The Tree of Life

But it's not a central feature of the story, and it certainly does not deserve the applay the place in the evangelical imagination that it currently has. Nor did the early apostolic preaching ever scare people into believing. Ever. And so this was just week one of a four-part, hey, what is eternal life? And then we'll talk about what it means to live into eternal life. But today we want to look at eternal life from a slightly different perspective and just make the point.

That eternal life is something new with Jesus, but eternal life is something that began in the garden. So Genesis chapter 2, verse 7. Ladies and gentlemen, giddy up. The Lord God formed the human. And remember, the man here isn't gendered, not a gendered male. This is just a human being. Formed a human being from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Now remember in Hebrew, breath can mean spirit or wind, the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

In English it says it sounds like it's saying one thing, but in Hebrew it's actually simply this. Human beings are dirt plus divine breast. In fact, the w the phrase or the word Adam, which is a description of the human, but then became becomes the human's name later in the story, that just means being from the dirt.

uh reminder of the humble origins of uh humanity. And um Dirt plus divine breath or divine spirit equals living being, or in Hebrew it's the word nephesh, which is sometimes translated soul, but that makes it sound like we're something other than a soul. Um, humans are just considered united persons, divine um breath and dirt. And and the the Bible doesn't spend a lot of time breaking our component parts out. This is just kind of where it starts. We're divine breath and dirt.

Now it says the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the human that he had formed. Now that means the human wasn't formed in the garden, correct? The human is formed outside the garden with dust, created, breathed into, and then placed in the garden.

And there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out from the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were two trees of note to the tree of life. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now we've covered these before, but just as a reminder, what does the tree of life give you?

Life. Yes, well done. Exactly right. The tree of life, so named, because it connects in some mysterious way with God's own creative life and will that is on offer for others to participate. In fact, we find out what the tree of life means later on in Genesis 3. When God says about the human, the human must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take from the tree of life and eat, and therefore what? Live forever. Or what's another way to say that? L eternal life.

So what nailed it? Yes, you did. Thank you very much. Skippers over to the right today. What in the world? Sermon chi is off completely. So yes. So so when did eternal life when w when is eternal life first mentioned? On page two, right? The tree of life. And remember, the tree of life is offered to beings who are already alive.

Right? He's already created them. So the tree of life must be some extra kind of life. In fact, one scholar puts it this way, the tree of life represents life that is beyond the original life that God breathed into the human. The first human by nature is susceptible to death. Remember, the humans were made outside of the garden. Nevertheless, continued eating from the tree could renew life and prevent.

And so what does God offer the humans? Eternal life. Page two. It doesn't start with Jesus. It starts here.

Now there was another tree, unfortunately. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we talked about this before, and these aren't magic trees. Okay, it's not like it's not like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means if you eat from the fruit of that tree, now you know philosophy and astrology and chemistry and algebra. That's not what we're talking about. The issue, the the knowledge of good and evil, that phrase is a phrase that talks about wisdom.

And so how will the humans learn wisdom? Will they learn it from God? Or they learn it on their own. Because God, up until this point, God has been defining what is good and not good for them in the story, right? It is good, it is good, it is good, it is good through the creation story. It is not good. That the human is alone. And so up until this point, good and evil have been defined by God's wisdom rather than human wisdom.

And so the tree of the knowledge of good and evil doesn't offer fruit that gives you knowledge. It's merely choosing to eat. apart from God's wisdom that is itself The grasping for autonomy. Are you with me on this point? Because good and evil, in the Hebrew imagination, good doesn't just mean morally good, but it also means beneficial or pleasing, something that's good for you.

Evil doesn't just mean morally evil, but can mean rotten or in bad condition. Like a piece of ruined fruit in the Bible is evil not because it does anything wrong, but because it's not beneficial for you. And so the tree of the knowledge of good and evil isn't some magic tree that gives you all knowledge everywhere, but it simply represents the choice by the, you know, ancestral humans.

to either grab a hold of wisdom themselves or listen to God's wisdom. That's that's as straightforward as we can define it. One scholar puts it this way, it doesn't mean that God doesn't want to give them maturity and wisdom. It's a question of how they will get it. And so the Lord takes the man and then puts him in the Garden of Eden, verse 15, to work it and take care of it. Remember, those are worship temple words.

The Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden. So that includes the tree of life as well, correct? You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, including the tree of life, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will certainly what?

die. Now this is the first mention we have of death. And the word death is the word mot or mot, I don't know quite how to pronounce it, but it it's the idea if if Eden is on a mountain and it's filled with God's presence, then death is the anti Eden. It's the anti-garden. And the the imagery around death is the grave, like as deep into the earth and as far away from the mountaintop as you can get.

So death, even though Christians sometimes will euphemistically say, Yeah, they've gone to a better place or they've passed on or whatever, death is an enemy, death is an intruder, death is not something we were ever supposed to. to experience and so literally the moral calculus in the garden was simply this.

If you listen to God's wisdom, you will experience eternal life. And if you do not listen to God's wisdom and choose your own wisdom to follow, you will experience death. Now we don't receive any teaching about what death is yet. Until we get later into Genesis chapter three, because though they don't die immediately, correct? According according to Genesis, Adam lives for hundreds and hundreds of years. So what kind of death are we talking about here? Well, in now look at me.

This is not terribly fascinating, but it's so important to understand when Jesus talks about, follow me, all who believe in him will perish or have eternal life. I want you to know that's not a new message. That starts here. And so the message is between one tree that represents life and another tree that represents death. And what kind of death is this? Well, death in the Old Testament. Is the separation of what had been previously united?

That's what death is, which is an interesting way to look at what death is, because death then has different aspects to it. For instance, relational death. Right? The the man and woman at the end of chapter two are naked and unashamed. They live in perfect intimacy and supportiveness. But now

Chapter three, verse seven, the eyes of both of them were opened, they realized they were naked, and s now they were naked and shamed rather than naked and unashamed, and so they made coverings for themselves. It's just this ancient image that now The other person represents something to hide from.

And so it's this form of relational death that happens in the garden. There's also this idea of being separated from God, right? The human beings were meant to be in one flesh relationship, but now they're separated. Well, the humans and God were to be in this beautiful intimate relationship.

But now, chapter 3, verse 8, the man heard uh 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. They hid from the Lord God. And the Lord God said to the human, Where are you? And he answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. So you have this introduction of this.

It y the human the humans were meant to be one flesh, but now they're hiding and covering. And God and the humans were meant to be intimate, but now there's this hiding and a f and fear. And then at the end of chapter three, we meet death in the the sense we know it best, the cessation of of being a living being. And so remember, if human beings are divine breath and dirt. then God introduces the idea that the dirt will just go back to the dirt.

And so in Genesis three nineteen, so it's the separation of something that should never have been separated. By 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 return.

In the garden, what was on offer in the garden was the ability to transcend death. When they chose poorly and they chose, in a sense, death. What began to happen is these separations began to occur. Uh and they're spoken of all over the Old Testament like Ecclesiastes, remember your creator in the days of your youth before the days of trouble come, before the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Or in Job, if God were to take back his spirit and withdraw his breath, all life would cease. So death is this rupture of things that were united in chapter two, right? The human being was a nephesh, a living being. But now there's some sort of split. So the dust goes back to the dust and the spirit goes back to spirit. And some weird, I don't even know what that means was.

Right, the humans instead of one flesh, now there's fear and hiding and blame and in in the humans with God, now there's some sort of fear. And hiding uh that direction as well. And so the picture we're given. Uh in verse 22 is the is that God said the man must not be allowed. He's he's like one of us, the human is like one of us, knowing good and evil, must not be allowed to reach out his hand, take from the tree of life, and eat and live forever. So God banished

the humans from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. And after he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the garden Terabim, which are not cute precious moments figurines, evidently, but terrifying angels that always have to show up and first say, Don't be afraid.

And he gave them a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the what? A tree of life. So the tree of life has been barred. So here's a couple of really important theological implications for those who are into that kind of thing. The first one is this, human beings by nature are not immortal. And this is important because hell is often construed as a place where people are tortured eternally.

Because their souls just go on existing. But that's not the story the Bible's telling. The Bible's the st the Bible the the the story, sorry, the Bible is telling Is that human beings were created, dirt and divine breath, placed in the garden, offered eternal life, and refused. So they were taken back out of the garden and placed where death just is what happened. So rather than a story, I always always told the biblical story started with humans humans being perfect and then falling.

The story the Bible is telling is of humans being good and having the option to choose life or death and choosing death. Are you with me? So it's not a story of the fall, it's a story of the failure. human eternal life was on offer and they said no. Now, really important ramifications for how you understand what happens when we die. We'll get to those in a couple of weeks, but for now, I wonder, I know, listen. I you give me 35 minutes. What am I supposed to do?

You all insist on eating lunch. Um but you shall you do not live on bread alone by every word that comes I don't know. And the point I mean, the Rich Mullen says it best. The point is the Lord wasn't joking when he kicked him out of Eden. All right. It wasn't for no reason that he shed his blood. His return is close. You better be believing.

Our God is an awesome God. Okay, that's the point of this whole section in Genesis. Now, if you did not grow up in Christianity, you don't know this song. But those are the real lyrics from a very profound songwriter. All right. Now, let me ask you this question.

I wonder, will the offer of life or death be given to anybody else in the biblical story? Oh yes, Israel. Do you remember? God rescues Israel out of slavery. He takes them at the top of this mountain. He gives them something called Torah, which is not law but wisdom. And he says Follow Torah and you will live. Ignore Torah and you will Hm, let's read it where he says this, Deuteronomy thirty. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.

Now if you've got your Jewish ears on, you're like, oh yeah, that's Garden of Eden stuff. Right? Some people think that Israel wrote the Garden of Eden story to prefigure everything that happens to the nation, which is an interesting take. See, I said before you today, life and prosperity, death and destruction. I command you today to love the Lord your God, walk in obedience to him, keep his commands, decrees, and laws. What's all of that verbiage mean? Listen to his wisdom.

And if you do, you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you were entering to possess. And remember, what's the land that they were entering? It was called the Promised Land. Why? Because at the middle of it, there was a

temple called Jerusalem, the city of God, and in the middle of the city was a garden temple that had cherubim and fruit and water and all the Eden accoutrements there. And once Every year a high priest after offering appropriate sacrifice would go in. picture of the tree of life. Now it didn't mean that Israel lived forever, but it meant it lived the way God intended in the renewed Garden of Eden in a fallen world.

So life was on offer for them, but if you turn your hearts away and are not obedient, if you were drawn away to bow down to other gods, worship them. I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. Now, what does destroyed mean? You will not live long in the land you are crossing to enter and possess. You will be exiled. The first humans, however that works. Death. And then what's death equal? Exile.

The nation of Israel, the representative people, right, of Abraham's descendants, life, death, and what's death mean? Excel. So do you see that it's the same story being pulled forward over and over and over again? Do you see this? Like you would be hearing this going, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, this is this is the Garden of Eden story now offered to us. Listen to God's wisdom and live, deny God's wisdom, and then be exiled, be separated from God. Now,

Jesus of Nazareth shows up. Are you guys hanging in there? So far, so good? Okay, perfect. Thank you. That those of you who aren't following will remain silent during that period of time. Because I can proceed merrily thinking that we're all together on this. Now, Jesus shows up, and what's Jesus start saying? Well, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not, but have

If you've got your Jewish ears on, what's he saying? The Garden of Eden again, but where is it now? In him. Right? Remember, John, he tabernacles among us. God tabernacles among us. And then in John 2, he looks at the temple and says, destroy it, but I'll rebuild it in three days, speaking of his body. So Jesus now presents himself as the tree of life.

Listen to this language. Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and will not be judged, but is crossed over from death to life. That's Garden of Eden image. Uh John six, for my father's will is that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him will have eternal life.

And then remember this crazy passage in John 6: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. Or in John 15, he says, I am the vine, you are the branches. What am I? A tree of life. So one of the things that I think we misunderstand, or at least that I did, is I thought the heaven and hell story just started with Jesus. And last week we were talking about, well, maybe that's quite not the story that Jesus is telling and the Bible's telling. But then you even push back.

Further back into the beginning of the story, and you realize eternal life or death, that's been the choice given to humanity the whole.

The human soul isn't meant to hold on to bitterness. The human soul isn't meant to know this much suffering going on around the world. The human soul isn't meant to numb itself to every vagarity of human life. And so Jesus shows up, and it's not like he's offering something that nobody's heard of up until this point. The audacity of Jesus was announcing that he was the tree.

And that listening to his wisdom was the way to life. And that's why Paul will summarize the whole thing in Romans 6, for the wages of sin. What we naturally live into is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. That's the summary. So it's not like Gat God is adding on heaven or hell at the end of a story and you're like, oh my goodness, I had no idea about these things. Like we're gonna see next week. These are present realities.

But one, two, two more points and then we'll do some cues and some uh responses. All right. Point number one.

It's interesting that when the earliest Christians talked about Jesus, they never used the word cross. Instead, they always used the word tree to speak of his crucifixion. There is a word for cross that they use, and sometimes Paul will use it, but the very earliest preaching was about how Jesus hung on a tree. And that has in the Old Testament a negative and a positive connotation. Let's explore briefly.

Acts chapter 5. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus. I'm in a great mood, Cam. Why not? It's a glorious day outside. Here we are, right? I'm in flow? I am in flow. Oh, that makes me so happy. I haven't been in flow in years. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you had put to death by hanging him on a Acts ten. We are all witnesses of these things. He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a

And Acts thirteen, and though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked Pilate that he be executed. When they had carried out all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. Or Paul summarizes this in Galatians. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. What's the curse of the law? Yeah. Well the wages of sin is, why did Jesus have to die?

Death. That is the shroud that covers humanity. That's why he had to die. And why him overcoming death is like the biggest news ever. Because the curse now is broken. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law of death because he became a curse for us. For it is written, and then he quotes Deuteronomy, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Now let me show you this Deuteronomy passage just for a few of you who are like, hey, I wonder where it says that in Deuteronomy. What's in 21?

If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and is put to death, you shall hang him on a tree. So that every time they talk about Jesus hanging on a tree, this is what they're talking about. The curse of Deuteronomy applied to Jesus. His corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day, and that's exactly what they do.

So Paul says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, which is death, having become a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree, and Jesus hung on a tree.

That in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to us, the Gentiles, so that we will receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Or as Peter says, For you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps who committed no sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth.

And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. And he himself carried our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. So the tree that was death to Jesus becomes the tree of life to us. I think it's a pretty magnificent way to tell the story.

And it's one we would miss, right? Just because we're twenty first century Americans, we're not super old testament literate. And it and it's very easy to s to make this whole story about a judge. sitting on a throne looking at your individual behavior, tallying up the score, and giving you a a pass-fail test. Who do you say Jesus is? Well I say he's Lord, great you're in.

That's just not the story the Bible ends up telling. And the reason we take so much time in the nitty-gritty is I don't want you to take my word for it. And I know the questions are well, how did it get so polluted to the story we're telling now? And there's a great reason for that. We used to sell forgiveness. Literally. We used to literally sell forgiveness. And so why wouldn't you talk about health? In the ways that Dante imagined.

And we still do that today. I mean, how many people of us said yes to Jesus because we were scared of the other place, not because of the beauty of Jesus? And we've even had people ask in this beautiful context, why should I follow Jesus if you take hell away? Wow. Jesus didn't come to solve hell. I do believe he's talking about something real, and we're gonna talk about that in two weeks. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

So, so, so, don't, don't get on the oh, well, we just there's nothing. No, Jesus is warning us against something. Absolutely. And we all intuitively know the earth has to be judged. For sexual assault and rape and murder and war and all of the evil done in the name of Jesus, creation has to be judged and the truth has to come to light. And we all want that, just not for ourselves.

But we're all fans of it for everybody else. Unfortunately, we're part of the problem. So there is a moment when the light of reality comes on. And we are held accountable for what's happened in the world. And that's a good thing. But for the earliest Christians, that was actually great news because what came after that was new creation. Because none of us want to keep this creation. We want all the best parts without

The sin, suffering, and death. And so The tree of life unsurprisingly makes one last appearance. In the book of Revelation, verse uh uh chapter twenty two, the angel showed me the river and water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb, in the middle of the street of the city, on each side of the river stood the of life. The Bible ends the way the Bible begins, right?

No. I have one point to make about why this matters and then we'll do some Qs and some R's, okay? Now the question the one of the interesting things the Bible does with the tree of life is in the wisdom literature, it uses the tree of life to stand for people who are people of blessed. And so the book of Proverbs is really misunderstood. It's the first 10 chapters, it's actually Solomon, this royal king figure, speaking to the generations of future King Davids to come.

And he's warning against a man and a woman. A wicked man and a seductive woman who represent not listening to God's wisdom. And he's encouraging encouraging them to listen to a man and a woman, him as the man, and then lady wisdom. And to eat the fruit of lady wisdom and to have life. It's a tree of life. So all over the book of Proverbs, you get tree of life imagery. So she is blessed. Excuse me, uh ver Proverbs three. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her.

Like you would take hold of the fruit, like Eve took the fruit. It's that same word. Those who hold her fast will be blessed. Long life is in her hands. Proverbs eleven, the fruit of a right of the righteous is a tree of life. The one who is wise does what? Saves lives, interesting. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Now obviously there aren't any more of Jesus roaming around, right? Jesus is our tree of life in an absolute sense.

But do you see what the proverbist is doing? When you listen to the wisdom of God, what do you become to other people? You become a source of light. And how does that work? Well, this one this one sort of wrecks me. The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. Or another proverbist will say. The power of life and death are in the tongue. And there is a deep theology of speech in the Bible where words take on a life of their own once they're spoken.

And in America, speech is just so careless. Right. I can I have no trouble loving Jesus and speaking horribly about people in their absence or posting something that I would never say to somebody if they were in the room. Right? Or cursing somebody that cuts me off in traffic or doesn't give me good service.

And I just I bring this example here just to say, yeah, yeah, tree of life, great theory, very far away. But in the scriptures it's really practical. Like how you talk. Either as a tree of life or a tree of death to people. And I don't just mean being nice, although that's part of it. Like one of the most important and I know this is so silly, but one of the most important spiritual disciplines I try to have is to be very kind and present and attentive to people who can do nothing for me.

So knowing the names of uh the the servers at the restaurants I frequent, or and knowing a bit of their stories, or sitting on an airplane and being pleasant, not chatty. I know no one likes chatty. But like smiling and nodding to people. And that's on the cliche end. The bigger end is all of the ways that we engage in conversations that bring death to other people. I mean, you all know this. I can point to statements that have been made to me and about me that still Still hurt.

And they still bring a sense of death and aloneness and lostness. And they were spoken carelessly. They didn't know that's what they were doing. Maybe they did and but it's like and then I can also balance that with words that have been spoken. That we're life. And as like practical as it is, How about we just for the next hour just be tree of life trees of life to each other? Um because uh yeah, you know this. I mean the world is

The tree of life is on offer for us right now. And this isn't about going to heaven or hell, but it's about eternal life, as we'll see next week. Sorry, is not just a duration of life, but it's a quality of life. that starts now. And so I would beseech you to choose life. Choose the wisdom of Christ. You're gonna follow somebody, you're discipled by somebody, you have a rabbi already, so we might as well make it Jesus.

But secondly, We have the opportunity, and I just don't ever want to diminish. To be trees of life to each other. And I think that is such a beautiful image of what it looks like to follow Christ. We have fourteen minutes for questions, y'all. And I've got Sambo over here, highly trained. I've got Justina who's volunteering to carry a microphone. I know, I know, but I'm gonna give other people opportunity first because we get to write home together. It's simple. Thank you.

being an image bearer of God also includes ourselves. And there's a difference in the way we talk to ourselves between conviction and like deprecation. And I think if we our kind to ourselves and like notice that difference of conviction is something you do have to address and like It's something in your soul that you can tell is untethered or unpot whatever. Versus like I'm just beating myself up to beat myself up. Yep. And I just think that's a really important thing that

Is by allowing the words of Christ to have priority over our identity. And I know that's easy to say, man. That was the first thing I learned when I went to a Christian council where just replace the lies with the truth. And I'm like, yeah, speak life, that'd be great. Like Is that a song? I don't know. Should be.

Um but but as you say, it's much more it's much deeper than just simply rehearsing. Um, well, God says I'm chosen, but I feel like I'm not chosen, and so I'm just gonna believe I feel chosen. Um, I see the that the ways in which we're true life to each other get internalized. And part of what you're bringing up seems to me. That that has to be untangled because often we're being non trees of life to ourselves, if that makes sense. Is that what is that what I'm hearing you say?

Wow, that's a great question. Really, really insightful. Uh I would say a couple of things. Um When the the when God when Yahweh uses the word good, it's a very specific word that does not mean perfect or static. It means full of potential that can be developed. And literally that's what the humans were to do, right? Fill the earth and subdue it. Now subdue doesn't mean like strip mine, but it means bring forth its flourishing.

And so when the humans are brought into the picture and called a very good. Um yes we're in a state of innocence. Yes. But the word is deeper than that. We're not static. We're like we're to be active and involved in creation with real choice and real authority and real power in the world. And that's why instantly the the God has the human name things because God was just naming things in the previous chapter. It's like it's like showing what an image bearer turns out to be.

Now, when the the entrance of sin and death enter into the world, and now the humans are confronted with their mortality in life and death terms. What you begin to have happen is the Imago day, the image of Godness and all those people is still affirmed. God will say in G in Genesis nine, don't murder each other because you're made in my image. Or James will talk about don't gossip and slander each other because you're you're uh

You're slandering the image of God. So all of that is still there. So absolutely, we are still human, and there is goodness to being human. But like with creation, there is some there's something that's tainted us. There's an there's an intruder that has separated us from the life of God and the life we were meant to have with each other. And we all instinctively know this. Now the Bible's word sin. doesn't refer to our moral mistakes. It rather refers to the failures.

to be human that characterized the human race. Because remember, sin is the word falls short. It's not a word, it's different than trespass. Trespass is step over. You know the line and you step over it. Sin is a fall short word. So my argument is that in the garden, the humans fell short because of their sin.

And the whole project then gets clouded with the realities of sin and death, and that you and I are born in that polluted environment. And if nothing else intervenes, we will die along with everything else and creation. Does that mean we're as bad as we could be? Of course not. I know people who are far away from God, but live lives that are incredibly rich and helpful to the world around them. And I know people who claim to follow Jesus who live lives that aren't.

And so I I think we're in the middle of saying, are we as bad as we could be? Well, no. Are we as good as we could be? No. But can we get ourselves out of this situation? No. Hence Jesus. Does that make sense? So I don't think with like Augustine and some reformers that you're born into hell. Like you're just the imminute you're born, your soul is assigned to hell unless God has chosen you otherwise. I just don't think that's the story the Bible tells.

I think it's a different story than that. What God keeps doing is he keeps offering humans life over and over and over and never pre-assigning them. And that the humans, no matter how far gone they are, when they turn and listen to God's wisdom, receive the gift of that. And so anyway, I I'm I'm I'm rambling a bit. Am I in the waters at all of your question? Did you say that was helpful? Yes. Oh could you just say that louder? Because I don't I feel like Jen

So when Jesus says hate your parents, he's not saying dislike your parents. He's saying if there's a choice between the kingdom and the kingdom of your parents, choose my kingdom over theirs. It's an identity statement. So what? So Yeah. Okay. That was I was about ready to go. Yeah, so the good news is really good news. It's God intervening in a state of affairs that leads to death for everything. This old this whole age is passing away.

And what's predestined, it's like, and I used this example before, Gideon, of an airport. This flight at gate number eighteen is predestined to go to San Antonio. And if you get on it, that's where you're going. You have no choice about where it's going. You have a choice about whether or not you get on that plane. And so I see pre predestination language as God electing people for service.

Not as God choosing some over others. He's always, if he chooses any, it's so that they will be a blessing to others. It's never choosing them to the exclusion of others. And I know loads of people who are really, really smart will disagree with this, but we can we can spend a lot of time on that someday. Good stuff.

Sorry, we got Jonah back here. They are not more important than you, honey bear. That's not that's not We got Jonah. Is having a place or a feeling? Oh There you go. What do you think? Okay, perfect. I think oh I can't see you, sweet guy. I think heaven is a relationship. That people have with God. And um one of the things Jesus says that's really interesting, my man, is he says, eternal life is knowing me, knowing me.

And so I think eternal life, it can be a place, it can be a power, it can also be a feeling, but it's the idea that you live now and always. in the arms of a loving and caring God who will never let you go. I think that's the word we have for that reality is the word heaven. Does that make sense at all? Justina Renee, last one, best one. Here we go.

My intention may be great, trying to be helpful. And they're receiving this as tree of death for the things that the for the things that like Jen was saying, like that's how they're hearing that. So that's sin, but not trespass. You know what I mean? So, and and again, I mean there there's this huge vocabulary of sin words in the Old Testament that capture different nuances that again, I mean, it would just be fun to go through Leviticus, you guys.

And just go through it and just go, yes. Because the cross would make a lot more sense to us. Sin is the umbrella. And there are a lot yes, there are like four different Hebrew words. uh that have different layers of moral culpability attached to them. How are you fifty five? I don't know. You look 30.

Right? There's no way. There's no way we've got our theology all naid down. I just don't know where we're wrong. And the even better news is that the point of theology isn't to be right. The point of theology is to create a certain kind of community that looks like. And part of that community that I'm really proud of is a community that's curious and compassionate for what's happening in the world.

And so it's always just a great delight to talk through things that I've, I mean, I've been doing the pastor thing for a while, and these are not conversations you normally have. And so I just want to say thank you and also test and approve everything for yourself. Now, Father, we come and we're gonna take and eat. The bread of life. Like today we're going to choose life.

We're going to take the bread and the cup, and today, Father, we ask that you would guide us and you would lead us into a kind of life that we can taste now. And that you would invite us not just to be recipients of your grace, but bearers of it as well. And so we thank you, God. We thank you for what you're doing in us and in our world. And we trust in the name of Jesus and his character that we are his. Amen. Amen.