Tale of 3 Trees- Genesis 2:4-9

Andrew McClure

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Introduction

Prayer

Alright, 2nd—5th graders you guys are free to dismiss. And as a reminder, parents you can pick those children up at the Wetlands Building, and if you need any help finding where that is, don’t hesitate to ask someone with a lanyard.

For the rest of you, please turn with me to Genesis 2.

If you’re new with us my name is Andrew McClure, and I’m one of the Pastor’s here, and this week we will continue our study through the first 3 chapters of Genesis, in an effort of either constructing, or for many of you solidifying a Christian Worldview.

And today, we’ll make some significant discoveries about who we are by looking at a Tale of Three Trees.

I’ve always been drawn to trees.

Growing up it was the Southern Magnolia’s…

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the greatest climbing trees every created.

From 2019-2021— a season of deep ministry burnout, and eventual restoration I’d often wonder into this little patch of woods called “Watkinsville Woods”.

If you’re familiar with the Athens area, there is a coffee shop called jittery Joes in downtown Watkinsville. I’d often get a cup of coffee there, and walk about a half-mile into what felt like Narnia.

Just off the bustling street of highway 15, there was a 6 acre nature park with benches and trails.

More times than I could count, I’d sit on one of those benches and stare at this Massive, ancient OAK. That was still alive, but experiencing deep dry rot on the inside.

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That oak was a pretty vivid picture, of what I was experiencing internally during that season. I was still in ministry, still bearing some fruit, but I was dry. My soul was withring. Rotting.

But God is always mercirful and gracious and steadfast in his love, and seasons don’t last forever… Spring tends to follow the dead of winter, and in 2022— refreshed, and renewed and ready to plant a new church in Richmond Hill God drew me to the LIVE OAK’s, so famous in this part of the country.

Every Now and then I sabbath at Wesley Gardens near the Landings in Savannah and sit in the shade of one of these oaks.

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Or you get out on 7 mile bend here on the Ogeechee River and see their beauty along Strathy Hall Plantation.

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Just a symbol of strength, and endurance, and stability--- all attributes I aspire CBC Richmond Hill to be in this community.

Ya’ll didn’t know I could be so contemplative did you… Well I’ll stop boring you with my connection to trees, but as we’ll see today our identity— who we are, what we are, and why we exist is intricitately connected to Trees.

M.D. Matthew Sleeth, in his beautiful yet a little nerdy book Reforesting Faith: What Trees teach us about the Nature of God and His Love for Us writes, “Within the first two chapters of the Bible, life death, human agency, respiration, food, aesttics, human purpose, and a connection to God… are all tied to trees.”

He goes on, “The link between trees and animals isn’t just an academic curiiousity, but an inescapable fact of life. Without humans, trees would manage just fine. Without trees, people would perish.”

Because we’re dependent on trees for oxygen right. Trees take CO2 from the air, and knit them together with water using the sun’s energy which produces oxygen, which we inhale and exhale CO2. A life cycyle, intimately connecting trees and humans.

Our ability to breathe--- is sustained by God’s gracious Wisdom, in the provision of trees.

And just to nerd out a little more… have you even seen a bronchogram!?

Or even heard of a bronchogram lol!?

A bronchogram is a cast of our respitatory process within our lungs.

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Life is connected to Trees--- Trees sustain life.

And our lives today, our meaning, our purpose, our significance is found in the Tale of 3 Trees.

So let’s read our text and then unpack it together.

Genesis 2:4–9 ESV

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This is the Tale of 3 Trees.

And the First tree we need to discuss is the Tree of Life.

Tree of Life

Our text opens with a retelling of creation.

Now many wrongly believe this to be another or additional creation account. And they argue that it’s an obvious contradiction to the account found in Genesis 1.

But that’s not true, its just a retelling with a change in emphasis.

Genesis 1 was a wide angle account of all creation.

Whereas Genesis 2 is a zoomed in, or magnified angle account of Day 6— specifically the creation of mankind.

And this change in angle, is immediately noticeable to the reader

Because in Chatper 1 it was the Transcendence and Magnificience of Creator God that was emphasized, where as here it becomes way more intimate and person in the creation of mankind!

In fact, it’s important to draw your attention to this intimacy in the name used for God here.

Remember, a Christian Worldview begins with God, and in chapter 1 the name Elohim which refers to God’s Omnipotence and Transcendeance as Creator was used 35 times!

Well here, when we zoom in on God’s creation of Mankind— the author uses Lord God or Yahweh-Elohim.

Yahweh is God’s covenantal Name, his relational name. And this name changes draws our attention away form the Cosmic Creator who makes the stars--- to the intimacy of fellowship and the One who calls them all by name.

So Yahweh, this relational, intimate, loving God

Genesis 2:7 “formed the man of dust from the ground...”

So God with gentleness and care, literally gets his hands dirty to form our bodies.

We are embodied creatures, and this means that our bodies, and what we do with our bodies are important.

When it comes to faith and spirituality, it is so tempting to disconnect our spiritual lives from our physical, embodied lives. But you can’t do it.

What we do with our bodies is part of our worship.

Our bodies were formed and fashioned to be a Temple. We need to look after them. Steward them. View them as a gift from God to live within His created physical world.

So don’t be afraid of getting your bodies involved in your spiritual lives.

Raise your hands. Clap. Kneel. Walk.

We are embodied Creatures, and our bodies are spiritual.

But we aren’t just bodies.

Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

God took our formed bodies, and breathed his life into us.

A nearness is implied here. An uncomfortable proximity of God’s divine presence and nearness.

And when God breathes on his created, it becomes a living creature.

Now look at verse 8

Genesis 2:8 “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.”

He had already created the world, but he takes his special IMAGO DEI, and creates a particular place, a specific Garden to be the home and abode of man.

EDEN- which in Hebrew means Pleasure.

It was Paradise.

In verse 9, Yahweh/Elohim placed every tree that is pleasant to the sight…

Don’t rush by this.

There were trees there that were simply asthetic. No utilitarian purpose… just to be looked at, and enjoyed. Evidence of his goodness. Of HIs beauty.

Church, may I encourage you this morning:

The pace of our lives, on top of the constant ambition and drive to be purposeful… so easily yet soundly drowns out beauty.

I believe God has created beauty to add flourishing to our existence.

So in a very literal sense, slow down and smell the roses.

But there in Paradise, he also gave every tree good for food. All they could ever need was found in Eden.

It had everything. Eden was a Garden of Pleasure, a true paradise made for man.

And as Coleman will address in detail next week, Man was placed there with a purpose to steward it, cultivate it.. A vocation.

But look with me at the end of verse 9

Genesis 2:9 “The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Let’s begin with the Tree of Life

Tree of Life

The Tree of Life was a real tree whose fruit possessed eternal life sustaining properties for whoever ait of it. As long as you eat of the tree of life, you live forever.

This is what Scripture says in Gensis 3:24, when after Adam and Eve sinned God kicked them out of Eden and placed an angel with a flaming sword guarding the way back to the tree of life,

Genesis 3:22 “lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—””

Eating of this tree, provided eternal life.

Now, there’s a topic that the Bible speaks about a good bit…

If you’ve been around the church at all, you’ve probably heard about eternal life.

But what exactly is eternal life?

Usually do to incomplete preaching, many believe eternal life is understood by quantity.

Right, we view eternal life as fire insurance.

That when our days on earth are done, we’ll go on living forever and ever for an infinite amount of quantifiable time.

And it does mean that. It means we will live forever.

But it’s also way MORE!

For eternal life isn’t simply quantity but quality.

In the Bible, eternal life carries the idea of fullness. Completeness. A Wholeness.

That experience of "this is what I must be here for!”

And that’s what Man had in Eden… A FULL LIFE. A fullness.

And that fullness was very tangible in 3 ways.

First, there was a fullness Relationally.

In Eden, Adam enjoyed intimate, communion with God. But also other humans.

With the addition of Eve there was full human community.

A powerful force of meanigful, open, vulnerable, unashamed relationship.

There in Eden they were naked and unashamed. They had nothing to hide. They had security with one another relationally.

And as long as they kept the Tree of Life in the center of their lives, they would live in Fullness Relationallly.

But secondly, there was a fullness Physically.

All of mankind’s needs were provided for in Eden.

Genesis 1:29 “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.”

Genesis 2:9 “And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

There was no anxiety. No restlessness.

In Eden, there was fullness. Full security, and safety.

Yahweh/Elohim was his Shepherd… he did not want. He lacked nothing.

And as long as they kept the Tree of Life in the center of their lives, they would live in fullness Physically.

And finally, there was a fullness vocationally.

He had purpose, meaning, and significant.

He was created to image God. To reflect Him, and spread that image in the earth.

He was called to steward. His vocation was to cultivate, subdue, to lead, to have dominion.

After, Genesis 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

He had a clear vocation. A divine purpose for being there.

And as long as they kept the Tree of Life in the center of their lives, they would live in fullness Vocationally.

Alive because of the Breathe of God, and lovingly placed in Eden to perpetually Live in the Fullness of God’s intended Life.

An eternal Life, not in quantity only but in quality.

They were complete. Possessing perfect relational, physical, and vocational fullness.

And all they had to do was KEEP the Tree of Life in the Center of their existence.

Where it was designed to be. Genesis 2:9 “The tree of life was in the midst of the garden,

Eternal life dependent upon the centrality of the Tree of Life.

But the Falling Action, of this Divine Story centers on another Tree.

Genesis 2:9 “The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Tree of Knowledge

In their pusuit of Eternal Life, there was another tree that Adam and Eve had to pass by in order to live.

And according to Genesis 3:6, this other tree was a delight to the eyes. It too was good for food, and as the Tree of Life possessed immortality… the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil possessed divinity.

For taking of it, would make them Like God!

One held Eternal Life.

The other access to Divine Wisdom

But this tree came with a simple Prohibition

Genesis 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

Don’t eat!

Tree of LIfe---- EAT all you want! Buffet! Endless portion leading to endless Life.

Tree of Knowledge--- Don’t Eat… avoid it. Like the plague. RUN from it. Because eating it leads to endless death.

So the Key to their FULLNESS, the maintaining of Relational, Physical, and Vocational wholeness, rested in a Choice.

Choose Life… or Choose Death.

And you know how the story goes… they ate.

And in eating they disobeyed God, the giver, provider, and sustainer of all life.

but it was more than disobedience, it was an infringement.

A coup.

A deliberate rebellion.

Believing God was holding out on them, they sought to be God.

Discontent with the Tree of Life in the center of their existence, they replace it… with themselves.

And this is the core of all Sin.

An attempt to live independent of God, to meet our own needs and desires and wishes, and reject He who promises to meet them.

So they made a choice… and they, along with all of us have reaped the consequences… death.

Relational Death, PHysical Death, and Vocational Death.

We lost our Fullness. We had life, life eternal, yet chose Death

Relational Death

Seperated from God, but also fractured community among one another.

What was once all bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh took a hard right turn after the honeymoon, and now Adam and Eve are all arguing and blaming one another. Adn eve’s desire is contrary to Adam’s, and Adam is toxic and all domineering.

Relationships are Fractured! Deteriorating. Decaying. Dying.

Leaving most of us without any real security and self-worth.

And without self-worth bestowed by the Presence of God and absence of sin, we end of basing our identity upon the opinions of others.

Relationship isn’t open or vulnerable, or naked and unashamed is it…

NO WAY. It’s the opposite, we hide, or present a false self, to try and create a self-image to others.

And you know what the problem of a self-image is!?

You have to maintain it! You can’t let up for a single second.

And people today are exhausted all because of a deep, abiding relational insecurity brought about by the death in Eden.

Death not Life, when it comes to relationships.

But this is also true Physically.

Physical Death

Adam had no wants, he lacked nothing. And he had this fullness for all of eternity.

Is that true for us!? Are you satisfied?

No!

We’re discontent. We’re restless. We’re overly ambition. We’re in debt. We covet. We keep up with the Jones… sorry Jones’s

There is no fullness.

Death not Life, when it comes to our physical needs and physical bodies.

But this is also true Vocationally.

Vocational Death\

Instead of work bringing a sense of worship and significance we hate it, kick against it. Struggle to find purpose in it.

And not only that, becuase of our insecurity our work becmoes an identity performance trap!

We begin to define ourselves by what we do, and how much we do… and the only time we ever feel good about ourselves is when somebody is praising and acknowledging our accomplishments.

And when it happens our tails wag like a happy dog, but when we fail… or when we don’t believe we’re doing enough… the blame game comes in or shame and hopelessness.

Work isn’t fullness… it’s wrought with frustration and fear.

Death, not Life, when it comes to our meaning and purpose.

The Tree of Life--- promised and delivered Worth & Value--- Fullness.

But we chose the Tree of Death--- which has delivered a fearful, frantic, never-ending search for Fullness.

Charles Taylor, in his brilliant but dense work A Secular Age, writes, ““You can sense it, that when you look at the wold we are missing something, we’ve been cut off from something, that we are living behind a screen… almost in a world disenchanted, flat, empty… and we are frantically looking within to compensate for this great loss.

But he goes on to warn us, saying that Secularism is promising the solution. It’s offering an answer.

But just like Satan’s whipser in Eden, Secularism will lie to you!

Because Secularism says that your fuullness is found within.

You can define you, you can be who you want to be, you can define your own meaning and purpose. Just look within.

Put yourself in the Center… and find Life.

But church, Life is only found when God is at the Center.

It’s not a solution, it’s a trap.

It’s not an answer, but an ambush.

The solution isn’t found in Secularism, but in a third and final Tree.

Tree of Calvary

The death incurred by Adam and Eve was awful… is awful, yet God’s Mercy and Grace was on full display that day.

Genesis 3:22 “Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—””

Mankind had died… and if he were to reach out his hand and take hold of the fruit from the tree of life… he would have eternity… but not life… death. Eternal death.

To live eternally in a sinful state would mean endless agone for humanity, with no hope of the relief that comes with death.

So Genesis 3:24 “He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”

The way was blocked.

But many years later, God who so loves His world, and who still wants HIs creation to know Life, Full Life, Eternal Life… He would send His Son.

In the Beginning… was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and IN HIM was LIFE.

He stood before the people of Israel and said, “I am the bread of life.

I am the ressurection and the life.

I am the WAY, I am the Truth, I am the Life.

And I have come that you may have life, and might have it abundantly!

John would later write, 1 John 5:11 “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him would have Eternal Life!

Jesus came to restore us to the Fullness originally intended by the Goodness of Yahweh/Elohim.

But How! How can he deliver the Fullness of Life.

Only by drinking the fullness of death.

He swallowed the Curse of Death on our behalf, that we may have Life on His behalf.

And where did he do this!?

1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—”

He was put to death, the death we deserved, by hanging him on a tree.

All so that we might have Life, a Fullness of Life that we don’t deserve.

And spiritually feeding on Christ, is the essence of Eternal Life.

It’s in stretching and reaching out our hands to take of Christ, that we are Relationally Accepted once again.

Adopted as God’s child once again.

A friend of His. A member of His body.

Loved. Bought at a Price. I once again, Belong to God.

It’s in reaching out and taking of Christ, that we are Physically Secure Again.

Free from sin and condemnation.

Assured that all things work together for my Good.

Always able to find grace and mercy in my time of need.

Lacking nothing. Because we are Possessing Everything.

It’s in stretching and taking of Christ, that we are vocationally restored.

We have purpose. Divine Meaning and Significance.

We are His image once again.

Salt of the earth, Light of the World.

His workmanship, created for Good works In Him.

His temple His coworker, HIs witness.

Relationally, Physically, and Vocationally Full all because of the Tree of Calvary.

Jesus Standing at the Center…

But there is a choice for you, as there was for our Adam.

Do we come to Him and feast, or do we look within to define who we are, why we exist, and what is true?

Do we find Life apart from ourselves by looking to Him, or seek to generate it within ourselves.

Here the words of Jesus...

Matthew 16:24–25 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his TREE and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

True Life, Eternal Life is found in losing your life. Denying your place int he center, and accepting His where it rightfully belongs.

And all you have to do is believe in Him.

John 3:15–16 “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to earn anything. It is a gift.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Eternal Life is a Gift,

but like a Christmas gift it must be received, and it must be opened.

So stop looking within, instead look to the Trees.

Avoid the Tree of Knowledge.

Search for the Tree of Life.

And find it in the Tree of Calvary.

Conclusion

Would you stand with me.

Our team is going to come and lead us through a song of response, and I want to do something a little different.

I want to give you the time to consider the Trees.

If you have been searching for LIFE, for FULLNESS within yourself, or in anything apart from Jesus, and you’re ready to give up that vain pursuit… and for the first time Look to the Tree of Calvary, to the Person of Jesus.

To believe in Him, Trust in Him, Receive The Gift of Life he freely offers.

I want you to pray this prayer after me.

If you prayed that with me. I’ve got one more step for you.

Coleman & Mike, as well as Cydney and Annie are on both sides of the pulpit.

I want you to make your way to them. Introduce yourself if needed, and they want to walk you through the Gospel, make sure you understand what your decision today means, and then they’ll pray for you.