Which Tree are We Ministering From?

     

Both fear and love are four letter words. Which one are we serving others from? Perhaps this is why so many people are “done” with the church. Are we ministering/serving people from the wrong motives and methods.

This blog was birthed by listening to a sermon from Shawn Bolz that I stumbled upon on Kris Valloton’s podcast page. Complicated, I know. But God led me there because He does crazy cool stuff like that… all the t-i-m-e. I had never heard of Shawn Bolz but I figured I would give him a listen and see what happened. It turns out that it has rocked my world in a good way. God has a gracious habit of doing that. And there are plenty of “Duh” moments where I ask why I did not see that in the text before. God is amazing, gentle and gracious. We are His kids whom He is parenting patiently.

I strongly urge you to listen to Shawn Bolz. You can listen to the related message here:

http://krisvallotton.com/shawn-bolz-open-heavens-2015/

Shawn pointed out that there were two trees named in the Garden of Eden [Genesis 2:9]: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Notice that it was not “the tree of knowledge.” He used many examples to point out how the church in the USA spends so much time, energy and money ministering out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It seems like the main focus is to argue about right and wrong, good versus evil. He asked why we were not ministering out of the other tree. Why aren’t we serving people out of love by offering them life? Very little fruit comes out of arguing over what is good or evil. Many want no part of the church in the USA because they feel like they will just be judged and not cared for or loved. Or if they do something perceived to be “evil” then they will be cast out. Unfortunately, that is quite true from what I have observed being a follower of Jesus since 1985. It is amazing to me, and sad, how quick we [the church] are to separate ourselves from any we disagree with over any and every moral and doctrinal point of contention. That tree has made us very contentious and very not life giving.

I have seen the church do this to its own. Do we forgive those who mess up? I mean those who really mess up, not just petty little things that only upset church people? Those outside the church see how well we shoot our wounded. We've done so well in stomping on the famous who have fallen. How much grace have we given to Josh Duggar? What kind of reconciliation do we give to those who truly repent? Do we restore or keep them buried under the weight of the evil they have done...forever? Do we only have grace enough for those who exercise great sin management and appear to be good church people? That is a nasty picture of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil working its negative power over people.

So why aren’t we serving others from the tree of life? Shawn gave many examples of how to do this without condoning or agreeing with the lifestyle and morality of who he and his church were ministering to. It convicted me in many areas of not being loving toward those who do not yet know Jesus. It is absurd to think those apart from God will behave in a Christ honoring way and live a Holy Spirit controlled life. Why should the church expect them to behave as if they have the Holy Spirit in them?

1 Corinthians 8:1; But knowledge puffs up while love builds up [NIV]. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies [NASB].

Our [the church’s] knowledge of good and evil is going to be vastly different from people who have not yet received the new life given by God through the work of Jesus. Another problem is that it often does not seem like the church has received this transformative power either. When we are so busy looking for agreement or control over behavior and sin management that we do not pour life into each other; then no life should be expected. That would be an exception. Paul Manwaring writes, “You cannot train a man for freedom while he is in captivity.” I believe much of the church in the USA is still in captivity to moral performance through sin management and has not been set free by the life of love. I know I was for the first 28 years of my Christian life. That is sad. You can read about my transformation that came directly from an encounter with God and not from the church or its teachings or ministries:

            http://scottcolemanwrites.blogspot.com/2014/09/how-god-sees-me.html

Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil broke relationship with God and brought instant separation of communication and immediate spiritual death. Every human that has been born has been under this curse of separation from God which also creates a vast space between all humans. How it worked itself out initially between Adam and Eve was the blame game. It was everybody else’s fault. Everything that was wrong was caused by another. There was no personal accountability or responsibility. “You all messed this all up for me. It wasn’t my fault.” Oh, how little has changed.

It also led to everyone doing what was right in their own eyes. All the people who have ever lived on the earth had their own unique view of right and wrong; good versus evil. That makes communication and agreement difficult. Obviously! Just look around the planet. Read some tweets. Read the news. Look at Facebook. Watch something about politics. Watch a soap opera. No don’t! It can get depressing! Morality is in a mess and nearly everyone is an emotional wreck. No wonder much of the USA is on depression medications or other substances or bound up in addictions. We are not free. We are not alive.

So what can be done? How do we reverse the curse? Good questions. Glad you asked. You are so smart!

It’s already been done. We need to stop arguing over right and wrong. We need to look to the tree of life and learn how to bring life to others. How do we do that? How do we agree on what that even is?

God knew the choice to do the one and only negative command in the garden would be taken. He knew! You can do everything, E-V-E-R-Y-THING, except eat from this one tree. There may have been 1 million food trees available. There was one tree that gave ongoing life and relationship with God. The text doesn’t even tell us if they ever ate from that one! But there was only one thing that could be done to break relationship with God, and by listening to a sneaky, lying serpent [devil] they did that; together. Eve, then Adam ate from the tree that was the only thing they were told not to do because of the consequences. Wow! Don’t we all still see or do that today all over this planet?

Arguing over good and evil then led to laws being created. Israel preferred a rule book to a relationship with a powerful God Who they chose to be terrified of rather than draw near to. They sinned, so they got laws. They broke a small list, so they got more laws. They broke those and got more laws. Finally they got a pretty thorough list.

I have heard many non-believers say that God is all about rules and silly old out-of-date commands. Have any of these people ever been to a law library? Do any of them know how thick the IRS code is? How about the new health care regulations which no one even read before approving? Men make more laws everyday than God has in the entire existence of humanity! The USGA Rules of Golf book has more laws than the entire Bible does. Look up the NFL and NCAA Football rule books to see all their specifications and unique rules. It’s the same sport! Check out some of your laws for your city, county state and compare with the federal guidelines. You think God was rule happy? Humans are nuts! We are completely law crazy. Look up some court cases and legal decisions. There are more laws about allowable advertising signs in my city and county than there are laws in the Bible. Come on, man!

That is not life. That is not freedom. That does not bring freedom and it is certainly not love. Let’s argue who is right. Let’s fight over who is good. We sure do a lot of that.

Can we move to the tree of life now? God put both trees in the center of the garden. One for our life to continue us in ongoing relationship and eternal bliss. The other was a test to see if we would seek to determine our own truth about good and evil by rejecting God. Currently on earth we have about 7 billion versions of good and evil. God only has one, His. He alone is the Creator. He created everything. He made the stars, planets, plants and animals. Then He artistically formed humans. He formed man out of the dust, breathed life into his lungs. Then He fashioned woman from a piece of the man and gave her to him as a soulmate, a helper, a companion, a lover, a friend. God desired that humans relate to one another in community like He does within Himself: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. His creation is good. His creation of humans was great! Since there are no great adjectives in Hebrew it was literally “good, good.”

God made us for relationship with Him. We are living beings made with the choice to love Him, or not. When you understand how good, good life and love from God are, it changes you. Jesus came to restore the broken relationship. Jesus, God the Son [not born or made but eternal], became a human to pay the price for our broken relationship with God. There was no payment from humanity that would work. So God allowed us to kill His Son, Jesus, to pay the price for our sin and God placed on Him all the wrath that we deserved. All of God’s punishment for sin and wrath against it was poured out on Jesus when He became sin for us [2 Corinthians 5:21]. By the death of Jesus all sin can be washed away. When Jesus rose from the dead after paying the full penalty for sin, He proved He had complete power over death and sin and He offers His life to us. It is a gift for us to receive. We cannot earn it.

Jesus is good news. God is love. Romans 5:8-10 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” Yes! We are saved from sin, death and hell by Jesus paying the price for all of us. We need to receive Him as the complete payment, turn to God for this life-giving transformation and turn away from our old corrupt version of the knowledge of good and evil and follow God. Jesus then can become our life as we die to our old self and He teaches us Who He is and shows us what is right and wrong. Then we can obtain freedom and life.

Jesus died on a tree. That is the only way we can have life. There is no other sacrifice for sin. All other religions have sets of rules for how to get and maintain a relationship with the divine or many deities or even earth and every other whatever-after humans believe in. Every one of those is about do’s and don’ts that we must live out. It puts all the onus on us. But the problem is that those are all man made rules and ways. Only Christianity says that you humans cannot do it. I, God, love you so much that I will become human to pay the due penalty caused by the separation so that humans could be reconciled to the One and only God. The Creator made us and made the way for us to come back to Him. That is love. That is life.

His way is completely different from all the ones we have come up with. His definition of good and evil is totally different than all the 7 billion plus versions that we have devised. He alone is life. He alone is good. He alone is love. He alone gets to define good, evil, right, wrong, truth, justice, mercy, grace, etc. He is a little more complex and amazing than we are. Yet, we are complex and amazing too. But He made everything. He is making a new star every second! He gives them all names [Psalm 147:4]. We just throw acronyms and numbers on them because there are too many of them for us to think about. But He sustains their nuclear fusion reactions. He is everywhere. He holds everything together.

And, this same God holds out to us the offer of life and love. He knows what is best for us. He knows what we need better than we do. He knows our true need is for Him. That need is far greater than our need to be right in an argument or to prove someone has done something evil. He knows every human needs relationship with Him. That will transform us. That will meet our real needs and heal our soul wounds. It can even break through addiction, brokenness, confusion, depression, some cool ‘e’ word, frailty and all the way to a ‘z’ word in our sin that once separated us from Him. But He has made the way for us to return to the home we never knew we needed.

The cross is our new tree of life. Let’s go home. Let’s go to Life. Come with me as we go with Jesus and receive His life. He is good.