nooma_trees10.15.06

intro_trees is a video that talks about two particular trees. The tree in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of time and a tree along a river in paradise, at the end of time. Kind of like the dash between the birth and death years on a tombstone, we are living between the trees. in a fallen world. However, God has assigned his greatest creation (us) to partner with him to make this earth like it is supposed to be. The question needs to be asked, "What are we 'doing' now? How actively are we partnering with God?

How is it our world can be filled wit such beauty and such order and good, and at the same time be filled with such heartache and pain? How do you feel about the world? Do you think it is getting better or worse? How is it that chaos and beauty can co-exist so evenly? I believe that when God created the world, he created it so perfectly that even though we have messed it up and have invited chaos, God's creation is more beautiful and ordered than our attempts to mess it up.
God tells us, "You can live how you want to live or can live the way I created you to live." It's almost as if God says, "It's your choice." It's still our choice. Do you think it would be easier if God just made you obey him? Wouldn't it just make more sense for God, once someone became a christian, to just make them obey him and reflect him? It would seem to be a lot better witness. We would have a lot less people calling church a place for hypocrites to meet.

What does it mean to live the way God created you to live? If we believe God's way of life is the best way for us to live, why is it so hard for us to do it?

Genesis 2:9 "In the middle of the Garden were two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil."

"Maybe the truth of the Adam and Eve story, maybe the greatest power of the story is not so much that it happened, but that it happens." (Rob Bell)

Do you believe the Bible's story of creation is not just something that happened, but actually something that still happening? Are we faced with the same choices as Adam and Eve? (Care for the world…walk in a relationship with God)

When God made Adam and Eve he gave them an assignment, "Take care of the garden." "Tend to it" Genesis 2:15 "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend it and keep it." Did God tell them when they left the garden they didn't have to take care of the 'earth' any more? NO. So we are also then, charged with the same assignment, "take care of the world."

The story is told of a popular christian speaker who was talking about the end times. The embedded theme of his message was we [as christians] are "hoping" and "waiting". God does want us to anticipate his return. He does want us to put our hope in his return, but to just be hoping and waiting misses the very commission God charges to all Christians. It goes along with a painting I once saw. The painting was of an old farmer. The time was the late 1800's. He was plowing his field. The muscular draft horse barrelling down in the hardened earth to drag the uncompomising steal thru undisturbed land. The farmer has both hand on the wooden handles of the plow. The reins drapped over his shoulder. His old weathered face is cocked back and his eyes are drawn towards the sky. the caption of the painting reads, "While I wait, I work" What a great creed for us. We do wait for Chris to return, but while we wait, we work. Work for the Kingdom. (if anyone knows where i can find that painting, i am trying to find it)

Revelation 22:2 "On both sides of the river was the tree of life bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations."
"We're told that we will actively participate with God in taking care of the world that we find ourselves in. It says there will be peace with each other, but that there will be peace and harmony with God and in the middle of it will be a tree." (Rob Bell)


Have you noticed how when God does something it is perfect and when we do something we mess it up? When God created this world, it was perfect. Relationships were perfect –between human beings and between man and God. When Jesus returns and God makes everything new, it is going to be perfect, again. Relationships will be restored between men and between men and God. When God made the the earth it was perfect. When he returns again it will be perfect. Right now, decisions we make will shape the landscape of eternity. An ancient jewish saying that says, "The good deeds we do on earth are seeds planted in eternity."

With that, do you think what we do today matters for eternity? Are the choices you're making now shaping you into the kind of person you'll be forever?

"I need a God who's now. I need a God who teaches me how to live now. I need a faith that's today, that helps me understand the world I live in today." (Rob Bell)

Does your faith help you understand the world we live in? Does it make your life easier or more difficult on a day-to-day basis?

"We live between the trees in a world drenched in God. And some people ask seriously, you know, "Where is God?" Maybe a better question would be, Where isn't God. His fingerprints are all over our world. Or maybe its His world and our fingerprints. Followers of Jesus are people who are committed to partnering with God to make this world, the world that we live in, the kind of place that God originally intended it to be." (Rob Bell)

Revelation 22:2 "On both sides of the river was the tree of life bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations."

May you trust Jesus, when he says that death has been taken care of, and that you can live forever with God, that you're never, ever, ever going to stop living. May you believe that death has been taken care of, and you can be a partner with God in redeeming and restoring this fallen, broken, hurting world. That you can literally be a partner with God in making this the kind of place that God originally intended it to be. May you be the kind of person who, when you live this way, the very trees of Paradise are being planted."