Kingdom Come Part 2 - The Lost Kingdom (Wednesday, January 19, 2011)

This is a continuation of the Breakout series, "Kingdom Come," which is designed to answer questions many people have about the Christian faith that many Christians do not have a Truth-based answers for.

The questions addressed in this sermon are as follows: Why is there so much pain in the world? Why does God allow evil to exist? If God is the Creator of everything, did he create evil? How can God be both good and all powerful? Why did God put the tree of knowledge in the garden?

This discussion is centered around three passages, the first of which is Genesis 2:15-17, which says:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (NIV)

Pastor Jason began by debunking a common myth about Christianity. Many people see God as a killjoy. They picture a God with all these rules and regulations, and it becomes a very overbearing image of God. However, if you look at the Garden, God gave Adam and Eve many, many trees to eat from and told them to stay away from only one. They could do all these things; God just had one rule. This doesn't sound so unreasonable. The fact that people try to twist God into this tyrant isn't surprising given what we see in the next passage, Genesis 3:1-6:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (NIV)

See what Satan did there? He says to Eve, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" Or phrased a little differently, did God really say that not every single tree in this Garden was yours? Satan's convoluted perspective takes a fair regulation (a rather necessary regulation as we will see later) and turns it into this image of God trying to control Adam and Eve. While God is focusing on what Adan and Eve can have, the serpent focuses on what they can't have.

What's the serpent's goal with this? The enemy's goal was (as it's stated in the notes of this sermon) "to drive man away from the garden of relationship with God and heaven, resulting in the loss of the Kingdom of heaven and earth." God set up this paradise and what he wanted was a relationship with humanity. He loved mankind and wanted mankind to love Him. However, in order for there to be love, there must be choice. Without choice, there can be no love. If God made this "perfect" world with no tree of knowledge - no chance of Adam and Eve sinning - would there really be love? If God said to Adam and Eve, "you have the choice to love me or to love me?" would there really be any choice? No. Would there be any love? No.

The scenario utilized by Pastor Jason to illustrate this is as follows. Imagine a little toddler. You're in a room with a lot of people and that toddler comes running up and hugs you. You feel special, right? That toddler chose you when he/she could have chosen any other person in that room. In order for Adam and Eve to love God, He had to give them the option to choose something other than Him. He is not a God of restrictions; He's a God of options. He set Adam and Eve up for success the best way he could - out of the entire garden, only one tree was off limits - but that tree had to be there for there to be any relationship.

God gave humans dominion over the earth (see Kingdom Come Part 1 for further details). However, he did not give man dominion over other men or over heaven. God intended to have a relationship with mankind and for mankind to be His ambassadors on the earth, so that the earth would be a reflection of God's kingdom in heaven - of which they had no control.

This might seem to be a little off topic, but I assure you, it is crucial to understanding why the world is the way it is. Let's look at treason. Taking this straight from the Breakout sermon notes:

The greatest crime committed in any kingdom or nation, ancient or modern, is the crime of treason. It is the only crime to which there is no question of receiving the death penalty. It is the ultimate act of betrayal.

That being said, it is important to understand that "the fall of man" - the eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge - was not just disobedience; it was treason.

Therefore, Adam and Eve's crime was deserving of the penalty of death. They had declared their independence from the Kingdom and severed their relationship with said Kingdom. Additionally, mankind had lost their dominion over earth; they severed their ties with the Kingdom and were, therefore, no longer its ambassadors. Jesus makes it very clear that Satan is now the king of this world.

Before I move onto the next point, I want to rest on some of the points that were just made. Sometimes, it's hard to relate something that happened thousands of years ago to today, but Pastor Jason made some interesting and relevant connections of how these very things are seen in the world today.

Pastor Jason calls Adam "a citizen without a country, a king without a crown, a ruler without a domain." As a citizen without a country, he's suddenly lacking an identity. Pastor Jason claimed that one of the biggest struggles faced by the young adult of this generation is this struggle for identity. No longer defined by their parents, they have to, in a sense, create themselves. However, Pastor Jason also said, "The people I know with the greatest sense of self are those who define their identity in Jesus Christ."

As a king without a crown, he no longer has the power that was once his. How many people in this world define their legacy by a thirst for power? Power struggles between nations, within nations, within communities, even within relationships can be traced back to this fall of man - in a way much more specific than "it's just a broken world."

Having addressed those points, I'd like to move onto "The Consequence of this Rebellion," which can all be found in Genesis. The list, from the sermon notes, is as follows:

Loss of position
Transfer of responsibility
Self-consciousness and shame
Fear and intimidation of authority
The loss of dominion over nature
Frustrated toil and hatred of labor
Pain, disease, and discomfort
Physical and spiritual death

Despite all this, God makes a promise. After stating all the curses that resulted in this sin, Genesis 3:15-16 (the third passage) says:

And I will put enmity
   between you [Satan] and the woman,
   and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
   and you will strike his heel.”
To the woman he said,
   “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
   with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
   and he will rule over you.”(NIV)

God tells Satan that he would have to do battle with one of the offspring of this woman. He promises that "he will crush your head and you will strike his heel." This "offspring" is Jesus. Satan tempted and tortured him, but in the end, it is Jesus' victory.

The sermon notes conclude with these final words:

This was the first promise of a messiah-king and the return of the Kingdom. God's primary focus and goal throughout all of history is the redemption, restoration, and re-establishment of His Kingdom on earth and His relationship with man. This would be the principle purpose and assignment for the promised Messiah.