Struggles of Life || Punishable by God || Week 4

Welcome back to “Punishable by God,” a series diving deeper into the consequences God gave to the snake, Eve, and Adam in the Garden of Eden. 

Last week, we discussed the consequences of Eve and the stories that these consequences get connected to. We looked at them both at face value and with a deeper understanding of what it means in today’s world.

This week, we begin a three-part process of digging into the consequences God gave to Adam. Today, we’re looking at Genesis 3:17 and discussing life’s struggles. Let’s read what it says. 

17 And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.

Sparking Trouble

Our first passage is Job 5:1-7. The Book of Job is one of the five poetry books in the Bible. This book demonstrates God’s sovereignty and true faith’s meaning and addresses the question, “Why do the righteous suffer?” Job 5 puts us in the middle of a discussion Job is having with his friends, specifically Eliphaz. Eliphaz and his friends wanted to sit with Job in his suffering. They sat with Job in silence for seven days. Something that feels uncommon in today’s culture, but it’s a sign to show their dedication to their friend. Eliphaz’s argument for Job’s suffering centered around the fact that Job must have sinned. His solution for Job should be going to God and presenting his case about what happened and fixing things. Job didn’t agree with that, even telling Eliphaz, “Stop assuming my guilt.” This conversation even led to God rebuking or scolding Eliphaz. Let’s read a part of their conversation. 

1 “Cry for help, but will anyone answer you? Which of the angels will help you?” 

2 Surely resentment destroys the fool, and jealousy kills the simple. 

3 I have seen that fools may be successful for the moment, but then comes sudden disaster. 

4 Their children are abandoned far from help; they are crushed in court with no one to defend them. 

5 The hungry devour their harvest, even when it is guarded by brambles. The thirsty pant after their wealth. 

6 But evil does not spring from the soil, and trouble does not sprout from the earth. 

7 People are born for trouble as readily as sparks fly up from a fire.

While there are no notes in my study Bible, I saw some interesting connective points. There’s a connection between the struggle and the consequences of sin, summed up as a continuation of the downfall of Adam and Eve. Sin gets reinforced by this inner desire to commit evil and trouble. Sin isn’t something that is created but is something that we’re born into. We may enjoy a short-term high from our sin, but the consequences that come with it are far more severe. Those sinful actions can happen as quickly as a spark lights a fire. Our choices can often be split-second decisions we may make by emotion instead of prayer and reasoning. Our emotions shouldn’t guide our actions; only God should do that. Our emotions can reinforce what God is calling us to do, but they shouldn’t be the defining factor. God created our emotions. God created how we react to things that make us happy. God created how we react to things that make us anxious. God made emotions. God made us. God, the Creator, knows our instruction manual. Let’s let him operate the machinery.

Is Hard Work Worth It? 

The second passage is Ecclesiastes 1:2-11. Ecclesiastes is another book of Poetry credited to King Solomon, King David’s son. Solomon wrote this book to spare future generations the bitterness of learning through their own experience that life apart from God is meaningless. Our scripture falls into Solomon’s personal experiences. The words we’re about to talk about come from Solomon’s personal life, so it is wise to remember that word choice and tone will be important here. Let’s read this passage. 

2 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” 

3 What do people get for all their hard work under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes 

5 The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. 

6 The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. 

7 Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. 

8 Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

9 History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. 

10 Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. 

11 We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.

Solomon wanted people to understand that prosperity doesn’t last forever. Everything we achieve will one day disappear, so Christians reinforce the concept of living for the kingdom of heaven and not for the things of earth. We must keep the kingdom of heaven in mind to live wisely. If we don’t, we will become either proud and self-sufficient when we succeed and leave God out of life, or we will become sorely disappointed when we fail and resent God.

Solomon’s goal was to show that earthly possessions and human accomplishments are ultimately not worth it and can leave us empty. Bummer of a mindset to have, right? Yet, he’s got a point. Our possessions and accomplishments have a time allotment of purpose in our lives. It could be a day, an hour, a year, or even a decade, yet time is finite. This concept is why the Bible pushes for a pursuit of a relationship with God and how that is the only absolute satisfaction we will have. Only when we understand what is real, how God created the world to work, will we see how to live with joy, contentment, and purpose.

When we feel restless and dissatisfied with life, we tend to wonder something along the lines of the following questions:

• Why am I so tired and unfulfilled if I am in God’s will?
• What is the meaning of life?
• When I reflect on it, will I be happy with my accomplishments? 
• Why do I feel burned out, disillusioned, and dry?
• What is to become of me?

I’ve been there. I’ve asked why I’m so tired and unmotivated, yet I am doing SO much for God’s kingdom through my church work and sharing his word. I’ve asked why I feel burned out. Every question centers around motivation, energy, purpose, and goals. These questions are good to ask because they keep us from stagnating and staying in one place. It allows us to shake the dust off where it needs to be shaken off and do something different. This response includes the things that God calls you to do that you don’t feel comfortable doing.

Solomon tests our faith, challenging us to find what our true meaning of life is in God alone. As you reflect on your life, maybe using the questions above, you will see how important following God is over all other options. Let’s look at some other passages in Ecclesiastes. 

Ecclesiastes 2:11 says: “But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless – like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.”

Solomon called his journey of finding life’s meaning “chasing the wind.” Think about how we can feel the wind blow by us, but we can’t actually catch it. Our accomplishments can be like the wind. We can feel it for a moment, whether it be the pride of celebration or relief of doing a challenging task, but those feelings are still temporary. We can’t find the security to make it through life through our accomplishments. We can’t find our self-worth in these things. Security and self-worth can be found in God, more specifically, the love of God. God’s love can give us a sense of security that we are loved by someone when we can’t feel the love from others or ourselves. God’s love reminds us of our worth as God’s creation and why God created us. 

Ecclesiastes 3:9 says: “What do people really get for all their hard work?” Let’s gain some context for this. We’ll continue through verse 13:

10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. 

11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. 

12 So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. 

13 And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. 

Solomon’s reminder here is that our ability to find satisfaction in our work largely depends on our attitude. We can become dissatisfied with where we are if we lose our sense of purpose. We can become frustrated with where we’re at if we need to move quickly enough. We need to remember the purpose that God intended for our work. We can enjoy it by remembering that God has given us work to do and realizing that the fruit of our labor is his gift. 

We must remember that our work, framed from the concept of work, was a consequence given to Adam and recognize that the response from our work is a gift from God. Thinking of a consequence/curse as a gift feels reversed, but it’s a reminder that God doesn’t create things for evil. There must be good that comes from this. That good thing is God. God is in the middle of any work we must do. God created us to handle the work that comes our way. It’s our job to do that work with the gifts and talents he’s given us to the best of our abilities and leave the rest up to God.

Sin is Painful

Our last passage is Romans 8:18-25. This book is the first letter of the Bible written by the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote this to introduce himself to the Romans and present the heart of his message before he got to Rome. Our passage picks up on Paul’s explanation of the foundations of the Christian faith: all people are sinners, Christ died to forgive sin, and we are made right with God through faith; this begins a new life with a new relationship with God. Here’s what Romans 8:18-25 says: 

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 

20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope,

21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 

22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 

23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.

24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it.

25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

Paul reminds us that sin caused humanity to fall from God’s creative perfection. The world deals with frustration and bondage to death and decay, so it cannot fulfill its intended purpose. One day, the world will become freed from sin and transformed into God’s perfection. Until then, Christians are to wait eagerly for our return to perfection and the restoration of the earth. Now, this is an overwhelming mindset to have. When we talk about worldly sin and how the world is a sin-filled place, we talk about all 7+ billion people. Let’s break this down into a personal connection. 

Christians can see the world as it is, but we don’t need to see it pessimistically. Christians can remember the hope for a better future through Christ. We can look forward to the new heaven and Earth that God has promised and wait for that to come. In the meantime (because we do NOT know when this will happen), we go with Christ into the world to serve others, take care of each other of all levels, share the good news of the Gospel, and attempt to thwart the evil that goes on. I want to share more about waiting for the new heaven and earth. 

We, again, do NOT know when Jesus is returning. Paul and the disciples expected his return to happen again in their lifetime, but here we are 2,000 years later approximately. There are different parts of the biblical story, mainly in Revelation, where we read about the signs that will signify that Jesus is returning and the current world is ending. Yet, there is no timeline for what that looks like. At least, there’s no universally agreed-upon timeline for what that looks like. I believe because of that; God doesn’t want us to focus on what that looks like. The Lord’s Prayer encourages us to bring the kingdom of heaven down to earth. You will read the rest of today’s blog with that as the foundation. The remaining scripture we’ll discuss talks about the new heaven and earth, but I will focus on how we can bring the kingdom of heaven back to earth. 

Acts 3:21 says this: 

21 For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets.

Most Jewish people thought Joshua was the prophet Moses predicted would come. Peter declared that the prophet was also Jesus. Peter was declaring that the prophet had come to earth among them. He and all the apostles challenge the Jewish people to take responsibility for their actions against Jesus, harkening back to the Palm Sunday story, crucifixion, etc. Peter challenged them to repent their wrongs and believe in Jesus as their Savior. From this point, many Jews rejected the Gospel, but many Gentiles accepted and received Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.

This fact can feel odd. Jesus was of Jewish culture, yet so many Jews continued to rebel and reject the teachings of Jesus. Yet, the Gentiles (those who do not believe in Jesus) accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. In the Pentecost story in Acts 2, approximately 3,000 people turned to Jesus. Looking back at the Romans passage, we see the two tasks of sharing the Gospel and working to thwart the world’s evils. These two tasks we can do as a human helps bring the kingdom of heaven back to earth.

2 Peter 3:13 says this

3 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness. 

God doesn’t desire to destroy all of creation, because God is not an evil god, nor does God do things with evil intent. God wants to re-create the world as originally intended, and we see a glimpse of that in the Garden of Eden. God will purify the heavens and the earth with fire. (Two things here: heavens can refer to the sky; purifying in this sense often refers to ridding the world of something that causes imperfection – which reminds me of the Flood in Genesis 6.) We can joyously look forward to this restoration in the future. The Bible says we can look forward to the great fire that brings about God’s good world. 

Again, think about the symbolism that comes up. The new heaven and earth often refer back to the Garden of Eden imagery, where there were no issues and perfect harmony. We often strive for that as we work to bring the kingdom of heaven back to earth. The heavens refer to the skies in this passage. This translation is not HEAVEN, where God, Jesus, and the angels reside, but the heavens. Think about the Day 2 creation story. Those are the heavens that Peter talks about here. God’s going to purify the earth and heavens by fire. Fire gets used to eliminate things that don’t belong and create the purest version of what you are burning. Because sin fell into the world and tainted God’s purest form for creation, the belief would be that fire would bring God’s creation to the purest place it could be. It reminded me of how God attempted to purify the world through the Flood in Genesis 6, and we learned three chapters later that Noah wasn’t as perfect as he claimed to be. God claimed that he wouldn’t bring another flood to attempt to purify the world (Gen 9:14-15). Fire is also a consistent image with Peter, reflecting on the Pentecost and how the flame hovered over the disciples when they received the Holy Spirit. Maybe the world gets purified with the Holy Spirit, and it’s not a catastrophic physical fire but a worldwide passionate internal fire that guides us back to the teaching of the Gospel.

Let’s wrap up this discussion here. We talked about how trouble can happen as fast as a spark to a flame and how God can help us process our emotions and decisions. We then talked about how the hard work of life can be worth it from the stories of Solomon. We talked about how earthly possessions don’t mean as much as the possessions that better the kingdom of heaven. We talked about how a sinful life can be painful from the perspective of Paul in his letter to the Romans. We talked about the mindset of a new heaven and earth and how we can bring the kingdom of heaven to earth by serving others, caring for others, sharing the gospels, and working to thwart the world’s evils. 

Next week, we will discuss thorns, thistles, fruit, branches, vines, and Jesus. Until then, stay blessed!