God Planted the Garden Before Adam: Living Your Pre-Arranged Life

Sermon outline

You are God's workmanship, and just as He planted the garden before He placed Adam in it, He has already pre-arranged everything you will ever need, so stop looking to people and things as your source and walk by faith.

1. God's children are wise people

   Rebuke a mocker and he will hate you, but instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still. A wise person knows how to apply knowledge in his situation, and Christ has been made our wisdom, so a believer never says 'I lack wisdom'. 'My ways are higher than your ways' was spoken before Jesus came; now He lives in you. This is not academic or scientific knowledge but the phronesis of God, the wisdom of Christ in your spirit that shows you which way to go.

   Illustration: He tells those who came in confused that they will leave knowing exactly what to do, because he prayed that while they listened God would show them the way.

   “When I have multiple decisions to choose from, He tells me don't go left, go right.”

   • Proverbs 9:7-9
   • 1 Corinthians 1:30
   • John 10:10
   • Psalm 23:5
   • Isaiah 55:8-9

2. The announcement: God loves you

   Christ is also our righteousness, so you stand before God justified, just as if you had never sinned. You may be pressed in a corner, but the announcement is that God loves you, and you are accepted in the Beloved. You are also the healed of the Lord: by His stripes you were healed, so God does not see you in a wheelchair or with a sickness; He sees you healed. The Word is a mirror in which you discover yourself.

   “I'm only concerned about what God thinks about me, and if He loves me, boy, I love myself.”

   • 1 Corinthians 1:30
   • Ephesians 1:6
   • Genesis 1:26
   • 1 Peter 2:24
   • James 1:23-25

3. You are God's workmanship: your life was pre-arranged

   God is not against you; He is for you. He knew you before you were formed in the womb, by name, how you would look and where you would be born, whatever anyone said about your coming. Ephesians 2:10 in the Amplified says we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God had before ordained. You are not an afterthought: God pre-arranged your birth, your growing up and your whole life, and grasping this gives you an anchor when circumstances buffet you.

   “You're not an afterthought. He thought about you.”

   • Romans 8:31
   • Jeremiah 1:5
   • Ephesians 2:10

4. The garden came before Adam

   God planted the garden first, made all kinds of trees pleasing to the eye and good for food, sent four rivers through it, including one that wound through a land of good gold, and only then put Adam in it. Adam was born into a pre-arranged life, and so were you: the money, people and houses you need were arranged before you arrived; you simply lacked the knowledge. God told Adam to work the garden and take care of it, so guard your born-again life: pull out weeds of fear and doubt and watch what you hear, see and touch.

   Illustration: Not one river but four: he jokes that Adam may have been water-skiing on a log down the rushing Euphrates.

   “Adam was born into a pre-arranged life.”

   • Genesis 2:8-15
   • John 7:38

5. Stop gazing at the wrong source

   Wives gaze at husbands' wallets and workers at their jobs, but neither is your source. Be thankful for your job and be a faithful steward, yet if the company closes you will get a job at a bigger one; if you left a house or lost a car, a better one is coming. What the first Adam failed to do, the second Adam did, so in Christ you came into your inheritance, and poverty is not God's way for you. Love and appreciate your spouse and respect your boss, but God is bigger than them.

   Illustration: Two dresses or two suits in the wardrobe are not the end of your story; it is only the first chapter. He jokes that he once told his wife that if she didn't feed him, God would send the ravens.

   “Your source is not the car, your source is not the house, your source is not the money.”

   • Acts 18:3
   • 1 Corinthians 15:45
   • Romans 8:17

6. Walk by faith, not by sight

   The just shall live by faith, and every believer already has a measure of faith to grow. Don't look at the bills, at who threw you out, divorced you or cursed you; if someone walked away, it is their loss. Look not at the things that are seen: not the doctor's report, the threat of retrenchment or the economy. Don't 'pickle' the car God gave you; use what you have for the kingdom, be a steward and not a miser, and let go when God tells you to sow.

   Illustration: When people at the garage call his V8 a guzzler, he answers that if he can drive it he can fuel it, because he is not living by the economy. If there is no money in the pocket, 'we'll create a fish with money in its mouth'.

   “I can frame my world with the words in my mouth.”

   • Hebrews 10:38
   • Romans 12:3
   • 2 Corinthians 5:7
   • Hebrews 11:6
   • 2 Corinthians 4:18
   • Matthew 17:27
   • Hebrews 11:3
   • Matthew 16:23
   • 1 Kings 17:6

7. Buildings kept for the ministry

   He traces how God kept the church's buildings for them. The present building was built in 1970, ran briefly as a cinema, then stood closed and derelict for about 35 years until the church bought it. The North Coast Road building had failed under every other plan and stood empty for five years until God showed him in a dream that it was for sale, though the owner first said he wasn't selling. The Avoca building was already sold to another group, but after the church prayed, that sale fell through and it came to them.

   Illustration: The North Coast Road owner said he didn't know why he had bought the building, and he told him, 'Sir, I know why you bought it: for me.' The Lord told him, 'Son, everything you'll ever need for your ministry has already been pre-arranged.'

   “If I can keep a building 35 years for you, I kept it just for you.”

8. The Lord has need of them

   Jesus sent two disciples to untie a donkey and a colt and told them that if anyone asked, they should say the Lord needs them. Because Jesus was on an assignment, water turned to wine, the sick were healed, demons were cast out and donkeys were produced. That assignment has now been transferred to every Christian, so everything you need for it has been pre-arranged too. Don't ask the foolish question 'where's the money coming from?'; believe and walk in the Word.

   Illustration: The colt was 'Jerusalem's four-by-four at that time', and he asks where Mitsubishi got the name Colt from.

   “Everything that Jesus ever needed had been pre-arranged for Him, even the donkey and the colt.”

   • Matthew 21:1-11
   • Zechariah 9:9
   • John 2:1-11
   • Matthew 28:18-20
   • Mark 16:15-18