The Dream of God


07/16/2006 - The Dream is Shattered



A few years ago, psychologist and counselor Larry Crabb wrote a book called Shattered Dreams: God's Unexpected Pathway to Joy. And in it he writes, "Carl told me just this morning that he had begged God for years to make his desire for holiness stronger than his lust for pornography. It hasn't happened. He fights temptation every day. He loses a lot."

"Suzanne privately wishes she had stayed with her promising career in marketing. She is fifty-two years old. Her husband, Joe, is a workaholic, emotionally numb and rarely there. Her three children, on balance, are more of a disappointment than a joy. She knows God could have arranged for her never to meet Joe. She would have stayed with the firm that is now doing so well. God could have arranged things differently. He didn't."

"Pete never knew his dad. When he came to Christ at age twenty-two, he discovered his longing for a close relationship with an older man. He expected to find one in his new circle of Christian friends. He hasn't."

"Peggy is thirty-eight and single. Her job is decent, she likes her dog, and she keeps herself busy. Whenever she watches a movie where a man pursues a woman, she cries. A deep part of her heart remains untouched. She wonders why God doesn't either bring along a good man who would want her or help her to feel more fulfilled in Christ. He's done neither."

"Mark always wanted to be a professor. When his dad died, he dropped out of college to support his mother and four younger siblings. He got into sales and made a lot of money. Now, at age fifty-seven, he enjoys a good marriage, both his kids are happily married and well off, and Mark is positioned to retire early. His heart still aches when he dreams of a classroom in a small college. His dream will never be. When the pastor preached last Sunday on 'The Courage to Dream,' he told his wife he wasn't feeling well and left."

Shattered dreams. Everyone. About these shattered dream experiences, Crabb says, "God will never allow suffering to come into our lives that is not necessary to achieve His good purpose. He doesn't like to see us suffer …. When you hurt, hurt. Hurt openly in the presence of God. Hurt openly in the presence of the few who provide you with safe community. Feel your pain. Regard brokenness as an opportunity, as the chance to discover a desire that no brokenness can eliminate but that only brokenness reveals …. People who find some way to deaden their pain never discover their desire for God in all its fullness. They'd rather live for relief and become addicts to whatever provides it."

Shattered dreams. We all have them. God has them too. God understands shattered dreams. God knows the pain and heartache of having a precious dream die. This morning we continue our series called The Dream of God: Bringing Heaven to Earth with a teaching I've called"The Dream is Shattered."

Last week, we began this series in a beautiful, lush garden. That's where God's dream begins, in the Garden of Eden. And God's dream is that he will live in peace and harmony with all that he created. He calls his creation good, very good and he enjoys a natural, close friendship with the first two people that he creates, Adam and Eve. And they get along with each other too. They feel perfectly safe and secure in each other's presence. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

For a time God's dream is a reality. Heaven and earth overlap in the garden and it's wonderful. And that's still God's dream today. God still longs to live in peace and harmony with all that he has created. He still wants to be our friend. He still desires for people to get along with each other and to be perfectly safe and secure in each other's presence. His desire today is that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what Jesus told us to pray.

But as we all know it doesn't always happen that way. There are plenty of things that are wrong with this world or that go wrong in our lives. Lots of our dreams get shattered. And that can all be traced back to what happened in the garden when God's dream was shattered. If you have a Bible turn with me to Genesis 3.

Genesis 3 is one of the most incredible chapters in the Bible. Someone has said, "In many ways this is the most important piece of information ever conveyed to humankind. Ignore the teaching of this chapter in history and the story of humanity becomes impossible to understand. The most striking thing about this chapter is that we all find ourselves in it."

So let's look at it together starting with Genesis 3:1-5, 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'?" 2The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but 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.'" 4"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 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."

Part of God's dream for Adam and Eve included the good gift of freedom. They were given freedom of choice. They were not created to be pre-programmed robots. And the test of that freedom came in the form of a tree that God placed in the middle of the garden. He called it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the only restriction he placed on the man and the woman was the restriction not to eat from it.

He puts it this way in Genesis 2:16-17, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Adam and Eve could freely eat from any other tree in the garden. They could have it all, apples, oranges, bananas, peaches, pears, mangos, coconuts, everything except the fruit that grew on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They could look at the tree. They could smell it. They could touch it. They could climb it. They could even build a tree fort in it if they wanted. But they were not to eat from it. That was the choice they had to make. That was the choice that would demonstrate their love for God.

Put another way, their choice was to live in peace and harmony with God and all that he had made, to put to good use all the power and potential and ability that God had given them or to bag the whole deal and choose to be their own gods and go their own way and steer creation into a whole different direction.

God has given each one of us power and potential and ability too. When we use that power well we further the dream of God. When we misuse or abuse that power we turn the dream of God into a nightmare. Adam and Eve misused their power and their choice was so toxic because they were placed in the middle of a complex web of relationships with the world that God had made. So when they sinned, their actions threw out of balance the whole thing. Weather. Trees. Oceans. It's all interconnected. When one part starts to fracture, the whole thing starts to crumble.

Adam who came from the ground, adamah, and Eve who came from Adam can't be separated from their environment. When one part falls out of harmony everything is affected. As Romans 8 says, The whole creation has been groaning ever since. It's all out of whack.

So in verse 6 we read that, 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. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Adam and Eve use their God given, image bearing freedom to make a poor choice. They choose to disconnect from God and reject any limits placed on their freedom. The dream of heaven on earth is shattered. The "Adam bomb" explodes in Genesis 3 and the radioactive fallout begins immediately.

Look at verse 8,Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

Sin has its consequences and we see them right way. First, the shame. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the fear. When I heard you in the garden, I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.

And then the blame game begins. Look at verse 11, And God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 12The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

"It's not my fault," the man says. "It's the woman that YOU put here, God. YOU gave her to me. So it's really your fault!" And then God turns to the woman and she says, "It's not my fault either. It's the serpent who's to blame." Does any of this sound familiar? Do you ever have conversations like this in your home? Well you can trace them all the way back to the garden. Sin. Shame. Fear. Blame. The fallout continues to this day.

Look at verse 14 , So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." 16To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

Sin always brings consequences because justice is a part of God's character. And his justice cannot be violated without consequence. And the fall out for Adam and Eve and all of us who come after them is devastating. After cursing the serpent, God says to the woman, "Life will go on. But now it will be a painful process. Suffering will be a part of every new life that is brought into the world. That's not what I dreamed about, that's not what I wanted, but because of your choice that's the way it will be."

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Because of sin the woman will long for intimacy and community with her husband, but her desire for intimacy and community will be met with domination and a desire to control. That's not what God dreamed about, that's not what he wanted, but because of sin that's the way it is. The rule of man over woman is no more God's desire for us than suffering, pain, and death. They are all the fallout of sin.

The woman desires a mate and instead she gets a master. And the man gets a new master too. Look at verse 17,To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

The man is mastered by the earth. To the man God says, "You're going to sweat. Work is going to get tough. There's going to be weeds and thorns in the garden. That's not what I dreamed of, that's not what I wanted, but because of your choice that's the way it will be." Work isn't part of the curse, sweat and toil is. Then death will come. From the dust you came and to the dust you will return. The man is mastered by the earth from which he came, just like the woman is mastered by the man from which she came.

And one word sums up the curse for Adam and Eve and all of us who come after them and the word is pain, pain in childbirth, pain in relationships, pain in work. Sin always results in pain to someone, somehow, somewhere.

God's dream is shattered in the garden. But in the garden, God also plants the seed for his dream to be restored. And that seed comes in the form of a person. If one word sums up the curse, pain. Then one word sums up God's solution to the curse and that word is Jesus.

Look at Genesis 3:15. In speaking to the serpent God says, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Verse 15 is talking about Jesus, the offspring of a woman named Mary, who will one day come and crush the serpent's head while the serpent strikes his heel. God is already looking ahead to the battle that will take place between Satan and Jesus. The Evil One did strike Jesus on the cross. But Jesus crushed him in the process. Jesus comes to reverse the effects of the curse. Adam and Eve ate from a tree and broke their fellowship with God. Jesus dies on a tree to restore our fellowship with God. The serpent brought the temptation. Jesus will become the serpent lifted up on a pole. Adam and Eve sin in the garden. Jesus is buried in a garden tomb. Adam and Eve are ashamed of their nakedness. Jesus hangs naked on the cross. The curse brings thorns and sweat and blood. Jesus wears a crown of thorns, sweats drops of blood, and becomes the curse for us, reversing the effects of the curse. He comes to end all forms of domination and instead calls us to love and serve one another.

And apparently Adam believes in the hope that God promises because he names his wife Eve. Look at verse 20, Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

Adam has faith. He believes God's promise that life will go on and that Eve will become the mother of all the living.

Then God does a couple of amazing things in verses 21-24, The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Grace is the word that sums up God's response. First, he makes Adam and Eve garments to cover up their shame. He doesn't say, "That's your problem. Deal with it!" No, he takes care of them at the cost of the first animal sacrifice. And from then on we learn that animal sacrifices will become the symbol of the fact that one day Jesus would make the ultimate sacrifice for us as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Then he does a second thing that's another act of grace. He drives them out of the garden so that they can't eat from the tree of life and live forever in a state of separation from God. He didn't want them living forever with the shame and fear and blame that was going on in their lives.

God's dream turns into a nightmare in the garden. And we feel the effects of it to this very day. But will creation always be this way?

In Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell writes, "Will creation always be like this? Fractured? Chaotic? This has been the question for thousands of years. And central to the Jewish world of Jesus was the belief that God not only hadn't given up on creation, but was also actively at work within it, bringing it back to how he originally intended it to be. The prophets had a way of talking about this restoration movement of God's. They spoke of God reclaiming the earth and restoring the world. They didn't talk about people going somewhere else at the end of time. They talked about God coming here at the end of time".

"And God isn't just interested in reclaiming his original dream for creation, he wants to take it further. Imagine if you took all the sin and death out of the Bible. You would be left with a short book. It would have four chapters to be exact: Genesis 1 & 2 and Revelation 21 & 22. In Genesis 1 & 2 we're told of a garden, but in Revelation 21 &22 we're told of a city … God just doesn't want to reclaim things. God wants to see them move forward."

The Bible is all about Jesus and what he did and what he's doing to restore the kingdom of God to this earth. Jesus is not the end. He is the means to the end which is to accomplish God's dream and bring God's kingdom to this world. He calls it the renewal of all things in Matthew 19:28. And we who follow Jesus are all part of that renewal movement. We ourselves have been renewed. If anyone is in Christ he or she is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come!

Shattered dreams. We all have them. God's dream was shattered too. But it's not over. He has a plan to one day fulfill his dreams and restore this world. Thank God that the story doesn't end in Genesis 3. And thank God that the story of our lives doesn't end either when our dreams get shattered.

In fact, shattered dreams are God's unexpected pathway to joy. In his book Larry Crabb writes, "One way God works in our lives is to allow our lower dreams to shatter. He lets us hurt and doesn't make it better. We suffer and He stands by and does nothing to help, at least nothing that we're aware we want Him to do. In fact, what He's doing while we suffer is leading us into the depths of our being, into the center of our soul where we feel our strongest passions …. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit first to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream …. Our shattered dreams are never random. They are not accidents of fate. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story. Pain is always a necessary mile on the long journey to joy." It was for God and it is for us.