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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] today's scripture reading is taken from genesis chapter 2 verses 8 through 9 and 15-17 genesis chapter 3 verses 1 through 7 and verse 22 now the lord god had planted a garden in the east in eden and there he put the man he had formed the lord god made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the lord god took the man and put him in
00:00:59 the garden of eden to work it and take care of it and the lord god commanded the man you are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat from it you will certainly die chapter 3 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 the woman said to the serpent we may eat from the trees in the garden but god did say
00:01:44 you must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will die you will not certainly die the serpent said to the woman for god knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like god knowing good and evil 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 then the eyes of both of them were
00:02:23 opened and they realized they were naked so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves and 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 this is the word of god good morning fbc and i thought i started with a quiz ah so let me see your bible knowledge okay you must promise me nobody go in google or hanson over i cannot see you so you might go in faith
00:03:05 no googling so the question is what is the first commandment recorded in the bible you know the answer type it and send it into the zoom link all right i know all all honest people nobody google ah we see whether you know your bible you know what the answer not is it god says do not kill do not do this do not do that do not steal you might love me the lord god you must you know et cetera et cetera you'll be surprised the first commandment recorded in the bible is to eat whoa very good to eat you know
00:03:40 it's found in genesis chapter 2 and it's coming from the verse we just read and it says that you may eat and god commanded the man he may eat from any tree in the garden but from the tree of knowledge and good and evil you must not eat for if you do you will surely die so good news to all you foodies out there and today we're going to talk about something that everyone's very relevant about we're going to talk about food okay you know everyone says your sermon lately are very very heavy la uh because i'm doing a series on the
00:04:13 tabernacle and today we are continuing on that series so i want to do it i want to take perhaps biblical truths which are quite meaningful and maybe communicate in a way you understand it now food is uh is is it the bible talks a lot about food and food is complicated it's not just eating you know like this uh author says food is not rational food is culture habit craving and identity uh let's give you a simple example you know you know we want to go off go to war with singapore look at singapore how dare they say uh yi
00:04:53 belongs to them better block the the the bridgeman don't let singaporeans come in i cannot our our chairman is a singaporean hey by the way our chairman you don't realize that ulama is a foodie you know he's a very good cook you know he can do pork at all so all you men you better keep away from him i did that you know like for me my wife says why can't you be a bit more like ulam already okay the man behind the camera you can't see anything jon go he's also a very good cook very good friend of
00:05:23 mine oh very pleasure and there's something about the legacy of chairman you know our ex-chairman peter is a foodie the cantonese this guy will go all the way with andrew go here go there so we are surrounded by food people all around us and that's why we ask is it fellowship or really like cantonese kong fellowship you know do you come to fbc because of the food no but now no more law now already is uh kovit hiding now they're not even going to eat you can go out and eat also both people scared to eat so food is an interesting
00:06:04 topic and where did it all begin it began in the garden of eden where there were a lot of food so today we will look at the topic of the church the tree of life and it's i hope the word comes alive to you as mentioned is part of the tabernacle series and we're trying to connect the dots between the old testament the new testament between the jigsaw puzzles so that you see scripture as a whole and i've subtitled this the well-fed church and we hope that fbc is a well-fed church let's come before the
00:06:41 lord in prayer lord we thank you you're a good god you're a god of abundance a god of prosperity and sometimes we we misunderstand what that means so this morning let us pick some biblical truths and and and probably today whatever i say has been spoken but lord we ask that it becomes rich and that we desire you know spiritual food hunger for things beyond milk like what paul says and by that changes our behavior and then by taking more spiritual food we will desire you more in jesus name we say this
00:07:20 amen now uh as mentioned we are continuing on on the tabernacle and we're going to be doing a whole series of this why because john said this just to pick it up in the in the gospel john if you believe moses you would believe me for he wrote about me and those of you who know the gospel of john is structured in a way very familiar to the hebrew bible and right from the get get-go from chapter one he says that the word became flesh and terrible knuckled among us now that's not the only reference on the tabernacle
00:07:52 in the gospel of john now what we'll be doing we already did two sermons on this the church has sacred space referring to the tabernacle the church the royal priests and we are the sacred space we are the royal priests the next few weeks what i'm going to do is i'm going to go through the elements inside the tabernacle and we will end at christmas so that at christmas time we will look at the church and the glory of god because the tabernacle's main function is to express what we call the shekinah glory of god
00:08:24 so by end of this year you will know the tabernacle very well not just from a national geographic point of view but you would know it from its purpose its items its symbolism and i pray it will be as rich as it is for it was for me and it is for you and today we're going to look at two items okay and we're going to look at what we known as the outer court or this is what you call the holy holies that's already the outer chord this is the inner chord and as you enter after you had passed by given your
00:08:53 sacrifice and the outer of of of sacrifice and then you have the the where your cleansing bow you come in there you see these two items right then there's a curtain with the shadow brim in there again there's a reference to eden and you have this is what's called the table of presence and this is what is called the lamp stand or the menorah in the our jewish friends would call it and so let me explain what these two mean and here you have the table presence is found in level tickers we won't go to it but what's interesting
00:09:26 let's see whether you can pick up some of the symbolism it's a table of pure gold but what's important is the table has to have braid on it talking about food huh now bread and it's a special kind of bread a god actually tells how you should bake the bread and then you put frankenstein on it and only aaron and the sons a high priest could eat it and they could only do that on the sabbath now and this bread well what they were in packs of six 12 pieces of bread right now let's look at some symbolism number how many tribes
00:10:03 are there israel 12 tribes 12 pieces of braid so try to figure out what it means so directly opposite this bridge this table is called the table of presence you have a lamp stand now this lamp stem has to be lighted up at all times and just to give you the reference of it again a number here we had seven in sections of six each here sorry it's two off sections are six each and here we have seven so again you gotta ask yourself what does seven mean when genesis talks about it or scripture so seven very often is
00:10:39 perfection in in god's eyes and if you look at the imagery of it i'll just show you another image of the menorah which our jewish friends would buy because they celebrate what's known hakuna and you can see the imagery here is a tree and the lamb stand is mirrored after the tree of life so what are we saying as you enter into this court you have two elements that remind you of food a tree of life which adam could eat from and you have the table of presence which has got bread so pick that up in mind as we
00:11:14 go through the text and so here's a little bit i've shown it before how the tabernacle mirrors genesis you can just look at the diagram the way it's layered into a center it comes to a center a right smack in the middle of the garden of eden there is two trees the tree of life and tree of knowledge of good and evil and here again we have the center at the center of the holy holiest is the ark of the covenant and we'll cover the ark of the covenant in a subsequent sermon as mentioned we'll try to do all the elements in the
00:11:48 tabernacle now so let me talk about food you know normally preachers are supposed to give three points right very profound i'm going to go on top of food today very simple to understand one so what's about food three points are and i hope we can apply it to scripture and the word comes alive food is for what daily sustenance right and see whether you can understand the layering of it number two is about cravings now cravings are not necessarily bad they're not necessarily good but craving for food or desire
00:12:20 and lastly is the idea of eating together and all three are found in scripture especially the third point and we just go through genesis 2 and 3 and see what we can learn from the text so the text we just read and we just go through it again the lord god planted the garden in the east in eden there he put the magnet form the lord god made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground trees they were pleasing to eye and kids were good for food by the way uh during that time everybody vegetarian no such thing as bakuteya no tasting as
00:12:54 steak so all you meat eaters i'm so sorry when you get to heaven you're going to be vegan but you have to trust god in that why is that so because there's no death you cannot kill an animal now again there's a little bit implication here that man's primarily diet actually is basically vegetables and fruits and grain that which is planted and all organic for all you health health people out there just a little bit of hint and in the middle of the garden with the tree of life and the tree of knowledge
00:13:25 of good and evil so from genesis 2 8 to 9 we see that man and here when we talk about men we talk about men and women could eat off all the trees there including the tree of life but not of the tree of knowledge of good and evil then verse 15 picks up the royal priests idea that we talked about last month the lord god took the man put him the garner eden to work it and take care of it and we mentioned the hebrew word he is abbad found again 11 thickers the way the priest took care of the tabernacle
00:13:58 adam and eve as gardeners took care of the garden and there are things because chapter 1 they have dominion of the earth so they are kingly priests verse 16 the lord commanded a man you're free to eat from any tree in the garden so there's the emphasis again all the trees including the tree of life you can eat from it but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for when you eat from it you will certainly die now why just to give a little bit of background to this is it knowledge is something all men should
00:14:33 have and god isn't a robot he doesn't program adam if to be robots he tells them they can go in the garden they can do what they want they can they have creative freedom there is free will they want to go and plunk banana make gouring pisang go and do law they want to do salad go and do salad maybe durian there you know there's no restriction there is only one commandment well you know understand this this is written at the time of the exodus so the time of exodus the hebrews had 10 commandments
00:15:03 in the beginning of time only one commandment no no only one you cannot eat from the tree of knowledge or good in evil why because knowledge of good and evil ultimate knowledge is about authority and only god has that authority to decide finitely what is good and what is evil that is what you define god as to be now so let's just go a little bit on the idea of eating the garden of eden and going to look at eating of all the trees i said the tree of knowledge good evil so this entree statement entre today we
00:15:36 all talk about food by the way all my illustrations today except for one all about food one so all you foodies if i do it wrong please excuse me so let's look at a interesting topic about abundance with boundaries now you look at the text look at that the lord god made all kinds of trees well there scarcity in the in in the garden either none was there starvation none there was abundance and he was pleasing to the eye good for food there was abundance they could eat as much as they wanted they could eat until the stomach's burst
00:16:15 not necessarily so why because god put one restriction on them one tree you cannot eat so there's a little simple lesson here about abundance with boundaries now let me show you two pictures uh okay i'm gonna confess a little bit i'm what you call a little bit of my wife says i'm a health freak so you know i'm quite careful what i eat et cetera et cetera so i i sort of empathize with this so i'm going to make some remarks those of you are very health into health keto diet guys intermittent fasting people
00:16:46 low carb people those who you wash the calories no salt no sugar don't worry i get it i'm i'm a little bit like that so here is a woman eating salad here wow he just finished a buffing let me ask you a question who looks happier come allah show hillary he really look like wow oh happy this one is mother smiling now what what is this picture telling you this is the this is the perennial debate you know what the debate is this is i eat to live this is leave to eat this is what life is about eating the
00:17:26 joy of eating why you restrict me so much this one he said wow you eat so much of this your high blood pressure go up like you're this go applause you have all that so eat salad oh everyday eat salad cry like oh you gotta eat salad i'll cry you know so we have this debate now the garden of eden actually talks a little bit of that let me give you a nice example buffet table once upon a time before kovite 19 there was such a thing called buffet now no more already uh you look at this i also hungry already because nobody
00:18:00 there go for buffet table now here's the thing about buffets right if i say igor buffet everybody happy right even even a health conscious guy like me would say let's go for buffet but if i tell you everyday eat buffet what would you say i think you will drop you can't take it you're not wired to eat buffet every day because there is such a thing called limitations there's such a thing called self-control so such a thing called knowing your limit now we've been talking about our dnas our spiritual dna
00:18:32 is to be a royal priest and our spiritual dna is to always know our limits now it's such a simple truth but we miss this and i i begin to realize that one thing god put into us is in anything you do always know there are boundaries even that which is good because anything good done to the extreme will become bad i've seen people who had spiritual experience and suddenly they they get into a form of christianity and they push it all the way everything else they don't think about and suddenly that
00:19:06 becomes the truth it could be a pursuit of reading the bible it could be finding meditation and silence it could be a form of worship suddenly they become what you call a fanatic and once you push it and you don't know your boundaries you don't understand balance so here's a little thing and again here's the simple thing about life life is always about moderation always knowing even the good things in life you take it to indulgence level it is a sin gluttony is a sin and it's a simple truth not a major truth but pick that in
00:19:39 mind that always know that we are designed with limits we are not god only god is limitless now let me give you the entree or the main uh main point here the point is eating for eternal life and you find the text you read in genesis 3 23 it says this about adam and eve and he said he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat why and live forever so we know here from the text to live forever means adam and eve have to eat form the tree of life so here's an understanding
00:20:18 of how genesis looks at immortality immortality or eternal life which is taken from the character of god is from eating from the tree of life continuously and the tree of life is as it is it's the life of god so one way to say it is that if for us to live forever you must eat from that which is of god this is all hebrew poetry so try to try to pick that up in mind you see some people say being immortal no need to eat no you need sustenance you need continued sustenance and for adam to be able to
00:20:56 live for eternity he had to continually eat from the tree of life so here's one word i want you to pick up and and really process is the word continuous now do we find this in the story of the bible let's go through uh understand the gay genesis was written primarily for the hebrews at the time the exodus so a person walking the desert reading this he understands this connection why because in the in in the exodus journey how did god sustain them mana from heaven and again as you know the story you
00:21:31 couldn't store your mana a god had done it such that you could only take enough for the day and of course on the sabbath you took a double portion for the sabbath and if you take it more you will go bad now why you see god is trying to teach them to depend on him daily if you hot all the manner you're not going to depend on god you just put in a store house and say that i have enough and that's a lesson for us right so here's about again the word continuous daily sustenance daily dependence and for adam to have
00:22:06 eternal life it was daily dependence on god by eating of the tree of life again where else do we see this in scripture let's look at some prophetic literature and let's look at what ezekiel says and ezekiel talks a lot about the temple some people say this is the third temple we won't go into the controversy and there's a vision we see in ezekiel 47. i'll just go a little bit on about a man uh ezekiel sees a vision of a temple and and a man brings him to the temple this is what it says in verse one the man
00:22:35 brought me back to the entrance to the temple and when you pick up some imagery right how the bible's so rich and i saw water coming from under the treasure of the temple towards the east for a temple phase is so number one eden faced east and i didn't read the verses but what we do you know in chapter two at the center of the garden eden what happened four rivers flowed from it notice again there's water and these waters you know the rest of ezekiel 47 goes into a river so again you have this similarities with
00:23:09 eden and that's why eden is always considered the first cosmic temple so we have facing east we have river eden is facing east it has river the water was coming down under the south side temple saw the altar then led me back to the bank of the river verse 7 when i arrived there i saw a great number of trees on each side of the river so again we have a story of trees again again very edenic language right on both sides of the river now what does it says it says fruit trees of all kind will grow on both banks of the
00:23:41 river their leaves will not wither nor will their fruit fail what is this when you say leaves will not wither nor will a fruit fill it's about eternity it's about continuous harvest it's about continuous abundance that's edenic language that's again genesis 2 every month they will bear fruit because the waters on the sanctuary flows to them their fruit will serve for food and the leaves for healing continuous harvest continuous abundance continuous healing and where does this prophecy finds its connection and those
00:24:17 of you who know your bible know that it comes from revelation 22 again this wrath this comes from two chapters that talks about the new jerusalem coming down where god will wipe away the tears of man there will be no more pain and suffering the old way has gotten away and this it says the angel showed me the river of the water life notice again river eden has a river and we find ezekiel that's a river and here revelation there's a river as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of god and of the lamb down the middle of
00:24:50 the great street of the city understand this symbolic language yeah and exactly like easy killer each side of the river stood what the tree of life a very likely symbolic when you say this tree of life is not one tree because one tree cannot be on two sets river is probably a gathering of trees bearing twelve crops of fruit yielding its food every month notice the similarities with ezekiel and the least of the trio for the healing of the nation same thing again no longer will there be any curse
00:25:21 again we have the idea of the tree of life finding itself from genesis 2 restoring itself in revelations 22 giving food for eternity giving healing for eternity so let me stop here and recap a little bit because it's all very rich i want to tell you a story of tree trees and we really see the tree of life gives you eternity but you must continuously eat for it for abundance for prosperity for healing that's what the text is saying so let me tell you three trees the first is the tree trio live we just
00:25:56 spoke about it and the tree of life is telling us you eat continuous of death which is from god or you can say eat of that which is of god some church traditions will tell you to eat of god all right so let's go there there's another tree right we know we call it the tree of knowledge of good and evil and we already said that is about authority the moment man says i'm going to take over that authority i'm going to decide what's good and what's evil i'm going to decide that i have knowledge you're basically eating of the
00:26:33 tree that's what the text is saying and what happens when you eat of that tree you've essentially eaten from the tree of death and so life is about two choices two roads two gates that's what matthew tells us you either eat from the tree of life or eat of the tree of death and because adam eat of that we've all sinned we have the propensity to want to be our own gods that is the essence of sin the essence of sin is i want autonomy i want god's authority i want to decide what's right what's wrong i will dictate
00:27:11 my term and that's why the world is in such a mess that's called trying to be your own god that sin and for sin once you eat that there is eternal death and there's the third tree it is called the cross and on that cross on that cross jesus died for my sins and your sins and he went through the tree of death he died for our sins so that he can remain come up victorious and give eternal life and then i want to challenge you if you're not a christian here today or you just happen to bump into our church service i want to
00:27:50 challenge you today that all of us are sinners and all of us need to eat of the tree of life and if the cross brings us life we have to eat off the cross or to put it nicely we have to eat of that which is jesus and so revelation 2 verse 7 says this whoever years let me hear what the spirit says to the churches and so this is a lesson to us fbc to the one who is victorious the one who has gone through death through life i will give the right to eat from the tree of life which is the paradise of
00:28:25 god so eat from the tree of life regularly and live forever we learned that from genesis revelations eat from christ regularly and live forever why do you think holy communion we always every time we do regularly is about remembering the his body broken for us his blood spilled for us and jesus says partake of me so here are some way where scripture is just so rich so let's go back to this here we have the table of presence what presence is the presence of god and what we have we have bread and soul
00:29:05 eat of the bread and which bread are we looking at jesus says i am the bread of life he who comes to me will not hunger he who believes in me will never thirst so the table of presence and the bread on it points to jesus being the real bread of life and john picks up all his language as mentioned in the first chapter of john he tells us that jesus tabernacle among us few verses later he says he is the light of the world and in him there is life and so john points jesus to the lamb stand jesus is both the lamb stand it gives
00:29:45 light that is eternal and gives life tree of life and he is the table of presence so you know sometimes when you read scripture i don't know about you when i read it i say wow this is just how from genesis to john to revelations it is the same story and it is very rich and i i hope for you it was for me when i read this i i just say the word of god comes alive so okay eating from the tree of life continuous harvest abundance healing life and everybody goes hallelujah wow all right you know i want to come to fbc if this is what
00:30:22 you're going to give me and and you only teach this that's what the prosperity gospel church is doing the churches are packed if every sunday we preach this the church will be packed the key word is continuous understanding this jesus had to go through the tree of death to bring us to the tree of life he had to suffer humiliation of the cross the pain of it and the disciples followed suit and the key word is continuous you want all of this let me go you another continuous that you should have the rest
00:30:54 of this continuous obedience and the terrible points to it regularly go and give sacrifices and confess your sins continuous perseverance the exodus stories this is about persevering on your spiritual journey continuous faith the accident stories about them they had to go whenever they see a pillar of fire cloud they had to stop continuous mercy because they sinned again and again and continuous grace you see the bible tells you one story you know one story and the tree of life is telling you one word
00:31:30 you call it a christian you continue you continue to persevere continue and in this covit 19 it is so easy to give up and we're going to talk a little bit how to do it but i want to challenge you if you're you're at a point like where you feel very defeated you feel very down and and things are just getting to you i just want to encourage you to continue how do you do that you say i know very easy to talk all this god talk how to do it let's break it down we look at the other point and so we look at daily
00:32:01 continuous sustenance and how do you do it is the second point is to have the right kind of cravings or john piper calls it right kind of desires so let's pick this up a little bit so let's look at the eating from the tree of knowledge to go to evil we're gonna flip it the other way and see what happens when you eat bad stuff and so can you imagine if if your family or if families were run democratically and you're small kids and every time you want to chew dinner and lunch the kids get to vote this will be the diet every
00:32:33 day together with ice cream because that's what kids like to eat and there's an old saying in this right it says you are what you eat you are what you eat it came from a book in the 30s by victor lindla and it's become the mantra for health but people don't understand this saying actually goes back one century beforehand it comes from a french philosopher and the origins of this statement is actually this from this french philosopher tell me what you eat and i will tell you who you are basically
00:33:09 what you desire reflects what who your character is and once you take it to the level actually john i can't pronounce the french word is taking it to every level it's about cravings what you crave in life shows you who you really are and you can find that let's see matthew speaks a bit about this where your heart is there your treasure is also so so scripture tells us man shall not live from bread alone on every word that comes from the mouth of god so the gospel matthew is telling us that don't crave physical
00:33:45 things so much crave dead which is of god or as gain learn to desire to eat from the tree of life eat from jesus now let's get the theory right first and we go to the practical that means try to make your christian life desiring god as piper says that is the starting point either that you do religious duty you come to church on sundays you do this and that's why the church has so many depressed defeated christians and and something pains me you see people with christians for years and they look unhappy they look sad they
00:34:17 feel bitter they say the church does this to them no one understands them and they are lying in a bondage for for very long time and they call themselves christians and only god knows not for me to judge but you don't see victory in their life and the key word is to have the right kind of craving and what story is telling us the story bible is you have to learn to crave that which is of god that's the genesis story eat from the tree of life if jesus is a type of tree of life he says really i am
00:34:48 the true vine you are the branches or is it the other way around can't quite remember but the whole idea is that you have to you have to go and take that of jesus eat of me i am the bread of life now one way of doing this is what happens on the consequences when you eat of other things all right so we say you are what you eat and and why does this come up why do people continue to eat things even though their toad is bad for the health because they are being fat lies that's what health people all tell you
00:35:18 so let's break this down a little bit all right and we're going to look at the genesis text number one again are all food examples today don't contaminate food with unclean things uh now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the lord god had made and moses would write this specifically highlights that she said to woman did god really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden now understand they are what they are royal priests they are supposed to what jaga the garden it's very clear within the garden that's
00:35:47 eden that is what we call the dry lands and unclean animals are not allowed to enter the moment you see it a clean animal you're supposed to basically hollow the guy or push him out now just for those of you may not know your bibles very well we're not talking about talking serpents all of that this is this is all symbolic language quite likely perhaps the devil entered the serpent took possession we don't really know we know in revelations the ancient serpent is called the devil the point is he is unclean he's supposed to not come
00:36:20 in and the text is trying to tell you is that adam and eve are abandoning their roles as a royal priest number two royal priests have direct access to god and what has happened is being substituted now the serpent has stepped in as an intermediary by the way some trivia why do you think the tabernacle doesn't allow unclean people to enter is to remind you of this it was because an unclean animal entered into the temple the garden of eden that's why we sin and the tabernacle foreshadows this or reminds you that nothing unclean is to
00:36:55 enter until the time of the messiah some trivia for you now number two the dangerous adding artificial flavoring you know you eat hawker food a lot of emoji you know cantonese you know so the woman said to the serpent we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden but god did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle garden and you must not touch it eh since when did god say this uh she added you know here you she added it so this way happens when we start to go into distortion of truth we take
00:37:30 something which is good from god something reasonable god is just saying there's one tree you can't eat of it now a reasonable commandment has become unreasonable you can't touch it also if they are running the garden they bang the tree they will die so this is a distortion of truth do we get that sometimes we get it right in church conflicts they say you tell someone you can't do it but the thing gets to another truth so tell me you cannot do this and they will add to it so there is a distortion of the truth there is a
00:37:59 adding of artificial flavoring all right and so this one then the serpent replies you will certainly not die before god knows when you eat from it your eyes will open and you'll be like god knowing good and evil and this one of course the snow white story is a it's really the clicker you want to give somebody poison you wrap it in candy you put it in an apple and by the way the the fruit in in in genesis is not apple the apple has been given a bad rap it's a fruit but the point is the serpent is trying to deceive eve and
00:38:32 so here's one thing about sin one thing christians always understand the idea of discernment but what the serpent is doing is tapping into the idea of self-assertion when you eat from it you will be like god that's the fundamental definition of sin you will be like god you will decide what's right what's wrong in essence you don't need god you just need the blessings of god but you will be god and of course i want to pick up some word when a woman saw the fool where tree was good pleasing to the eye desirable for
00:39:10 gaining wisdom what kind of wisdom we picked earlier the wisdom to be her own god she took some and then the rest of the story you know and we'll be in the same mess every day so here look at this lady wow what did she do she saw the donut it's pleasing to the eye look at the colors very nicely that is desirable i don't know for what but desirable and so she took it and probably the lie is going to say you know whenever you want to eat things are sick no problem just once have you ever heard that chinese video just once a day that
00:39:41 was because i repeated after that all the calories come on you know ah a little bit little bit every night chow mein wow you see what it does to you lah all right because little bit today canna eat la illah all right now i want to say all of these are written for our sakes you know so i want to show you a pattern and see whether you learn something it's about cravings actions and consequences and you see whether you can see the story of the bible the woman saw she desired she took correct they have
00:40:13 very clearly from the first day i don't know about women here today by the way could be the man's just as bad now further down a few chapters we see abram and his wife sarai and she supposedly what you call wow beautiful and pharaoh's people saw her what what the pharaoh or in the tourist people do saw the wife desired he took and there's a lie here isn't it here the woman was lied to and here abram lied to the pharaoh said hey this this is actually my sister you see you see the story that's a parallel
00:40:48 after that few chapters later you have abram having lord having a squirrel and what happens lord source a land he desired and what is more interesting he says the land looks like eden and he took and it's what's the land called no it's just near a place called sodom and gomorrah you see the pattern there's a pattern right and further on we're talking about food right this one is really about food isao k make hunting hua smell the bakute very good desired he took you see the pattern you see the pattern
00:41:25 let me give you the ultimate pattern the ultimate one and i want to speak cantilever and this one to all you men i know women are so heavy but man this one you hear you you see the last one you know what i'm saying the ultimate example king david he saw a beautiful one he desired he and again they were lies here what's the consequences of all of this the consequences are disastrous you see the bible tells you one story why do you think it comes to the new testament flee flee from sin tells you all these things in the in the
00:42:06 sermon on the mount they're all picking up the same story and i for me this is for me very helpful in my struggle against it because we all have this it could be lust it could be power it could be one thing a relationship it could be anything but cravings if you do not have discernment leads to actions and if you don't think of the consequences that fleeting moment of pleasure will lead to a lot a lot of trouble so we are now in the covet time it's painful it's difficult we're all struggling much longer
00:42:44 you have delta variant lambda variant you can all get depressed we get it and what the text is telling you if you're talking about cravings you can feed your fears you can feed your pessimism you can feed your anger loneliness pride that's really what the main sin is to be self-autonomous the need for attention some people just they've got nothing to do is always go into social media they need to see how many likes how many people follow them on insta the need for acceptance i i need to be accepted by my friends i'm lonely
00:43:18 and of course any and all kinds of addiction and so your cravings depict who you are so instead of feeding all of this what a text is saying and as we said earlier we're talking about eating from christ eating from the tree of life eating from that which is good feed your faith so hear me give you example how the new testament compliments this story we know this very famous verse from philippians 6 4 6 by anxiety and people struggle to to understand how to apply it now and very often we forget philippians 4 6 is tied
00:43:56 to the next verse feed on this and don't feed on that eat of the fruits of the spirit and deny the fruits of the flesh it's always about alternative eating there's such a thing as sugar-free coke don't take ice cream take yogurt i'm not saying you can't eat ice cream give me example right find alternatives for you so you can't that that person don't do it he he has a craving so scripture good god says you crave this this is going to destroy you crave this instead crave this and these things will build
00:44:30 you up so daily sustenance craving for god in things of god now you can see it's all very easy to say very easy to talk how to do and so we look at the last part of it and just as you say we're going to talk about eating together or failoship all right how the two are tied together those of you don't understand cantonese is talking of food and eating so let's look at food and eating together let me give you two pictures maybe not very relevant now because now nobody can go out now now restaurants open also people don't to go
00:45:03 eat no but let's imagine in the world before koveta what is the better meal to have you have this fine markham at this michelin star right but expensive restaurant oh you go eat at the mama store with all these very cheap food but you have your friends around you which is better which is tastier i bet you most people will say this you see the phenomenal eating is not just the consumption of food there's something about eating together that makes the food tastier isn't it there's something about when people
00:45:39 gather together they all eat you know so eating has got to do with community now i want you to tie that to the text that you have to eat of that which is from god because the bible links this you know so let me go back and just give you some simple trivia people always say eve out of the fruit eat eat of the fruit eat eat of the fruit add them and eat out of the fruit do you see adam and eve's name mentioned here you know why if do you know when eve is mentioned eve is only mentioned after the fall
00:46:16 and then adam names the wife eve and causing the mother of all living i will be taking on that on another sermon but why does moses deliberately remove all reference to adam eve so when people come and tell you and say adam we eat a fruit nowadays i saw squirm because moses deliberately doesn't do that it's always the woman the woman the woman the woman and when this adam is her husband her husband you know why because it shows you god is not concerned about any person but about humanity god saw them as one
00:46:55 and in the next sermon when i talk about the about church and the bride of christ i'm going to pick this up with the ark of the covenant you see god from design he's concerned about community and so moses deliberately removes all reference to adam and eve he wants to say humanity and if humanity had not eaten humanity would have been a humanity of prosperity after the ad then you find the repeated words adam and eve adam and eve chapter four eve gave birth eve gave birth you notice that before this deliberately before the
00:47:36 fall is only mentioned man and woman the only time the word adam is used you go in early verses is when he says for adam no helper was found meaning you're not complete before that chapter 2 chapter 1 is man woman pick that up a little bit why is god trying to tell us this because we are wired for community and somehow food brings people together all you guys where you were dating last time uh what's the first thing you do you go and invite your girlfriend to makanma why correct or not there's something
00:48:07 about eating you know so when people date they will eat family meals are important correct you tell your kids you have to eat you go and visit a village or go meet another culture they'll invite you for feast this is the ideal eating and this is imbued in scripture it's imbued and it is imbued in the tabernacle language all right so let me just show you all over the world this haydn church they will have what they call the love feasts the understanding and you bring people around the community to eat why because
00:48:42 when you bring people to eat you do more than just eat food you eat of what you eat of the character of the church you eat grace you eat love you eat acceptance and so we go back to the tabernacle idea the presence table presence whose presence the presence of god the presence of god and in that time of the we have the in mount sinai moses ariel kneed up seventy elders went up saw the god of israel under his feet was something like paper me or lapis lazuli as bright blue in the sky but god you know raised his hand
00:49:19 against the leader israel you're not supposed to see god you die they saw god they add and drank they add in the presence of god that's genesis 2 when god tells adam and eve eat in the garden you think god left them he's there he walks in the presence so that's the story of the bible and so at the end of revelations the book ends he says jesus said this behold i stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door and i'm asking i'm challenging if anyone here doesn't really know christ
00:49:51 this is the verse for you i will come into him and eat with him and in his ministry on earth jesus add with everybody and every once a month when we do holy communion we remember that by eating and drinking so today this is a challenge of the importance of eating together why it's about community and i want to just talk a little bit about the vuca world and and bring you did a little bit of a community all right so we are talking about i brought this up last summer but vuca world it's a volatile world it's uncertain it's
00:50:28 complex and it's ambiguous and nothing more so we are now in september and everybody is really feeling it how long more can we go on like that the economy is so bad and so it is really a vucawa and i talked about if we are royal priests we begin to see that we have a vision of who we are with understanding that we have courage and we have adaptability let me pick it now to the idea of eating together eating together has two elements i want to just share that with you one is about community but you're eating together in the
00:51:03 presence of god is god and man at the table eating it is the wedding banquet of the feast with revelations picks up that means when you when you eat together you encourage one another and so the idea is that community which is focused on the presence of god in their midst no matter their differences the cross brings people together it brings people together to walk so let me tell what vuca means when we bring families together christian families to eat together and to eat of christ in spiritual food one
00:51:39 there's accountability and so there's no such thing as a solo christian so today i want to challenge you if if you haven't been abusive for a while and and you just come in and tune in and go oh that's not christianity or maybe you were in a group and then you left i want to challenge you find community any community today i want big lessons find a live group find a few people meet up regularly if you can't do that whatsapp me privately we'll find some people walk with you there's some people who struggle and and
00:52:09 i'm privileged to be in a few groups with just a few people four or five we'll meet up with you regularly we'll get people family life does a lot of this where people very willing to walk with you but you need to be accountable that's the whole idea of community the sea is about communion that's why we remember what jesus says to eat of my flesh this is my body broken for you this is my blood power for you the idea of eating together the eat of christ that means christ is at your community and with that we have unity
00:52:45 so this is why eating together is important to eat of jesus together to eat of the bread of life together so what is v talking about so let me end with my last illustration and this illustration has nothing to do with food everything else about food today no food this last one now all right if you ask yourself why geese fly in a v formation i'd like to thank vincent from boys brigade who shared a little bit of this and i went through in detail about this do you know why they fly in v formation you follow the signs uh they fly
00:53:19 together in that formation because the sign shows you when they are flying together and their wings are flapping they actually take off anything up to 30 to 60 percent of the effort than if they fly so low because there's something about the physics of the uplift of the lifts they glide so when this guy is flapping flapping flapping flapping flapping everybody glides so what's this thing the whole idea that you are stronger together because you go number two they also are able to rotate so this guy
00:53:52 is never always in front you know whenever he flies and he gets tired he moves to the back the other guy comes in front it is there's a lot of research done on it so nobody burns out so when there's community we all work together we work together and as they head towards food we hate towards christ so this is how and here's the last one we talked about comfortability what happens when one bird suddenly falls off the grid or it gets sick and he says you know what i'm going through depression i'm struggling
00:54:27 i have financial issues i i just can't cope with it does it mean the birth just goes off so let me show you another picture you notice when one person one bird has an issue two other birds will go off they will break formation and then the v will connect back and this bird will go down and the other two birds will look after that bird and then they will rejoin back the formation so this is what eating together is it's about community that looks up for one another and i want to challenge you today with just this main point
00:55:01 find community so that you can walk together and be sustained daily by jesus for eternity and as you do that you will find cravings and you find cravings that are god-centered and not self-centered because we cannot fight sin alone we do it as a community innova then you are accountable you have communion and unity so what does the v stands for v is for victory and so revelation 2 verse 7 says to the one who is victorious i will give the right to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of god god bless you god all
00:55:49 eat continuously of the bread of life and may the lord really touch all of us let's close in the word of prayer lord we just ask that you speak to each one of us and the word comes alive that we find community find our daily sustenance in you and as we daily go by holding one another more lord that we find our cravings in you that we desire you and not desire other things that we see we desire we take and those consequences are deadly so simple lessons but very profound teach us to learn from all of this in
00:56:30 jesus name amen and so if you have a prayer request please send it to fbc via zoom and again just just make sure you don't leave and i'm going to now stop here
