If we look back to Genesis 2:15 notice what God says. “15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

He gave us a command, it’s actually the second command he gave us, we’ll talk about the first one next week. But he gave us the command to work and take care of the garden. If we look deeper at the meaning of those phrases it relates to serving and keeping or guarding. Serve the garden and keep or guard the garden.

Before we go any deeper on this, that is why when we look at Genesis 3 in a few weeks, Eve usually gets the unfair play of eating the apple first. But Adam was given the command to guard the garden, it was a warning statement before anything happened. Oh boy, there’s another message, how many times do we ignore the warning statement? That we don’t guard what is of value or important?

Some may be questioning, well the garden doesn’t exist today, Garden of Eden is long gone, how does the statement of serving and guarding the garden apply to me today?
Again, what is underneath, beyond our language. Eden means delight, or abundance or luxury, paradise. Tremper Longman says, “Eden indicates that God provides all of humanity’s needs and more when they were first created.”

Eden was a sacred space for God’s presence and provision, where humanity was to serve and guard. As we look throughout Scripture where else do we see that formation? A sacred place for God’s presence and provision?

The Temple was originally designed as God’s presence and provision, where they would have priests and levities serve and guard the temple.

That’s why when we fast forward to Jesus and the Temple, people wonder why it was okay for Jesus to get so worked up. Notice Matthew 21:12-13- 12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Jesus was worked up because the priests and Levities weren’t doing what they were created to do, serve and guard the Temple, the representation of God’s presence and provisions. Jesus shows us what it means to guard, protect, keep the Temple for that intention of sacred space.

Which some may argue, well Aaron, that’s your job, you are the keeper of the Temple, you are to serve and guard the church. Yes, that is part of what I have been formed by. But let us fast forward again to Ephesians 2:10-22.

Notice the start and the finish. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 

I love it, formed by a craftsman for greater things, then it goes on to say how we came about to be formed by God, considering we were Gentiles/Non-Jews and outside of the Temple.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ…. 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Garden imagery to Temple imagery to the Body of Christ, we are formed to be a sacred space for others to experience God’s presence and provision, we do that by serving and guarding.

You were formed with a purpose, a purpose to serve and guard. Where in your life do you need to pay attention to who you are serving and how you are guarding?

I’m going to push on men for a second. Men, how are you serving and guarding your marriage? How are you guarding/protecting your children?

At creation God had sacred space for his presence and provision, he commanded each and everyone of us to serve and guard his sacred space. That isn’t just at church on a Sunday morning, that is in and through who you are and what you do.

God’s intention at creation was to bring life. God’s formation at creation was with purpose and for a purpose, that’s living out of the Garden principal, living out his Kingdom.
Where do you need to step into your purpose today? Don’t think micro-purpose. Think macro-purpose, Garden purpose.