Back in Eden
one
It’s amazing what God has allowed our civilization to accomplish
a. Our health, and our endless supply of food, the goods of family, the capacity for travel and leisure.
i. Only about two generations ago, the average middle-class family only spent 1% of its income on entertainment, vacation, fun
1. Today the average middle-class family spends more than on its cable bill alone.
a. Because we can satisfy our basic needs so cheaply, an increasingly large portion of our income is dedicated to simply enjoying life.
b. Put it another way: John D. Rockefeller, the richest person, relatively, in all history, who died when our grandparents were alive, didn’t enjoy the luxuries we all take for granted today
i. He couldn’t watch streaming T.V, play video games, surf the internet or send an email. He couldn’t benefit from the modern medical treatment we have, and he didn’t have air conditioning. For most of his life, he didn’t have access to cars or airplanes either.
c. Even poor people in our civilization have a really different experience of poverty than in the past. In the past, poor people had to worry about starving. In our civilization, the main nutritional problem for poor people is obesity.
d. It’s almost like God has put us back in Eden – back to a world of plenty, where we can enjoy the good things of this world before making the great voyage to the unimaginable goodness of Heaven
i. And yet what happens? People are committing suicide.
ii. People are voluntarily cutting off their own body-parts.
iii. So many suffer from depression and anxiety.
iv. People are miserable in paradise.
1. What’s going on?
two
Is God in the Garden?
a. At the end of the day, what made Eden paradise wasn’t the good food or the lack of suffering and sickness
i. It was the fact that God walked with our first parents – it was the intimacy Adam and Eve had with God their Father.
b. We were made, above all, for God. We were made, above all, to be loved by God.
i. No earthly pleasure, no worldly security, no amount of physical or psychological stimulation, can compensate for the emptiness we feel when we’re far from God.
c. So if you’re not with God– if you don’t talk to Him in prayer every day and cultivate a grateful awareness of His presence throughout the normal rhythm of your day – then all your worldly blessings are going to feel like poor substitutes for what you really want; because without God, that’s exactly what they are – just pathetic substitutes.
three
Accepting God’s Order, or breaking that order by putting ourselves at the center
a. God has established a gracious order in the world – like the orderly way he built the universe in Genesis
i. This order – the order of seasons, the order of phases in life, the order of work and rest, family, prayer, friendship and personal reflection – is very beautiful, and it exists to make us happy.
ii. This order is stable, which gives us a certain amount of security; but it’s also creative, which gives us surprise and the pleasure of novelty
b. Now the one way to destroy this order that is present in the world, in human life – is to make everything all about ourselves
i. Adam and Eve destroyed the order of Eden because they wanted to be gods themselves – to be the center of attention, to have ultimate control, to determine for themselves what was good and evil and the meaning of all things.
ii. When we make this world, or our lives, or our jobs, or our families, or our sexuality, or our bodies all about ourselves – we shatter the order of creation, and we lose the joy of paradise.
four
Adam and Eve could eat of any tree in the garden – but they still wanted more than they needed – and so they reached for the forbidden fruit
a. We have all the technologies and luxuries and abundance that previous times never dreamed of – Yet, the disorder in our hearts is nowhere more present than in our shameless pursuit of excess
i. When we have more than enough money, we want more
ii. Instead of being content with the beauty of married sexuality, we fornicate, commit adultery, and develop ever-more shocking tastes in porn.
iii. When we have plenty of good food and drinking water, we develop eating disorders, drinking problems, and drug dependencies.
iv. When we have the time to develop our minds, we aimlessly surf the internet
v. When we could be spending time with friends and family, and exploring the souls of the people who matter most to us, we would rather read and watch the disordered lives of celebrities.
b. The joy of this life relies on self-restraint.
i. This might sound crazy – but we have to cut back to be content with plenty.
ii. When we glut ourselves on too much, the sickness of our bodies and the sickness of our souls blinds us to the beauty of this astonishingly lovely world we’ve been given.
iii. When we eat that extra, forbidden apple, we lose paradise.
five
It’s a common theme in the Christian life that you have to be willing to suffer in this life if you’re going to be found worthy to be happy in the next life
a. But actually, just look around. Who seems to be happier?
i. The godless people, who tend to be more depressed, anxious, suicidal and prone to self-harm?
ii. Or really faithful people, who spend their time cultivating their families, eating together, visiting with good friends, learning and celebrating their faith, and growing old together in their marriages?
b. The Christian life doesn’t merely offer unimaginable, eternal happiness in heaven. It also offers the best formula for maximal happiness in this life.
i. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton used to say, “I get all this – and Heaven too?”
1. Yes, you do. You get the best of this life, and Heaven too.
2. If you
a. Keep God at the center, and not yourself
b. And if you are willing to be grateful for the plenty that God has offered,
c. and not endlessly self-aggrandize by wanting more.
3. Then you get all this, and Heaven too.