(This message series is inspired and excerpted from He Loves Me! by Wayne Jacobsen.)
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? [32] He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32 ESV)
He Loved You Enough to Let You Go
“By giving humans freedom of will, the Creator has chosen to limit his own power. He risked the daring experiment of giving us the freedom to make good and bad decisions, to live decent or evil lives, because God does not want the forced obedience of slaves. Instead, he covets the voluntary love and obedience of sons who love him for himself.” – Catherine Marshall in Beyond Our Selves
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. [16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, [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.” (Genesis 2:15-17 ESV)
“Wouldn’t it have been better if he had never created it, or at least hid it in some distant corner of the globe? Certainly its presence provided the opportunity for humankind’s greatest failure and with it thousands of years of suffering in sin, pain, conflict, and disease. However, God didn’t plant that tree to spell out our demise, but to allow us the freedom that would make relationship with him meaningful.
He knew that whichever way Adam and Eve chose, it would still be the first step on a journey to learn how to trust his awesome love. Regrettably, . . .they would learn to trust God only by first trusting in themselves and finding out just how misguided they were in doing so.” (p. 89) One can obey without trusting, but can one trust without obeying?
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’?” [2] And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, [3] 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.’” [4] But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. [5] For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5 ESV)
“‘You’ll be like God,’ the serpent promised that morning as he enticed them to eat what God had forbidden. What a devastating temptation! One could want worse things than to be like God. Hadn’t God already created them in his image? Wasn’t his desire to invite them into a relationship with him that would make them like him? Isn’t the desire to be like God the highest ideal of the Christian life? (p. 89)
What kinds of things does the enemy whisper in your ear to drive a wedge between you and God so that your trust in him is eroded?
“Adam and Eve’s sin was not what they wanted, but how they went about getting it. Would they trust God to make them like him, or would they reach out and take it for themselves? ” (p. 89)
Do you ever question, or even get upset about what God has apportioned to you? (Do you have all you want?)
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. [2] And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. [3] And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” [4] But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:1-4 ESV)
[At its root, sin is simply grabbing for ourselves what God has not given us.]
“Is that what Jesus understood when he rejected Satan’s enticement to change stones into bread after his long fast? There was certainly nothing evil in the act itself. Nothing in the old covenant forbade it, and it would be no different than changing water into wine, which he would do a few days later. Jesus, however, trusted his Father to bring to him everything he needed. Fulfilling his own ambitions, wholesome though they may be, would take him down the same path as Adam and Eve.” (p. 89)
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. [7] Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Genesis 3:6-7 ESV)
“Imagine if Eve had known God well enough to trust his love for her. How would she have responded to the serpents charges against God?
I can see her face twisted in wonderment as she tries to hold back her laughter. ‘Are you talking about our God? The one who walked with us in the Garden last night and who loves us so much that he has given us everything for our good? Absolutely, totally impossible! Not him. We are his children, after all!’ And she would have walked away without even a second thought. That’s the kind of trust God wants us all to know.” (p. 91)
What do you think God can do to help you trust him more?
“God sees something redemptive even in letting us fail. He seems less concerned about our mistakes than how we respond to them. Do our mistakes lead us away from trusting in our own strength or wisdom and toward seeking what it means to put our trust in him? If so, then he finds even our failures worth the pain they cause.” (p. 92)
“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be.” – Unknown Author, Ancient Proverb
“Only those who have loved something enough to let it go can even get a glimpse of what God accomplished in that Garden.
God loved us that much, and, though many in the course of history have not come back, many others have. Somehow the pain of those who do not is swallowed up in the joy of those who do. Thus the tragedy in the Garden becomes a stepping-stone to the greater good he desired. In the midst of sin and selfishness, he would use our own waywardness and its consequences as the incubator in which our trust in his love might yet emerge. [What are some trust building lessons God has taught you in this way?]
That day began a process that would culminate at another tree—this one a cross on the hill at Golgotha. There mercy would triumph over sin; and the trust that had been so elusive in that Garden for Adam and Eve would become certain for those who belong to God.” (p. 93)
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17 ESV)
For Your Personal Journey:
Ask God to reveal to you where wedges of mistrust have been inserted between you and him. Where do you find yourself doubting his love for you or his intentions with you? Where has trusting in your own abilities and wisdom taken you farther from him rather than closer to him? Ask God to show you how to embrace a relationship with him in his way and not your own.
Next Week: Who Needed the Sacrifice?
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