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Title: Free to Fall

Text: and 3:1-9

G

Thesis: God has given us the freedom to fall and grace to catch us when we do.

Lenten Series: Reflecting, Repenting and Returning to God

The Lenten Season is a time for reflection, repenting of our sin and returning to God.

During Lent we confront the presence of evil in the world, the reality of temptation and human sinfulness.

However, it is in acknowledging human sinfulness and the need for repentance that we find our way to return to God who is merciful and gracious.

Introduction

What have you ever wondered about God?

We wondered if God is like a Supreme Court justice judging-God?

We wondered if God is laid-back and all peace loving and mellow-God?

We wondered if God might be a Type A, take-charge kind of God?

We wondered if God is really not all that interested in us and if God may be bored with humankind and has become a distant and disinterested-God?

We wondered if God was an enthusiastic, self-improvement God who loves winners and hates losers?

We wondered if God is a bleeding-heart, big soft-spot for down and outers-God?

We wondered if God is a good-natured old grandpa-God?

We wondered if God is a puppeteer, string-pulling manipulator-God?

We are all familiar with marionette puppets.

Marionettes are puppets dangling from strings or wires and controlled from above.

A marionette puppeteer is called a manipulator.

A good manipulator can make a puppet appear absolutely life-like.

Is God a puppeteer manipulator?

Are we puppets on strings?

Does the world spin and the seasons come and go at the behest of the master-manipulator?

Are we merely marionettes in the hands of God who orchestrates our every move?

In some ways it would be easier to take if we knew it was all just an ongoing play set for the amusement of God.

It would make life a lot easier if we knew that the choices we make are not our choices at all… but the will of God being carried out through the manipulating of strings and wires dangled from the heavens.

What does the bible have to say about who we are and why we do what we do and what role does God play in it all?

Our text begins with God.

There is no doubt that…

I. God is the creator and sustainer of creation and that God is in charge.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… And God said, ‘Let there be…” Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over all the earth and over all the creatures…”

In addition to the Genesis narrative other scripture speaks to the creative activity of God.

In the bible says that Jesus was with God and was God.

John states that through Christ all things were made.

In the Apostle Paul, using similar language, wrote that by Christ and for Christ, all things were created in heaven and on earth and adds, “in him all things hold together,” or are sustained.

The Prophet Isaiah envisions God sitting enthroned above the earth looking down and from his vantage point, people look like grasshoppers.

Isaiah wrote, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.”

A. God is the creator of all creation

B. God is the sustainer of all creation

C. God is in charge of all creation

Our text today specifically notes that people were part of God’s creative activity and people, human beings, were given opportunity and responsibility within God’s creation.

II.

God entrusted man with opportunity and responsibility in creation.

A. Opportunity to work, care for and enjoy the fruit of creation.

Man was given the opportunity to work… to be engaged in meaningful activity.

Tending the garden was a full-time gig.

It was a career rich with satisfying work and benefits that only members of the most powerful of union members enjoy.

It was like being a park ranger in Yellowstone National Park.

What a great place to live and work.

Great benefits.

A hands-off boss.

What more could a person want.

Man was given the opportunity to freely enjoy the fruit of the garden.

God told man that he was free to eat from any tree in the garden.

Imagine God had created Haagen-Dazs and put Adam and Eve in charge.

Haagen-Dazs was actually the brain-child of Polish immigrants, Reuben and Rose Mattus who opened the first Haagen-Dazs store in the Bronx, NY in 1961.

The name Haagen-Dazs was chosen because Reuben thought his ice cream should have a Scandinavian sounding name that would appeal to Americans.

It means nothing but is supposed to conger up images of imported Danish dairy products.

Haagen-Dazs is owned by General Mills who has licensed it to Nestle who now produces it in one of their subsidiaries… Dreyers.

But think of the Garden of Eden as a full-service Haagen-Dazs ice cream outlet.

All of the classic flavors are there… and there are a lot more flavors than the original vanilla, chocolate and coffee.

There are also the Haagen-Dazs 5 ice creams made with only 5 ingredients and sorbets made with ripened peaches, the zestiest of lemons and the sweetest of mangos, there are frozen yogurts made with live active cultures, sundae cones and ice cream bars featuring vanilla and almonds and both milk and dark chocolates.

Every Haagen-Dazs product is there and free for the eating.

That is, except for the Vanilla Swiss Almond.

In it says that “God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were good for food.

[And] in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Adam and Eve could eat of any tree in the garden, including from the tree of life.

The single caveat was that they could not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam and Eve could not eat the Vanilla Swiss Almond.

That is the caveat that speaks to not only the opportunity of serving God and enjoying God’s goodness but also the responsibility of obeying the will of God.

B. Responsibility to obey the will of God.

It doesn’t seem like that should be an unreasonable expectation or all that difficult to do.

It isn’t like there were no options.

In fact there was absolutely no need to eat from that one single tree.

God essentially said, “Have at it!

But don’t eat from that one tree because if you do, you will die.”

In 1997 Billy Bob Thornton was interviewed before the Academy Awards.

He had written, directed and starred in the independent film, Sling Blade, for which he did win an Academy Award.

The interviewer asked him what he would do if he won an award and Billy Bob Thornton said he would thank his parents.

“Would you thank God?” the reporter asked.

“No,” Thornton replied, “God has better things to worry about than my Oscar.

God is not here to help us win Oscars.

God is here to be obeyed.”

We may think that the universe revolves around us and that God exists to dote on us and is fully engaged in pulling strings to make us dance so well that we win Oscars.

However, Billy Bob was onto something when he said, “God is here to be obeyed… not get me an Oscar.”

Adam and Eve seemed okay with enjoying the blessings of God and respecting God’s will.

But then someone slithered into their lives that was intent on destroying God’s credibility and wreaking havoc on humankind forever.

III.

God wants only what is best for us and to think otherwise is to doubt God’s integrity.

A. God wants only what is best for us.

James reminds us to remember that God only gives good to us.

“Don’t be deceived… Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

The Prophet Jeremiah spoke of God’s goodness toward his people when he spoke for God saying, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

There was not a shred of deceit in God’s instructions to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God was explicitly clear about the opportunities and blessings of life in the garden and God was explicitly clear about the single restriction and the consequences of disobedience.

Though God is extraordinarily generous toward us, God is also serious about our honoring his will.

“No, means no!”