Eden Podcast - 1: Unveiling the Garden - Reclaiming Identity & Worth

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Eden Podcast! Recorded live at our highly anticipated women's faith event, this session takes a profound dive into humanity's origin story. Are you tired of hiding from God, weighed down by shame, or listening to the deceptive lies of the enemy? This empowering Christian podcast is your invitation to step back into the radiant light of God's original design for your spiritual identity.

In this session, we meticulously unpack the foundational truths in Genesis 1 through 3. We explore the creative power of God's voice speaking the universe into existence. Discover the heart-melting meaning behind God declaring humanity "very good". It is a divine stamp of approval meaning you are delightfully pleasing to your Creator. We examine how God fashioned woman with intention, breathing life into us so we could live unashamed in His presence.

However, the story doesn't end in paradise. We critically examine the entrance of the serpent, who uses crafty questions to distort God's boundaries and sow doubt. When the first humans ate from the tree, sin birthed an isolating shame, causing them to hide. How often do we do the exact same thing today? We disguise our true selves and shrink back from the abundant life God promised.

Yet, God's response wasn’t abandonment; it was a loving pursuit. He asked, "Where are you?"—a relational question aimed at restoring fellowship. Listen in as we explore the promise of cosmic redemption, God's gracious provision of garments to cover our shame, and the ultimate prophecy of Jesus Christ crushing the enemy's head. You are a spiritual billionaire with full access to God's promises; it is time to cash that check and claim your worth.

Break free from the enemy’s lies, overcome spiritual isolation, and hear your Heavenly Father declare over you once again, "You are very good".

Transcript

Um, over the last few years I've become kind of obsessed with the idea of story. And in particular, um, God's story, the big overarching story of the Bible. Um, the older I get and the crazier this world gets, the more I feel the urgency to root ourselves in the story of God. Um, so that we know who he is, so that we know who we are, and so that we can interpret well the things that are happening around us. Cause who knows that there's a lot of stories going around out there. And it's easy to get swept up in stories that aren't true. So the more we're anchored in the true story, um, the more readily we're able to reject false stories. And this is so important because what we believe, the story we're living in, the story we tell ourselves determines the course of our life and how we live.

Um, I recently heard John Lennox, who is um an Irish mathematician and theologian, he has a wonderful accent, I wish I could just play the clip. But I heard him say, um, it is an utter tragedy that the two parts of the Bible that have been attacked so much are the creation narrative and Revelation. And it's not surprising because you need a past to have an identity and you need a future to have hope. Two things the world is without. Identity and hope. The the historicity of the Bible is questioned in the creation narrative and apocalyptic literature is really hard to understand, right? And so these two things are debated and contested but in the midst of that sometimes we can lose what we need the most, which is identity: This is my story, this is where I come from, and hope: This is my future, this is where I'm headed, this is what God's gonna do.

God loves stories. And so do we. We live inside of a story. And every story has setting, characters, like a hero and a villain, every story has some kind of conflict and resolution. This is like the makeup of a story. And stories really matter because they communicate truth in a way that reaches through our minds to our hearts. Stories invite reflection and application and transformation in a different kind of way than information does. Stories draw us in and they awaken things deep within us because we were made for narrative. And the Bible is not a collection of disconnected teachings, but one grand story, from beginning to end. And it follows the arc that every good story follows, which is a perfect beginning, a tragic fall, a costly redemption, and a restoration. So if you're writing a good book or making a good movie, that's what you're going for.

So the first story, the story of Eden, is of the utmost importance to us because it's our origin story. It sets the foundation for the rest of the Bible and it sets the foundation for our lives. If you have um been a believer in Christ for some time, this story may have been like long gone lost on you. You've heard it too many times, it's become rote. Um, it it is uh boring maybe. Irrelevant to your life, it's a children's tale 'cause there's talking animals in it, I don't know. You may have lost connection to its profound impact on us. But we want to revive that this weekend.

Um, do you guys know that there are other creation narratives out there? Some that emerged around the same time that this one was written. I was reading about one of them, the Babylonian creation narrative. Um, I was reading this out of the book The Genesis of Gender by Abigail Favale, it's like Cavalli but with an F. Favale. Um, the Babylonian creation story contrasts the biblical Genesis account um to highlight the Bible's unique vision of human identity. In the Babylonian myth, it portrays creation as the result of violent conflict. where the god Marduk kills the goddess Tiamat and forms the world by ripping her body in two and making half of it the sky and half of it the earth. And then humans are created from her blood and they are made to serve the gods as slaves so that the gods have to do less work. I prefer our version.

In contrast, Genesis presents creation as a loving gift from God, with humans intentionally made in His image with divine blessing and purpose. Leslie Newbigin from a book called A Conversation with a Hindu Friend says, I can't understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion. And anyway, we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don't need any more. I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole of religious literature of the world to put alongside it.

So I want to read our creation narrative afresh. And I want us to find ourselves again in this story. I want us to be reminded and refreshed of who our God is and what he is like and how he has made us and what that means for us today. Who he originally created us to be as his daughters. And I want this story to be our story. Okay? We have an important part to play in it.

So we're gonna start in Genesis 1 and we're gonna kind of, we're gonna kind of go through it. We're gonna skip around. I'm gonna draw things out. So you're gonna bear with me, all right? But we're gonna start in Genesis 1:1. If you have a Bible you can turn with me.

The first words of the book, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

A few things I want us to see. First of all is that God created the whole world with his voice. How cool is that? He could have created it in a lot of ways, right? But he spoke. Let there be light. And there it was. His words have immense power to create and bring about life. It's how we all got started. And he still, to this day, his words have immense power to create and bring about life. And everything we see was created by his voice. The first words he ever spoke, I don't know if they were audible or not. Have you guys ever read The Magician's Nephew from the Chronicles of Narnia? There's like a, I don't know, five pages in there I wanted to read all of them to you because it's the best to like my imagination, what I could imagine this scene being like. It's the closest thing I've read. And Aslan the lion is calling a new world into existence by singing and it's so incredible. But that's I always think of it when I read this account. God's first words and his first act was let there be light and he created light in the darkness. I was thinking about how this will also be, it's like his first act, his first words, light burst forth in the darkness, it's still what he's doing to this day and it will be his final act too. Light will burst forth into the darkness and swallow up all darkness forever. It's the first thing that he did, it's the last thing he'll do.

So creation begins with his voice. So we go along, he keeps creating more things. He creates day and night. He creates land and sea. He creates birds and fish. He creates vegetation, he creates animals. And as we go along, there's this uh, this rhythm that we hear through the things he's making. It says God said, and then whatever he said he created and it happened. I also like this line I see over and over again through chapters 1 and 2, and it was so. He said it, and it was so. He said it, and it was so. But another rhythm we see is he said, let there be light, and then he saw that what he made was good. So he said, it was created, he saw it, he looked at it, and said, it is good. It is good. It is good. It is good. It is good. Like he was so enjoying what he was doing and what he was making.

So up until this point as he's creating all these different days of creation, it's like the chorus of his song has been it is good, it is good. And now he gets to day six, the climax of his creation, and he creates human beings. And after he creates them, he says, it is very good. He creates human beings, it says in verse 31 of chapter 1, and God saw everything that he had made, all together, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Now I want you guys to understand this word good. Because we kind of use good like, "Oh hey, how are you? I'm good." Like, "I'm okay. I'm mediocre." Or like, "Oh, you went and tried that new restaurant, how was it?" "It was good." It's like good, not great, right? But this word is different than that. This word, and you guys know I have to do this, so my oldest daughter got married two weeks ago. Two weeks ago tomorrow. And so what I thought about when I read this is when someone asks asks asks me how was Avery's wedding? I say, "It was so good. So good." With like a twinkle in my eye. I literally drew a happy face with star eyes. It was so good. And this word means like so pleasing, like I am so pleased. It means delightful, it the feeling is like something is exactly what it was meant to be. It is beautiful is a better interpretation of it. It's like the way my new son-in-law in love looked at my daughter on their wedding day. How beautiful she was. It is good. That's the feeling. Breathtakingly good.

And this is what our Father God as he goes along creating this place that we live and creating us keeps saying. Beautiful. Beautiful. So good, so pleased, so delighted. And we were made to live under the "it is good" of God. We were made to receive the affirmation of our Father looking at us and saying, "you're exactly what I wanted you to be. You're so good. You're so pleasing to me. You're so beautiful." We were made to live under that voice. It's the voice we were made for. And when we go without this voice, when we go when we are living our lives without the voice of God, without the blessing and affirmation of God, we try to find it, right? We try to get it in what we do, we try to get it from who's around us, and we we shrivel like a plant without sun or water. All of creation was made by this voice. All of creation was made to hear this voice declaring value and worth over it.

Let's go to chapter 2 verse 7. Now he's gonna make humans and I want to read this together. It says then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, he made a place for them to live. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Two trees and a choice is put in the place he made for them, because he made sons and daughters and not slaves. So he made a place for them to live, a place of beauty, a place of provision, a place of nourishment, a place where they had everything that they needed and they were cared for. And I want you to see that all of creation was made by his voice, right? Let there be light, let there be land, let there be sea, let there be birds, let there be fish in the sea. And then when he comes to make us, he gets his hands involved. He gets his hands dirty. We're the only piece of creation that was handmade by God. Not only handmade, but as he formed the human, he breathed his breath of life into Adam and Adam became a man. And as Adam received the breath of God which made him live, the first thing he saw was the face of God. This is how he made humans.

Skip down to verse 16, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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. I want you guys to see... Oh, I know what it is. No, have I lost it? Sorry guys. Okay, we're gonna go back. This is how I lost it. Um, go back to chapter 1 verse 28 and I want to point out two things to you. Okay, so there's this is why I got confused because there's in chapter 1 and chapter 2, two descriptions of him creating humans. So in verse 26 he says let us, um now the Trinity has come into this, let us, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, make man in our image and after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. So the first thing he does, he creates them in his own image. So the only part of creation that are image bearers of God, so he made us to be like him. And then he immediately gives them everything he has. He creates them and then hands over the entire world he's just made to them. Is he generous or is he stingy? He's generous.

Then, before he tells them that they're good, in verse 28 it says and God blessed them. And I want you to understand that this um, this word he blessed them means that God gave them his favor. That God gave them divine power to flourish. To have fullness of life in the world that he made for them. It's like he's saying, I've made you for life, live. I bless you to live. May life overflow through you. May life spread out through you. And he blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you the whole earth. Every plant yielding seed that's on the face of the earth and every tree with its seed in its fruit and you shall have them for food. And then it says, and it was so and God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good.

So he makes the man and the woman. He immediately gives them everything he has. And blesses them that they would have divine power to flourish and be carriers of life in the world that he's made. Then he creates a garden for them, he sets them in the garden, the garden's full of trees that produce food for him, for them. And we're going back to now 2:17. 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. And basically what this means is dangerous tree, don't eat it, it'll kill you. Dangerous tree, don't eat it, don't even touch it, it'll kill you. So he he gave them the whole world he made, he gave them the whole garden and all of the trees in the garden and he gave them a tree of life that would keep them alive eternally. And he said this one tree right here, dangerous tree, don't eat it, it'll kill you. Is he generous or is he stingy?

Then the Lord God said in verse 18, the only time in the story, he's like good, good, it's good, it's good, it's good, you're very good. And then he says, it is not good. And it's the only not good. And it says it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. He gave Adam the power to name things. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then he said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. These are their wedding vows. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

So here's Adam, he has God, he has all of creation, he has all of these animals. And God is saying it's not good. You shouldn't be alone. Isolation's not good. And God has created all of these, did you guys know, I didn't find this out until some of my friends got into gardening, but there's male and female plants. There's male and female plants and trees can't make fruit unless there's male and female around. Spreading things, I don't know how it works. There's male and female plants. There's male and female plants, there's male and female animals. None of them can produce fruit or offspring without one another. There's this interdependence that God has woven into creation. And he looks at Adam and says it's not good. Where's your buddy? Right? And he makes Eve. Partnership is what God wanted. Remember let us make man in our image. The Trinity, the us created an us. And the one man was torn in two and became two. And then Eve was created and the two became one again, which is this profound mystery of oneness that God loves. And I want you to catch this last line in verse 25. It says, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Meaning that they were seen and known with no guilt or moral failure or dishonor or hiding. They were fully open, totally safe, unafraid before each other and before God. And God liked that they were not ashamed. I just find it interesting like this is the first time an emotion like this is named and they were not ashamed. Hmm. It's interesting. It's an interesting word.

Alright let's move into chapter three. 3 verse 1. Now the serpent... dun dun dun. Who is this? New character. Now the serpent was more crafty. More crafty means wise in the things of evil. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. Okay. Who's who's this serpent? What do we know about this serpent? So here we have a shift in our story. Up until this point we've had a protagonist, a hero. And the protagonist is the main character of a story usually. The protagonist is the good guy, which I actually I love this because God is actually the good guy. Like he's like good, good, good, good, good, good. Good guy. Okay. He and the protagonist advocates for a particular cause. Okay? The antagonist is the villain in a story. The antagonist is a character who opposes or stands against or struggles with the protagonist. The bad guy. And he tries to destroy the mission of the hero. Okay? So both the protagonist and the antagonist, the hero and the villain, have a mission. The Bible tells us that God's mission is life. John 10:10, Jesus says, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Like not just a little bit. Overflowing life. The Bible tells us that Satan's mission is death and that he comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. That's his mission. Okay?

So what do we know about this serpent in the third chapter of the Bible? I mean we're just we're barely into this story, right? What do we know about this guy? Well we know that the serpent was originally a created angel. So in Ezekiel 28:12-17 he is described as a being who was in Eden and was blameless until wickedness was found in you. In Isaiah 14:12-15 it speaks of one who said in his heart, I will ascend and I will make myself like the Most High. So this guy is gunning for God's job. We know that Satan rebelled against God. He was an angel that rebelled against God. The New Testament tells us in Luke 10:18 that Satan fell like lightning from heaven. And in Revelation 12 it describes a war in heaven where Satan and his angels are cast down to earth. So he has led other angels astray. They have become his followers, we call them demons, and they've been cast down to earth. We know that by the time of Eden, Satan has already become the deceiver. So there is a backstory. It's like, oh here we are in this story and here's this talking serpent who is opposing God, what's up with this? So we're figuring out we're in a war. Here we are in creation and but there's a backstory we don't fully know about and there's an enemy of God and there's a war going on. Revelation 12:9 says that ancient serpent, called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. So by the time Adam and Eve are in the garden Satan has already rebelled, fallen from heaven, become the enemy of God and the deceiver of humanity, and here he is. Appearing as a serpent. A talking snake. We know that his goal was to oppose God and corrupt God's good creation. Um in John 8:44 it says that he was a murderer from the beginning and that he questions God's word and he re- he distorts the truth and he is tempting humanity to distrust God. That's what he's up to. So there's a little bit of the back story on this crafty serpent who is the antagonist and villain in our story.

So he says to the woman... he gets her alone. He gets her alone. And he says... the first thing he does is he asks a question. "Did God really say...?" Did God actually say like, really? So innocent, right? "I'm just asking." And then the question he asks is, "Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" Do you guys know this move? Do you guys know this move? Let's say maybe your friend's dating someone and you're not really into him. And you kind of ask a question that's sort of strategic to exaggerate the qualities about him we've agreed aren't great. Do you know what I mean? There's there's there's a motive in your question asking. You're wanting the answer to land in a certain place. You're asking it strategically. Okay, this is what the enemy is doing. He's innocently asking a strategic question that will get Eve down the road of thinking... Is he generous or stingy? She knows the truth and she says, the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the one tree in the middle of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die." But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die." Lie. For God knows... now he's lying about God... "For God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So he lies. You won't die. God has said, you will die. No you won't. Then he lies about God and again the lie is strategic to make Eve believe that God is holding out on her, that he's not generous, that he's not good, that he has ulterior motives, that there's power he's withholding, that she shouldn't trust him. This stuff is ripe, you guys. And then he gives her a false promise. You will be like God. They were already like God. They were made in his image. But he wanted her to think there was something else that she needed. And so he tempts her to be independent and to operate autonomously, I I think about how he got her alone and I just wonder with curiosity like what would have happened if she had just brought in one other person? Like, "Hey Adam, what do you think about what this snake is saying? Hey God, this serpent's saying this to me, what do you think about it?" But she tangos with the enemy alone. She's isolated. She believes what he says.

And in verse um, in 3 verse 6 it says, "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. And then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves." And here conflict has entered our story. But I just want to... this is us, right? I read this line, it was good for food, and it was delightful to the eyes, and it was good for making one wise, and this sounds a lot like the lines I run in my head before I buy things. I need it, I want it, it will help me. It will, I need it, I like it, it will help me be better. Right? This is familiar. I'm like, I would have, I would have fallen, just like her. I would have fell for it. I have compassion on her. I want you to notice that the second they disobeyed God and did what he said not to do, they knew immediately they'd been deceived and it was a lie. And in verse 8 it says they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife, what did the sin, what did the lie and the sin make them do? They hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God. See because sin creates death and it produces separation and hiding, it always does. And sadly, often the first person we're running from is God. But listen to this. The Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" He comes looking for them. Do you think he didn't know where they were? It's not a location question. It's a relational question. Where'd you go? Where you at? And Adam said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and so I hid." I want you to notice, these are the first times in the Bible we are hearing these words. Afraid. Sin makes him immediately fearful. I was afraid, I was afraid because I was naked. Shame. He's experiencing shame for the first time. And so I hid. Separation. Isolation. This is what lies and sin produce in our lives. How does God respond? He's asking questions. Where'd you go? Do you know how kind questions are? You know when someone asks you questions, they love you. He's not like, "I know where you are, what'd you do? Why'd you do that?" You know? "Where'd you go?" Adam says, "I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid." Next thing God asks, "Who told you that?" Whose voice have you been listening to? Who told you you were naked? He is prompting confession out of Adam and Eve. And he's prompting confession because he knows that that's how restoration happens is through confession. That's how relationship gets repaired is through confession. "Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate it." Yep. Shame, blame. Shame, blame. Anyone do this? He blames God, the woman you gave me, she made me do it. He blames Eve. Okay. He fails. Then God asks Eve, "What is this that's happened?" She says, "The serpent deceived me, she knows. She knows. It was a lie. She knows. It was a false promise, it's over, it's done, she's handed her authority over to the enemy and she's lost her spiritual life. The serpent deceived me and I ate." She gets it better than Adam did. And then we watch God, he doesn't curse Adam and Eve. He curses the serpent. He curses the ground. He gives consequences to Adam and Eve. Um, the power that they gave to the serpent is now causing the world that he created to begin to unravel. It's the undoing of what he has made. And their divine vocation, the things he gave them to do are marred by sin. And God knows that this can't go on forever. And so he has to remove them from the tree of life. He's like, they can't live forever in this state. Something else is going to have to happen. I have to remove them from the tree of life so they don't live like this forever. And then in verse 15 he promises restoration. I mean, right in the middle of their mess. I mean, they messed the whole perfect thing up. And right in the middle of their mess, he promises to rescue them. In verse 15, "I will put enmity between you and the woman", he's talking to the snake, "and between your offspring and her descendant. He shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel." And right here at the very beginning, the Father God promises his son, the serpent crusher. He will send him to bring spiritual life back to his people. Jesus will destroy the enemy, and the enemy will destroy Jesus with a deadly bite. We see the promise right there. And then I want you to skip to verse 21, the last thing I want you to see. It says, "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them." He curses the enemy, he has to make changes to the way things are. He promises a rescue, and he clothes his people who have like patched together leaves to try to cover themselves. He clothes their shame and their nakedness. And he's the first one to make a sacrifice so that his people would be clothed.

So I want to look at this story and I want to draw out... I want to draw out particular things that we see about what our Father God is like based on our origin story, the first story. Genesis 1 through 3 reveals a profoundly relational, intentional, and faithful father. Before sin ever enters the story, God shows us what he's like and even after humanity fails epically, his heart towards his children does not change. So the first thing I want you to notice is that he is a good and generous creator who loves to bless. That he creates with purpose and order and beauty and abundance. And he freely gives it to the people that he loves. He repeatedly calls his work good, and then he gives it away freely to Adam and Eve. He partners with them. Co he makes them co-creators. He makes them stewards of the world he's made. He creates light before labor. He creates rest before responsibility. We didn't we didn't get to touch on this, but on the seventh day God rests from the work that he had done. But that was the first day for Adam and Eve. So their life began in a Sabbath rest with God. And the work they were going to do with God flowed from that place. He gives Adam and Eve a world designed to sustain them and to delight them and to include them. And he blesses them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it as his partners. And he's a father who loves to bless. He's a father who delights in giving and doesn't delight in withholding.

Secondly, he is personal and he's near. He's not distant or mechanical. He speaks, he forms with his hands, he breathes, he becomes he's the gardener, he's planting things. He gets involved. He walks and talks with them. He knows them. He's conversational. They are naked with him and each other and they're unashamed. They're completely free, completely safe in his presence.

Thirdly, he is a provider who sets loving boundaries. Dangerous tree, don't eat it, it'll kill you. Okay? He gives Adam and Eve everything that they need and he puts one boundary. And the boundary is not for punishment, it's for protection. And the obedience of that is meant to flow from a place of trust, not a place of fear. And out of love, God is the one that decides good, bad, right? Like that's what that tree was was about. It was the knowledge of good and evil. It was who decides good, bad. And God had decided good, bad. And like a loving parent who wants to raise children that are free... I I want my girls to be free. But who knows in this room that if I did not have loving boundaries in their lives I would not have free daughters, I would have dead daughters. Right? Because don't touch that, that'll burn you. Don't run out there, you're going to get slammed by a car. Like we put loving boundaries around the things that we care about the most. And we protect them so that they can flourish and thrive. And when Adam and Eve decide, "When Eve decided, I'll decide good, bad for myself." She opened the Pandora's box of darkness into the world. So like a good father, God's no exists to preserve life, not restrict flourishing.

Fourthly, he's truthful and trustworthy. So in this story God's word proves true. What he said, checked out, right? The serpent's words proved false. The serpent was deceptive. God tells the truth about life and death. Dangerous tree, don't eat it, it'll kill you. They they became spiritually dead. The enemy questions God's goodness. Did God really say? He promotes lies and distrust and disobedience. And he his words leave Eve naked and afraid and ashamed. So Genesis shows us that sin is not even about like "Oh, I broke the rules." Like, sin is about distrusting our good father. Obedience is about trusting our good father.

Fifthly, he's grieved by sin but still pursuing. So after the fall, God comes looking for his children. Where are you? Who told you? Did you eat of the tree? He draws out confession to bring restoration. He listens and asks questions. He names consequences honestly. But he does not abandon them. This is a father who confronts sin because he loves us, without withdrawing love. Because he knows that sin produces death and separation. And sadly, often the first person we're running from is God. But listen to this. The Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" He comes looking for them. Do you think he didn't know where they were? It's not a location question. It's a relational question. Where'd you go?

Sixthly, is that a word? Sixthly, he is a covering God. Adam and Eve try to cover themselves with fig leaves. God replaces them with garments of skin. And the first sacrifice was made. And it was costly. And God is the one who makes it. He's also the one who makes the last sacrifice for his people. And he sacrifices his son to be a permanent once and for all covering. For all of us who fail and sin in the same epic ways that our mother Eve does. And his covering is sufficient. Even in judgment, God acts as a father who covers shame and preserves our dignity. He is a God who makes sacrifices for us. Catalina and I have a friend named Rosie. Where are you, Cat? We have a friend named Rosie. Who is the most precious, tiny little Mexican mama you will ever meet in your life. I wish all of you knew her. And um, one day she was talking to me, she speaks beautiful broken English. Like I love the way that she talks. She was trying to tell me a story about um her son who is in his early 20s um who started to go blind. And lost his sight. And through broken English she's trying to tell me that she went with him to the doctor's office. And she asked the doctor if she could give him her eyes. I've never heard anything more God-like. This is this is his heart. He sees his people go blind and it's like let me give you my eyes. He sees his people, his creation that he loves become spiritually dead and says let me send the most precious thing I have. My Son. To give his life in exchange to you so that you can return to Eden, to the place I made for you, so that you can be restored to spiritual life. This is what our Father God is like.

He's a redeeming father from the beginning. This is the seventh thing. Genesis 3 includes the first promise of redemption. The seed who will crush the serpent. Let me send you my son. Let me give you my life for your death. Let me restore what has been lost. From moment one, he has a plan for restoration. And the father's response to our rebellion is not abandonment, but rescue. This is who he is.

And now I want to point out a couple of things um that I see that we were made for when I read our origin story, the first story. We were made for God. We were made for relationship with God. We were made to belong to God, to live under his "it is good", to experience his acceptance and his pleasure over us, to live under his blessing, that we would flourish in life from the source of God, is what we were made for. We were made for his voice. We were made for his voice above all other voices. We were created to live with him unashamed and fully known.

Secondly, we were made for security. We were created, he created a world for us where all that we needed was provided. We were totally cared for. And he put boundaries around us like a loving parent does so that we could feel safe and be secure. God gives abundance and one boundary. Freedom is not autonomy without limits, but a trust-filled life within God's wisdom. Boundaries exist to protect that life he's given us. And he made us to live secure and safe and confident in him.

And then thirdly, he made us for significance. We were created for meaningful, divine purpose. He brought us into the story and made us co-creators with him. Co-stewards of this incredible world he had made. He gave us authority to spread out and grow and thrive and flourish and multiply and rule and name and care for what he had made. He made us for significance. He entrusted us with the stewardship of everything that he made to cultivate it, to keep it, to name it, to rule over it with care. And that purpose has nothing to do with proving our worth. The purpose is an expression of the worth that we already have. I know that I belong to God. I know that he's accepted me. I hear his "you are good." I am living in the blessing of God and all that flows from my life is the overflow of the worth that I have in God. I'm not trying to prove or gain anything.

Going without God's voice of truth in our lives, going without our sense of belonging and acceptance from our Father, going without a sense of security and safety within the loving boundaries of God, going without divine significant purpose... Again, makes us that plant without water, air, sunshine, we shrivel without it. He wants us to live out of this place with him. It is what he made us for.

And I keep thinking about this idea of like, you know, do you guys ever like daydream that someone just writes you a check for a billion dollars? My friends tell me I have a magical mind. But let's just think for a second. Just, you know, hypothetically, someone writes you a check for a billion dollars. Like, it's a check, it's a legit check, it has your name on it, it's for a billion dollars. Just think about what that would mean for you. Like, all debt, everything that you owe could be paid off like this. Relationships made right. Anything that you're dreaming about doing, you could do. You could be so generous, you could bless the life of everyone around you. I mean, it would be a really big thing, right, to receive that. Any of you ever get like an e-gift card as a gift? And then forget about it? Like it's just down, it's way down there in your inbox. And maybe you forgot about it for two years until you drove by the place and it reminded you, 'I have an e-gift card,' and now it's expired, you know? That happens to me. I could have a check for a billion dollars. I could be a billionaire. But if I don't ever cash the check and live off of it, I'm only a hypothetical billionaire. I'm not one in reality, I'm not one that's actually living out of the goodness of receiving that gift.

We are spiritual billionaires. What, what God, who he is, what he has done, what he has given to us in the gift of his Son that restored Eden to us... Like when Jesus was walking the earth and he would say, "The kingdom of God is here," this is what he was talking about. Eden is restored now. Even Eden will be restored once and for all forever. We're gonna return to Eden, to the place I made for you, so that you can be restored to spiritual life. This is what our Father God is like. We are completely, entirely provided for. And some of us have the check. And we're kind of like, yeah I don't know, it's probably not real. I think someone got the name wrong on the check. And we stick it like in the top drawer of our dresser and it changes our life not one iota. The invitation from God to us is to make cash this check. Make this the truest thing about our lives. Make this the reality that we are living from. This is my Father in heaven. This is what he is like. This is what he has done for me. And I have everything because I have him.

And so we wanna spend a little bit of time right now. We wanna take a few minutes and just reflect on this. And in your booklet you're gonna see that there is one page that says the names of God. And again, it's just kind of doubling down on what we've been talking about. This is what our Father in heaven is like. And I want you to look at that or I want you to think about some of the things I've already told you about what he's like. He's near. He's relational. He doesn't withdraw when I make mistakes. He pursues me. He's asking questions to see that I would be restored to him. I want you to think about these things we've talked about about what the Father is like and I want you to journal a response to that. What are you needing to know about God? How are you personally needing to know him more? What are you lacking? You might read through some of those names and go like, "Oh I know, I know that he's faithful. I could tell you stories of his faithfulness. But I don't know that he's my friend. I don't relate to him that way. I've not experienced him like that." And I want you to circle that and go, "I want I want you. I want to know you like this." And then on the other side there's a list of we're looking at that acceptance and that security and that significance and there's truths about what it means, my identity in Christ. What Christ has done for me and what it means about who I am. And I want you to underline or circle some of those that you're like, "I don't believe this about myself. I want to believe this and I want to live off of this."

And then in a few minutes, um, after we've given you a few minutes, we're gonna invite um the prayer team up. And there's a team of women who have been praying for you. And I just had a sense like, um, you know, we're women. And we can we can spend ourselves on behalf of others. And and I just know that there's some of us, many of us in this room, we're needing to hear the voice of our Father say, "you're very good. You're so pleasing to me. You bring me delight." And we we need to receive, maybe for the first time ever, maybe afresh, the blessing of God. And these sisters are gonna be up here ready to listen to God on your behalf and pray for you and um speak truth over you, speak the heart of God over you and the blessing of God over you. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to take a break and then we're going to come back and talk about chapter three.