. God gives this beautiful relaxing enjoyable stewardship to walk with Him do what He is doing in the world and make it extra good.

Application: And by the way that is what you and I are called to as well. God made you for a purpose and that purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. He made you as an image bearer then He sent His Son to save your sinful soul and redeem you and is now in the process of molding you and shaping you or conforming you into the image of His Son so if you are a believer you have this beautiful purpose of enjoying Him, representing Him, and partnering with Him in the Gospel work He’s doing in your world through the life He has given you.

Illustration: I have great memories of watching my dad do different things and wanting to be just like him so I would watch him eat and he would eat with his left hand so i ate with my left hand, I would watch how he signed his name on checks and since i have the same name i would practice signing it just like him (which came in handy for me later) I would watch him work and all sorts of things and I love my dad and wanted to be just like him.

That is what God is inviting Adam and Eve into

Which makes man’s fall that much more sad, because in Genesis 3 they fall for the lie of easy

Falling for the Lie of Easy

Genesis 3:1–5 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Its here that the original temptation takes place and the more I sit with this the more this temptation speaks to the human condition and one way in which this happens is through what is promised by the serpent. Look at it with me, what does the serpent promise:

You will be like God (I think this is multifaceted and nuanced but its two parts one is you will be like Him in the standpoint that you will know what He knows, do what He does but also there’s an underlying premise to this promise that if you are Him, He won’t be necessary)

You will know good and evil (and again there is this promise that is partially true after this they do know good and evil but also there is an underlying promise that there will not be anything that you do not know)

Now at the core of what this speaks to I believe is the heart of rebellion against God, a desire to throw off the chains (which was to not eat one tree that would destroy them) that God had placed on them. But there’s a second component to this that author Andy Crouch points out that I think is so important for what we are going to see throughout the rest of the Biblical story and that is this:

Would Adam and Eve have become more like God the longer they walked with Him and represented Him in the Garden of Eden? - Yes

The longer that Adam and Eve were with God and partnering with Him in what He was doing in the world, would their hearts and minds been shaped towards what is good? - yes

So what makes this temptation signifcant?

Genesis 3:5 (ESV)

For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Here is a major dynamic of Satan’s temptation:

Here is a shortcut to you getting what you want and what you need

here is an offer that is not bogged down by process and work but an offer that is instant and magic

Here is an offer where you don’t have to wait you just have to indulge.

In other words Satan is exploiting something within Adam and Eve that offers them everything they didn’t even know to want EASY.

Illustration: And we see this play out throughout the rest of Scripture:

When Abraham and Sarah get tired of waiting for God to keep His promise to give them a son Abraham takes Hagar to be his wife and has a son with her instead

When King David saw Bathsheba on the rooftop bathing it was easier to use his position and power to commit adultery rather than say no to his sinful desires

“its so easy, you can have what you want!!!”

And you and I face that temptation every single day:

Its easier to engage with promiscuity or pornography rather than waiting for developed intimacy within marriage

Its easier to spend all my time watching the perfect lives of others rather than being present to parent my kids down the hall.

Its easier to binge youtube or netflix than open up my soul to God and others

And what we see is very clear that easy does not always equal good, so therefore easy cannot be the goal because as we see in the rest of the text:

Easy doesn’t deliver

Genesis 3:6–8 ESV

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Explanation: After Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree, They realizing what pursuing easy for themselves delivers, and that is emptiness and shame. They eat and they know more than they ever knew before and they weren’t prepared to handle it. They can see what they couldn’t before but they realize they’re naked. They’ve chosen themselves and realized it has put them directly in conflict with God. It makes big promises but it doesn’t deliver.

And when they find themselves in this position they have a choice; are they going to look to God or are they going to wedge themselves in deeper and look for something else that will give them what they want.

Illustration: Story of getting into trouble but instead of humbling self just wedge in deeper.

Application: Next week we will see how this gets rooted in the human heart and how it plays itself out it in the Biblical story and our everyday lives.

Illustration: Good box Easy Box other side reversed

Reference for later in the seriesClosing: Father and his lazy sons