Written by J.V. Fesko |
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
If we find ourselves at a loss for words unable to think of things for which to be thankful, we should turn to the Psalms. The psalmist knew how to thank the Lord for many different things, whether in times of joy or sorrow.

One of the common characteristics we find in the apostle Paul’s letters is the number of times he gives thanks to God in prayer. The opening of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is an example of this:

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. (Eph. 1:16)

Paul was a man forgiven of much and so his prayers were punctuated with thanksgiving for all of the blessings he received from God. Paul’s thankfulness finds precedent especially in the Psalms, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the prayer book of the Bible. In this regard, Psalm 136 stands out as it repeats a continual refrain, “Give thanks to the Lord,” and then lists many different things for which the psalmist was thankful. Can we say the same about our own prayers?
It’s easy to forget to thank God for his blessings in our lives.
To be honest, this is sometimes a shortcoming in my own prayers. I’m quick to take my needs to Christ in prayer but almost as equally quick to forget to thank him for the blessings in my life. Perhaps part of my own forgetfulness on this account is due to the fact that I don’t regularly take brief inventory of God’s blessings in my life.
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Jesus’ placement in the garden is an intentional, providential, God-inspired, connection back to the garden of Eden (cf. 2 Tim 3:16–17). Jesus rises from the dead as the greater Adam who succeeded where Adam failed, and He will reign forevermore over His Edenic kingdom on earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

My wife started a garden last year. Anyone who has done this knows that it is tedious work (it doesn’t matter if you have a green thumb or a brown thumb). You have to have the right soil composition. You have to have the right types of plants for each season. You have to make sure that the plants get enough water and not too much. You have to tend to them regularly and protect them from insects, and in our case, our Basset Hound.
What fascinates me is thinking about the garden of Eden, in light of gardening practices today. Some things would have remained the same. There would be land and plants. But other things would be entirely different… before sin, you wouldn’t have plants dying from pests or disease. The sun wouldn’t scorch the plants. You’d have enough water for them. There were no years of famine. It would have been a special place (to say the least), and that’s what we see presented in the Bible.
Moses writes
Then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and so the man became a living being. And Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, toward the east; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.Gen 2:7–8
God made Adam out of the earth that He just spoke into existence with a word, five days earlier. Subsequently, God planted a garden and put the man there. It is a garden before sin. The colors, fragrances, tastes, and growth were unaffected by the fall. It’s quite a stimulating thought.
I want to draw your attention to two observations which we will pair with the gospel of John later. The first observation I want to draw your attention to is found here. New life is found in the garden. Adam has just been fashioned and is in the garden. Adam is the first human to exist. His life is breathed into him and his direction is seen in him, as a new creation, beginning in a garden.
Next, we see what occurred within the garden in Gen 2:9. “And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The garden is full of produce that God causes to grow. It is a picture of God’s kindness as the fruit is good for food which should reveal God’s own character to Adam.
God made rivers and then tasks man with his job,
Then Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”Gen 2:15–17
There’s more here than I will comment on. Suffice it to say, Adam is placed in the garden as God’s representative. That’s the second observation. Under God, Adam is tasked with ruling over the garden and that expands to the rest of the land and created order (cf. Gen 1:26–28). Adam is called to be faithful as God’s vice-regent. He is without sin, but his faithfulness must be proven. That’s seen in the wording of Gen 2:17.
So, life is breathed into the dirt, and Adam exists, he’s commissioned to be faithful as God’s representative, and his occupation is that of a gardener. Things are looking great.
As the story goes on, Adam sins. He betrays God and does the only thing God prohibited him from in Gen 2:17. Adam ate the forbidden fruit (cf. Gen 3:6). From that moment on, everything changed. Mankind was dead in sin. Man’s relationship with God was fractured. Sin tainted man, making him depraved. The colors, fragrance, sounds, and beauty of the garden of Eden too would have diminished. Sin affected the world over because of Adam’s sin. We have all been affected, but one Man.
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We must not lay stress on our service, as if it deserved our hire. When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants. Indeed, though He say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” yet our reply ought to be, “When saw we thee hungry, and fed thee?”

Moses, the great leader of God’s people in the Old Testament, was characterised above all by his meekness. His brave leadership in exceedingly testing circumstances was marked neither by harshness nor self-aggrandizing. Although it subverts worldly ideas of what a strong leader looks like, those who want to be the greatest in Christ’s church have to be servants, and serve God by serving others. In the following excerpt from one of his sermons, the godly pastor Alexander Wedderburn explores the huge dignity that belonged to Moses when God called him, after his death, simply, “My servant.”
Commendations for God’s servants.
The great testimony of God to Moses is, “my servant.” It is the highest commendation of a man after his death, that in his life he was God’s servant. It is true, all the creatures are in their kind subservient, and God’s greatest enemies do His work. But to be “His” by way of distinction or propriety, as Moses is said to be, is a man’s greatest eulogy in death.
In Scripture, “servant” is the name given to the most eminent saints as their title of greatest honour. Think of “Abraham my servant,” “Job my servant,” “Jacob my servant,” “David my servant.” The greatest prophets and apostles glory in it; Paul, for example, prefixes it to some of his epistles, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” This name is also given to the greatest princes, such as Nebuchadnezzar, head of the Assyrian empire (Jer. 25:9) and Cyrus, head of the Persian empire (Isa. 45). It is given to the excellent martyrs (Rev. 19:2), to the saints in glory (Rev. 22:3), and to the blessed angels (Rev. 19:10). Lastly, this name is given to Jesus the Mediator, “Behold my Servant …” (Isa. 42:1). When you see all these uses of the name laid together, it shows what an eminent testimony of honour it is.
Many things are fixed on in the world, as things which commend people after their death, according to the diversity of their lives. Some have been commended for their honour, some their courage, some their wisdom, some their riches. Where there is a concatenation of these, how eminently commendable that person must be! Well, in spending your life in service to God, a multitude of these concur. How deservedly then is a servant of God commended!
There is wisdom in being God’s servant.
It is the highest wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and a good understanding have all they that do His commandments. Moses is brief in determining what wisdom consists in. “Keep his statutes, for this is your wisdom” (Deut. 4:6). Yea, where His service is absent, the Scripture speaks of men as fools. Since they have rejected the word of God, what wisdom is in them? (Jer. 8:9) The foolish virgins are foolish indeed, to make no provision for the time to come. Though they should be able, with the philosophers, to dispute de omni re scibili (about every knowable thing), or, with Solomon, to traverse nature from the cedar to the hyssop (1 Kings 4:33), yet he who does not walk circumspectly is a fool (Eph. 5:16).
There is honour in being God’s servant.
There is no trade of life so honourable as to serve God. “The way of life is above to the wise” (Prov. 15:24). There are four things which show how honourable a service it is.
First, they are taken up with the noblest objects. Philosophers call their metaphysics the most noble science, because it deals with the highest beings. God’s servants, like Caleb, constantly follow Him (Num. 14).
Next, they act from the noblest principles. Love constrains them, and indeed, by regeneration, they partake of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1), which elevates the spirit far above what the most famous among the Greeks or Romans could ever reach.
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