Demonstration of Appreciation

Demonstration of Appreciation

Genesis chapter 2, if you will. And once we're there, if you'll look with me in verse number 15, Genesis chapter 2 and verse number 15. And he says, and the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, now may it's freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that now eat us thereof. Thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him and help meet for him. And out of the ground, the Lord formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature. That was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found and help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife. And they shall be one flesh and they were both naked, the man and his wife and were not ashamed. We'll conclude the reading there in chapter two, verse number 25 this morning.

I was thinking this week about hindsight. Haven't we heard that? Hindsight is 2020, right? What does that mean? Maybe the kids don't know what that means. Hindsight is 2020. Well, it means you can see oftentimes we say it in relation to bad decisions we've made in the past. I can see a whole lot more clearly now what I should have done in that situation. Now that I'm past that, I'm more mature, I've been through some different experiences in life and I realize that was probably not a good idea. That's usually what we mean when we say, hindsight is 2020 or maybe if I had known or I had information about this, I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have chosen that path or chosen that thing.

As human beings, we have the tendency not to fully, and this is another thought that I want to bring in this morning, we have a tendency not to fully appreciate things that we've given or people in our lives until we don't have them anymore. We tend to not, this is just a general rule. It tends, it's not always the case but it tends to be the case. Sometimes I think, I look at my life and think how many things have I taken for granted or people that I've taken for granted that, you know, it's just, that's just the way it is or that's the way I'm always going to have this person. And then God may take that person or that thing from your life and looking back on it, you might say, I wish that I had had a greater appreciation for this, that, or that person.

My dad being an electrician, I picked up some things, HVAC, electrical stuff growing up, but it wasn't until I got married and started needing to do this for my own home that I said, wow, I want to learn everything there is to know about wiring up this addition for my house because now it really means I can appreciate the value of that knowledge. That's just a personal example. You can probably think of hundreds of examples in your own lives of people or things that you might appreciate more now than you did perhaps at the time.

And the word, even the word appreciate, to appreciate it means to recognize the quality, significance or magnitude that is of someone or something in your life, to recognize the quality, significance or magnitude of something. So if we appreciate someone, even in that word, appreciate, there's the idea of price there, right? The value of something, the value of something. We are recognizing when we appreciate something, we are recognizing and acknowledging the inherent value or worth of that thing. And when we recognize the value or worth of something, it's not just about, oh, I get a warm feeling about this. That we may get a warm feeling because of our relationship with someone. But it's just simply that there is worth in this thing, this knowledge or this relationship that I have. And it's not just because of what I get out of, I appreciate. Maybe that's a, we think of that maybe as a weak word, but I do appreciate my wife. Not just because of what she does and how she makes me feel, but just I appreciate her for who she is, that God has given her to me.

And we ought to appreciate one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We ought to love one another. And how do we show that we appreciate? Well, there's got to be something more than the Bible says not to only love in word, but indeed, right? If we appreciate, there's going to be some kind of a demonstration of my appreciation. There's going to be a demonstration. And how I demonstrate my appreciation, everybody will demonstrate that in a different way to some degree. That's what makes us unique as individuals, right?

But I think about what the Lord has done for me in saving me from sin. Well, he's called me to preach his word. He's not called everybody to do that in a sense. But David has the gift of music. Sister Peed has a gift of musical ability. And yes, you could just do it in a technical sense. But even when we play instruments, when we sing with our voices, isn't that a demonstration? It should be a demonstration to God of how much I appreciate him. How I am as a husband to my wife is actually, if I look at the scriptures, that is a demonstration. Lord, thank you for giving her to me. And now I want to follow your instructions to be the husband that I should be to my wife, the father to my children.

God gave Adam some very specific things to do when he put him in the garden. He says, well, it's really simple. We have to keep the instructions simple because if we have too many vast rules or regulations for our children, I think we tell them all the potential things that they shouldn't be doing, this is going to complicate things. But the Lord told Adam, you'd dress—the word there is to tend, a gardener tends his garden. He cultivates the garden, right? And he is to keep, to walk, keep a watch out and guard this garden. You're to dress it, tend it, and to keep it, watch over it, right? And guard it. That was the instructions that God gave to Adam within that responsibility. He was even naming animals, wasn't he? He was naming the animals that God had brought to him.

God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground. And frankly, he's our common ancestor, all of us are here today because of Adam. There was a first human being and we know his name. His name was Adam. And now we are descended from him and then he, and through Adam and Eve, God brought into this world many, many, many billions of sons and daughters. And I think about Adam, Adam demonstrated, demonstrated that by dressing and keeping the garden that he appreciated what God had given him. And yet we notice if you look in verse 15, or verse 16 of Genesis 2 here, he commanded, God commanded him, saying of every tree of the garden, now may us freely eat all of these trees. But there's one, the tree that was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. Why? Did God make a poisonous tree? Is there some kind of poison in the fruit? If you eat at that tree, then you're going to die. No. Adam did not die physically immediately, but he would die physically, ultimately, because what happens?

He did, as we know if we have children. And we see what our children, the tendency is, I saw an experiment one time where they put this child, set him in a room, I think it's maybe kind of cruel in a way, but they set him, but it was demonstrating a point. Sitting the child in this room, and there was a train, run on the track behind him, and the child is sitting there in the chair with the train running behind him, and the lady says, all right, they were doing an experiment about lying. And so she says, I want to go out the room and go get something real quick, I'll be right back. And look at the train until I come back. He said, you agree to do that? He said, okay, I will not look at the train. And so she leaves the room, comes back, and of course they have camera set up and the child is fighting it. He's fighting the resisting the temptation to look at it. If he looks at the train real quick and she comes back and says, did you peek? I didn't. I didn't peek. And of course she just kind of laughs. And because they knew that the child looked, right? You know, it's kind of like the child coming to you with the powdered sugar from the donut on his mouth and saying, oh, I didn't eat anything. What are you talking about? You've got the evidence on your mouth around your face.

Well, Adam and Eve, they failed the test, right? They failed the test. They looked at the train. The serpent in the garden, one of God's creatures here that comes to Eve. Obviously we see that the fallen angel Lucifer is working through this serpent here. He presents this idea to Eve. You know, if God, why would God have made a tree that you can't have? You know, human nature says if there's a prohibition, let's make some moonshine. It's the old. You know, we're going to, that's just the tendency of man. Like I have a curiosity if I am forbidden from doing something that I want to experiment with that. And this is this curiosity. Got the best of Eve here and this desire. Well it looks good. The fruit is, it looks good. And what is it that the serpent said? When the woman saw in verse 6, chapter 3 verse 6, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and the tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat. Well, their eyes, both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. For the first time they experienced something called shame.

There was a, they were, their eyes were open but it wasn't in the same way that they were envisioning their eyes were going to be open. They thought, well this is going to be liberating and then we'll have a special knowledge of something. No, this is a knowledge that God wanted to keep you from. He didn't want you to experience this. But they did but they did. We noticed that Eve lost her appreciation for what God gave Adam and through Adam. He also gave Eve the instructions, you know, like we just read. There's one tree and I'm not gonna, you know, don't touch that tree. Don't, don't eat of that tree, right? Why? Because I'm testing you. I'm testing you to see if you will obey and Paul will tell us later on. It's through one man's disobedience. Sin entered into the world. Sin entered into the world. We might say, well, it was just one, one thing. It's a principle. It's a principle that they did not, they chose over what God, the God who created them and gave them everything and put them in this garden and he was testing their hearts and they said, well, it can't be that bad. You know, just if we eat a fruit, I mean, it can't be that bad. Isn't that how we reason? Isn't that how we reason when we say we want to do whatever we want to do and forget as human beings forget what God says, I'm gonna do what feels good to me. What looks good to me? John says all this in the world. It's the lust of the eye. I see it. I want it, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. I've got it. Look what I have. Look what I have. You can't have it. I've got it. That's what controls the thinking of man, isn't it? I say, man, it controls all of us naturally, right?

And so we see that Eve, Adam, and Eve in their own way didn't trust God, but they followed their own heart, right? The God who had made them, they wouldn't even have even been there, had it not been for God putting them in that garden. Now, one of the saddest things we read is that here, God is going to have to put them out of this privilege that they have. He doesn't forget about them and say, well, there's no more hope for you. You messed up, but they lost privileges, right? And the privilege they had was access to the tree of life. They had access to what are the privileges they had? We see a number of things that they had here. They had an innocence and a married bliss. They didn't even, they weren't even conscious of the fact that they were naked. There was no concept of even shame in their minds. There was no concept of strife, division. We're going to see now their son Cain is going to kill the other son Abel. There's going to be murder that's going to come in. We see that they enjoyed fellowship, walking with God in the garden. We see that they enjoyed the animals. There weren't predators. We see that they enjoyed the abundance of food that grew with ease, but now we read that Adam is going to have to sweat. There's gonna be thorns. The ground is going to be cursed.

I know it is a battle. It is a battle growing, it's a huge learning curve to growing things and not having it all eaten up and taken over, your garden taken over by crab grass and thorns and all these kinds of things. That's just a, you know, and yet maybe we appreciate it more because there is effort that goes into it. Adam didn't even know what hard work was. He didn't even know what sweat was. It was just, I enjoy gardening, but there's some parts of it. I don't enjoy, right? There's some parts that aren't enjoyable, but I appreciate the fruit that comes from that labor, from that work. But Adam was just, he had it made. He had it made, so to speak, in the shade as we say sometimes.

God had told him, Adam, it's like we say, you know, you can have dessert children, but you can't have it before you eat your supper. That's basically what the Lord was saying to him. You can have, but it's not that the tree, not that the dessert is bad or evil, but it's not for you right now. I'm testing you. And so what we see is that he failed the test and so in the reason, and we got to get the heart of it, the core of it is that he did not appreciate. He did not value God's word, but thank God he is the God of second, third, and fourth, the fifth chances. That God doesn't just, well, if he wrote mankind off when he failed, then we wouldn't be here today. We wouldn't be here, but God is a God of mercy. God is a God of love and grace. And we see that he gave Adam and Eve yet grace in the midst of their failure.

Notice Esau. Think about Esau with me. He sold his birthright, didn't he? Jacob and Esau, we know the story there, and Esau sold his birthright. You know the first born had special privileges that the rest of the children didn't get. Being the first born, they had special privileges, but having that birthright, he was very hungry one day and Jacob took advantage of a vulnerable situation. And he said, well, I'll give you a bowl of pottage if you'll sell me your birthright, if you'll give me your birthright. Well, ultimately Esau got upset about that. Mad with his brother, wanted to kill him, right? He wanted to kill his brother because of what he had done to him. But Esau was to be blamed for having sold and not valued that birthright that was given to him.

Look with me in Matthew 16. I want to give you another example of this here. And Matthew chapter 16 and verse number 24. Matthew 16 verse 24. What does this say there? Jesus said to his disciples, he said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. What does that mean? In other words, to deny yourself means I don't, it's not my way that's the right way. I'm going to follow you because you have the right way. If I am in a strange place and somebody says, I can tell you how to get there and you say, no, I'm just going to go my way. But men get accused of this right. Well, I don't have the instructions, but I'll figure it out, right? I'll figure it out. No, Jesus says, you've got to deny yourself and follow me. If you're going to follow somebody, you can't lead, right? You've got to follow them. The sheep can't say, hey, shepherd, it's been nice knowing you, we'll just do our own thing now. No, you've followed the shepherd, right? And so he says, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it. And whosoever will lose his life, for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited? This is what, okay, here's the core of it. What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Well, what do people try to do? Get rich, beautiful, strong, famous, you know, that's the natural tendency. Look at me, look at all I have achieved and who I am. That's the natural thing. I want to save my life. I'm going to be the center of attention. I'm going to be the overachiever. No, the Lord says here, he says, what is a man profited if it's your goal in life to gain everything you can gain, to gain all the riches, to get everything? What do you have to show for that at the end of your life and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Do you appreciate the value of your soul, your soul is eternal. It's not temporary. This body is temporary, but you live on, I live on forever. We'll live on forever.

Look at Luke 16 in verse 19. Luke 16 verse 19 says, in verse number 19, there was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple. Verse number 19, there was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. He had it made again in the shade, right? He had everything that this life could offer. He had no worries, no financial worries. He could just add all the subscriptions he wanted and he wasn't going to run out as they could count, wasn't going to run dry. Well, this man is doing very well and then there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores, rich people have gates, right? They have, you know, it's restricted access. Well, he laid outside the gate full of sores, Lazarus, this beggar and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Lazarus, oh, just, I would, I just, I'd love to just have some of the crumbs from this rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores and it came to pass that the beggar died, Lazarus died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. So everybody dies, right? At some point, Lazarus dies, rich man dies. And in hell, he lifted up his eyes being in torments and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. Why is he in hell because he had money? No, it's not why. It's not why. And he cried, said, and said, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus. Send Lazarus? Send Lazarus. That he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed so that they would pass from hence to you cannot neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, Father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house for I have five brethren that he may testify unto them. Lest they would also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto them, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

So what do we have here? We have a rich man. He lived for himself. He didn't care about, he didn't care about the poor man at his gate. He didn't care what pain this man was going through or hunger. He just cared about himself. The problem wasn't the riches. The problem was the self-worship, the self-adoration, the self-centered sinful life, not caring about God or others that he lived, right? He did not appreciate what he had truly and the opportunity that he had. And then we got Lazarus here at the gate. And yet when they die, Lazarus who obviously trusted in God, and though he didn't have, the rich man was tormented. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 6:17, to not trust in uncertain riches. Don't put your trust in uncertain riches. Why? It says, but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.

Notice this. What we do is we, man's tendency is to exalt the gifts over the giver, right? To exalt and say, I will worship. I will live for. I will give my life for the things, but not acknowledge the source of the things, right? If we acknowledge the source of the things and we appreciate the fact that he has given us everything that we have, then what is that going to lead us to? It's going to lead us to say, you know what? My life is not mine. God gave it to me. And therefore what do you want me to do with my life? He says, follow me. Follow me. Lose your life and follow me. He sent his son, Lazarus or the rich man said, I'll do with my life just as I please. I will gain the whole world. I don't care about Lazarus over here. I'll do what I want to do and yet. And yet he had an abrupt and a rude awakening when he died.

Well, this rich man and Lazarus, this shows us that there is good news. It was good news even for his relatives. He was concerned now about his relatives, right? I'm concerned for my relatives that they don't live the life I lived and come to this place. I want them to appreciate the opportunity that opportunity they have. Can we have someone raised from the dead and go and speak to them? No, they need to listen to what you rejected, what you did not listen to. They need to hear the open invitation.

I think about the prodigal in Luke 15. We will conclude in a moment here, but Luke 15 verse 18, it says there in Luke 15, 18. Remember, he had been given his inheritance early, right? The prodigal son had been given his inheritance early ahead of time. Maybe somebody here today says, I wish I could have mine here early, right? I'd like to have it now because there's some things I would like to buy with that. Well, he received it early, but what he's doing, wasted it. He wasted the inheritance. He spent it on wild living and just blew through it, right? No self-control. No thought about the future. Just I'm just enjoying my life, living, partying it up now. And then when he went through all the money, what did he say? Luke 15 verse 18. I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. And no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. You know, he was out there shoveling pig slop into the trough for the pigs. And he says, what a miserable life. I didn't even know what I had in my father's home. And I've come out here and I realized this is a pathetic excuse for an enjoyable, awful life and a meaningful life. I would be better off. I went back to my father's home as a servant in his house. Not even as a son. Just you have a role for me to fill as a servant in your home. And I'm sure we know the story. He arose. He came to his father, but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. And no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and be merry for this. My son was dead. And is alive again, he was lost and is found and they began to be merry.

I said at the outset, our tendency is our sinful tendency is to not appreciate what we have, right? You know, I want more. I want more. I want more. I don't have enough. I'm jealous of this. I'm envious of that. I want, I want, no. Everything we have, everything we have is a gift from God. Everything that we enjoy. Everything Adam and Eve enjoyed. Everything Esau had and enjoyed. Everything the prodigal son had, he just didn't appreciate it. He didn't appreciate what he had been given. And as a result of that, he says, and each one of these said, I'm going to do what I want to do. But look at this picture here. God is right there waiting. He's not, he doesn't say jump through this hoop and that hoop and the other hoop, he says, you've come home son. You realize that there is no greater life to be found than at home with me, at home with me.

Mankind has turned his back on God and thinks that he can improve on God's design, right? I'm going to do it the way I want to do it. No, God says, you can come back to me and I've made a provision. I've made a way for you to be in fellowship through Jesus Christ. You can be adopted back into the family. Even though we know that all have sinned, but you can be made whole. You can be brought into fellowship. You don't have to remain out there and do your own thing. Well, like the prodigal said, I will arise and go to my father. In Adam, we might say that humanity became the prodigal, but in Christ, we no longer have to be orphans. We no longer have to be apart from God. God has made a way. It's through his great love in Jesus Christ that we may appreciate, that we may find all that we have that he has offered to us.

As a Christian, just because I'm a child of God doesn't mean I appreciate everything as I should appreciate it. I find myself taking things for granted. My health, sometimes the Lord may take things away from us. I think about this pastor Ryan Marlowe and just like that, your life can be turned upside down. He contracted that listeria and he's just been through surgery and surgery and surgery after surgery. The temptation might be, why did you allow this to happen to me? Well, we don't deserve anything, but God has given us life. He's given us eternal life. And you know what? I see a peace and a joy in his family. Even Lord, if you take my life away, there is that eternal life that they have looking forward to being with the Lord forever. So may we not underestimate and undervalue what God has done for us. And that he's given second, third, and fourth chances. The only sin that will ultimately separate from God is a rejection of his Son, Jesus Christ. That's the only thing. It's not about jumping through a hoop. It's about saying, thank you Lord. You provided a way. I just came back. Like the prodigal says, I came back hoping to be a servant and I'm your son. You've accepted me as your son. What a blessing that our Father always has open arms for when we come back and we appreciate Lord. Thank you for what you've done for us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for these moments we've had together today. We thank you for those who have gathered. We pray Lord that you would just help us all to understand and appreciate all that you have done for us. Help us not to think that our way is the best way. We know that we're here by design on purpose. We know that you've created us for a purpose Lord and we pray that our lives more and more would be evidence, would demonstrate our appreciation for your design and for your purpose for us and that we would even as we saw with Adam and Eve, even though they sinned, fell short of your purpose for them, that you restored them and they found restoration, even though they lost privileges Lord in the Garden of Eden, they didn't lose that ultimately that fellowship they had with you and we just thank you for the fact that you are the God of restoration, you're the God of second chances. We pray these things and we ask that you bless us as we close this service and just help us to be grateful today for all that you have done for us and we ask in Jesus' name, amen.