4-29-2016

Good Morning All!! 

       Genesis 2:15; “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

     We are in the season of the year when people are graduating from schools.  It might be a high school or tech school or college or university.  It might be a high school diploma or a degree in some major field of study; a bachelor’s degree or perhaps a master’s or even a PHD.  We have a practice of inviting our high school graduates to stand before the church and tell of their plans. 

    They are always so confident.  “I plan on going to this college and getting this degree and then getting a job doing this.”  Never any doubt, never a waiver.  Yet sometimes when you talk to the college graduates; they are a little less certain.  They are hoping to find a job, often any job just to pay the bills.  Their confidence isn’t quite what it was when they graduated from high school.  Some would call it reality; some call it a change of purpose.  Whatever it is; it happens.

     There are a lot of people who, when asked, are you happy with your job will reply, “No.”  They will reply how it seems to have no purpose or plan; they just go in do their job and come home.   They are left empty and this is often the source of discontentment.  This is what causes restlessness in our careers, in our marriages and in our lives.  This is what makes us to be wanderers and people who always think the grass is greener somewhere else.

     Sin removes from us our purpose.  Our purpose was to care for the garden; to take care of God’s creation.  Sin caused us to lose this purpose.  Instead we turned inward and desired only our pleasure.  In this action, we lost our real purpose and have been lost ever since.  Without even knowing what our true purpose was we grabbed at anything to see it as our purpose.  Solomon wrote about them in his writings in Ecclesiastes.  We seek meaning in philosophy or wisdom or knowledge but that leaves us hollow.  We seek purpose in pleasure or wealth, in control of things or by our self-lauded accomplishments but all these leave us empty.  We can only find our true purpose in God’s will and we find that because Jesus came to die to wipe away our sins and to return us to our true purpose.  The purpose he defined as loving one another.

    So now we, as Christians, once again know our purpose and that is to love one another and to share God’s love with one another.  It is our purpose to take care of God’s creation, all of it, until Jesus returns to make all things new gain.  We do this by loving one another and respecting what God has created. 

Father, in your love for us you created all things to sustain us.  Lead us to be good stewards of your creation.  Teach us to love so that all may benefit from you mercy. Guide us by your Spirit that we may be your caretakers.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret