THE PLAN: God's Plan and You

Why am I here? Have you ever asked yourself this question? I hope so because, make no mistake, this is THE foundational question that will influence how you live your life. After all, WHERE you find your purpose is WHERE you will invest your life. Let me explain…

Let's say you believe that you exist ONLY to attain fame and fortune. Well guess what? You will PRIMARILY make personal investments in ME-focused things like music lessons, sports camps, study groups, personal trainers, and self-help seminars. BUT if you believe that you exist ONLY to attain blessings for others then you will PRIMARILY make personal investments in OTHERS-focused things like tutoring, mentoring, service and social care projects. In fact, if you want to know whether you believe you exist primarily for the sake of YOURSELF or OTHERS look at how you spend your time. Do you spend more of your time on ME-focused activities or OTHERS-focused activities?

But how does God want us to spend our time? What is God's purpose for our existence? Well, the book of Genesis gives us the answer.

GENESIS 12:1-3 

Genesis 3-11 describes a world plagued by pain, sin, and curses. But this is not the world God intended. NO. The world God intended is found in Genesis 1-2. It's a world of rest, peace, and blessing (2:2). So how is God going to repair His broken creation and bring BLESSING back to a CURSED world? Well, God's restoration plan is found in Genesis 12:1-3. In this passage, the word 'bless' is repeated five times to show that God's restoration plan will offset the five uses of the word 'curse' in Genesis 1-11 (3:14, 17; 4:11; 5:29; 9:25). God's plan sets out to reverse the curse! Here’s what it says,

“The Lord said to Abram, ‘GO [literally: walk] from your country, your people and your father’s household to the LAND I will show you. I will make you into a GREAT NATION and I will bless you; I will make your NAME GREAT [so that] you [will] BE a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and ALL PEOPLES ON EARTH will be blessed through you.’”

God's plan is simple...God is going to make Abram into a large community of PEOPLE ["great nation"], plant these people on a specific piece of PROPERTY ["the land"], make these people PROMINENT as they live out God's creation design ["great name"], so that the entire PLANET will be blessed through the prominence of these God-centered people ["all people's on earth"]. However, the success of this plan requires follow-through from both God and people. How so? God's end of the bargain requires that He provide offspring, land, and blessing to His people while God's people need to provide loyalty and OBEDIENCE to their God.

THE CONDITIONS OF GOD'S COVENANT
But what specific OBEDIENCE does God REQUIRE of His people? According to this passage, we need to GO outside of our comfort zone to a broken world [so that] we can BE a blessing to broken people. We need to GO and BE! But God's plan is not for the faint of heart. GOING requires that we become comfortable with being uncomfortable as we reach out to a broken world. BEING a blessing requires that we move from a ME-focused life to an OTHERS-focused life.
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[An aside on the nature of covenants]...God's covenants are everlasting but not unconditional (Genesis 17:7). In other words, God's covenants are permanent - meaning he will bring them to fruition - but they demand something of people. All covenants have promises and corresponding obligations. We will see these in God's future covenants. God places obligations on Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:1), Moses (Exod. 19:5-6), David (1 Kings 2:1-4), and even places obligations on Christians in the New Testament (Matt. 5:17-20). People who defiantly rebel against God's covenant obligations will not experience the promises of the covenant...God will put the fulfillment of His covenant on hold until future generations! What are the practical implications of this? Even though God requires obedience from His people, He will never give up on them!
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And so, God's covenant with Abraham has REQUIREMENTS and CONDITIONS. These conditions (of GOING and BEING) are reemphasized in Genesis 17:1 when God says to Abraham, "I am God Almighty; WALK before me faithfully and BE blameless." But why does God emphasize these two CONDITIONS? Well, they must be foundational to achieving the goal of His mission to RESTORE a broken world. How so?

THE IMPORTANCE OF 'GOING'
Can you imagine if Abram refused to GO? Don't you think there's a good chance that God's plan would sit idle and collect dust? And so, God chose someone who was FAITHFUL to GO. As a result, God's plan was activated. So how does this relate to us today? We live in a PRIVATIZED culture where we can make following God ALL about engaging in PRIVATE spiritual disciplines. Now PRIVATE spiritual disciplines are certainly helpful to our spiritual formation. However, Jesus tells us to "GO and make disciples." Our OBEDIENCE to this command requires that we add a PUBLIC dimension to our PRIVATE faith. In other words, we need to live out loud! We can't be controlled by what other people think about us. We need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable...and GO!

THE IMPORTANCE OF 'BEING'
But simply GOING is not enough. Imagine Abram GOING but then refusing to live by God's standards and design for life. Imagine he conducted business dishonestly, was the biggest gossip on the block, and was known as the neighborhood bully. Would this help God achieve His goal of restoring a broken world? I don't think so! This is why God commanded Abraham to BE BLAMELESS. This is simply a fancy way of saying, "Be like God." And the more we BE-come like God, the better we represent Him to the world around us! And the ultimate goal of showing God's love, compassion, kindness, and blessings to the world around us is a RESTORED creation. But attaining this goal requires BE-coming OTHERS-focus.

THE BOTTOM LINE

So how does all of this relate to you? God created you and me to restore a broken world. But to join God in his plan, we need to accurately reflect God to the world around us by loving others well and by investing our lives for the sake of others. This involves moving from a ME-focused existence to an OTHERS-focused existence. But God doesn't just want us to do this as INDIVIDUALS, He wants us to do this as a COMMUNITY. So let me ask you, do you want to be used by God BOTH as an INDIVIDUAL and in your faith COMMUNITY? If so, then you will begin to truly understand God's purpose for your existence!

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

How much of what you invest your life in is for the purpose of attaining your own personal blessing?

How much of what you invest your life in is for the purpose of attaining blessings for others?

What are some practical ways you can move from a ME-focus to an OTHERS-focus?

THE PROBLEM: A Good Creation Gone Bad

Your life's story is connected to God whether you acknowledge it or not. You see, God is at work all around you and has been orchestrating a plan since the beginning of time. You can deny this but you can never get away from it! Why? God's plan is constantly intersecting with your life. And He wants you to find your purpose in it! So if you want to truly understand your life's purpose then you need to understand God's plan (that is, the BIG story that God is working out that explains everything). So what is God's plan? Well you don't have to go far in the Bible to find it. The Bible begins by framing it up in the book of beginnings...Genesis. But to fully grasp God's plan, you need to first understand the PROBLEM that serves as its backdrop. This is told in Genesis 1-3. So let's take a look...

GOD'S REST: CREATION AS GOD INTENDED
Genesis 1 makes it abundantly clear that everything God created in the beginning was GOOD (in fact, this is emphasized SEVEN times over; 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). But this GOOD creation didn't always exist. NO. This GOOD creation emerged from disorder and emptiness (hb: tohu va-bohu; formlessness and emptiness) as described in vs. 2. And so God spent the first three days of creation FORMING the earth by separating and ordering the universe. He then spent the last three days FILLING creation with animals of the land, sea, and sky, which ultimately culminated in the creation of humans. God crafted this perfect creation solely with His words spoken TEN times ("and God said"; 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29). After God FORMED and FILLED the FORMLESS and EMPTY earth, He rested on the SEVENTH day. So what does this tell us? God's original creation was perfectly designed and ordered and was therefore a place of peace and rest! 

HUMANITY'S ROLE
So what was humanity's original purpose in God's creation? The author makes it clear that humanity's role in God's creation was to rule over the earth (the land, sea, and sky) and multiply God's GOOD creation order (1:26-28). Part of the task of ruling over God's creation involved GUARDING (2:15; hb: shamar; also used in 3:24 when angels guarded the tree of life) the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and NOT EATING its fruit (2:15-17). This is how humanity was to PROTECT God's creation order. Humanity was also given the task of WORKING (2:15; hb: av'da; also used in Num. 3:7-8 for the priestly service in the tabernacle) the garden. In this way, humanity was to PRESERVE God's creation order.

HUMANITY'S REBELLION
But Adam and Eve rebelled against God and ate from the tree. This changed everything...and I mean everything! But how are we to understand the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Did the fruit from this tree, if ingested, give people the knowledge to discern moral right from moral wrong? Did Adam and Eve not know right from wrong before they ate the fruit? Some people think so. But I'm not sure this is the best explanation. Why? Adam and Eve experienced a bunch of BAD stuff like shame, pain, separation, and curses after they ate from the tree. But are all of these BAD things morally EVIL? Think about it. Are 'birthing pains' (3:16) morally EVIL? NO. They're just plain BAD. Is 'painful toil' (3:17-19) morally EVIL? NO. It's just BAD.

And in fact, to remove any confusion about the nature of the BADNESS that came from this tree, the author uses a play on words in the Hebrew language between the words 'tree' in Genesis 2:17 and 'pain' in 3:16-17. How so? The author indicates that from the ETZ (tree) came ETZev (pain). And so by eating from the tree, BAD things were mixed into God's GOOD creation. Death, disease, violence, hatred, jealousy, slander, gossip, natural disasters, poverty, and spiritual warfare now became a part of humanity's everyday experiences. And so maybe the tree is better referred to as 'the tree of the knowledge of good and BAD.'

But not only this, in the Hebrew language, 'knowledge' (hb: da'at) does not just refer to book smarts but it refers more specifically to street smarts, i.e. knowledge gained through EXPERIENCE. And so from the Hebrew perspective you don't really 'know' something unless you've EXPERIENCED it. And after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they EXPERIENCED pain. So maybe the tree is best referred to as 'the tree of the EXPERIENCE of good and bad'.

Now, probably the worst experience of pain (and BADNESS) that came from the tree was DEATH (2:17). Sure Adam and Eve experienced physical death. But they experienced another type of death that was far worse. They were expelled from the garden of Eden, the very place where God's presence resided (3:23). And so now humanity's relational connection with God was lost! In this way, humanity suffered a spiritual DEATH... something Adam and Eve had never EXPERIENCED before! And so in all, creation had reverted back to a state of unrest, disorder, and alienation from this single act of rebellion!

GOD'S RESTORATION
But all hope is not lost! We learn in Genesis 3:15 that one of the woman's offspring will strike a death blow to the serpent (Satan) but only after he is bruised and injured. Who do you think the woman's offspring is referring to? JESUS, of course. It's no wonder that this passage is often spoken of as the proto-evangalion or the first gospel. 

Jesus' life was all about the business of reestablishing His Father's rule in this world (a.k.a. God's kingdom) by restoring the GOOD order back to creation. How do we know this? Through Jesus' miracles! He healed the sick. He tamed out-of-control storms. He cast out demons. He raised the dead. By doing these things Jesus showed that he was THE offspring who could reverse the curses of Genesis. So why has the curse not been completely reversed? Might it be that Jesus wanted to get humanity back into the garden (that is, God's presence) before completely restoring creation? If so, He accomplished this through His death and resurrection.

And so while Jesus was initially bruised and injured on the cross, this does NOT mean that He failed in His mission. NO. Jesus will ultimately strike a final death blow to the BAD in this world and RESTORE and redeem creation. But this final RESTORATION is yet to come. We read about this in Revelation 21-22 where Jesus defeats evil (21:27) and brings in a new heaven and a new earth. In this RESTORED creation, all pain is removed (21:4) and the curse from the tree of the experience of good and bad is reversed (22:3)! And mankind is once again allowed into God's presence (22:3) thus RESTORING the garden of Eden EXPERIENCE!

LIVING TO RESTORE
So, in the meantime, what are Christ followers to do? What is God's purpose for their lives? SIMPLE. Follow Jesus by wrapping your life around His mission to RESTORE a broken world. After all, REST-oration is the GOAL of God's plan. And Jesus didn't give his followers the power source of the Holy Spirit and bring them back into God's presence so that they would sit around and wait for Him to return while eating a potluck dinner! NO! He gave us Holy Spirit power so that we could join Him in restoring a broken world! But what does it specifically look like to live to restore? This is what God's restoration PLAN given in Genesis 12 will reveal to us. And that is what we will investigate next time.