Know · Part Two
From the beginning,
a plan to bring
us home
The Bible is not a rulebook with a story stuck on. It’s one story — God making a good world, losing it to us, and refusing to give up on getting it back.
Genesis · The garden
Made for
partnership
Page one of the Bible says you were made in the image of God — and then given a job.
Eden isn’t just a nice backyard. In Genesis, the garden is the place where God’s space and our space overlap — heaven and earth in the same address. And humans aren’t the audience. God plants the garden and then hands Adam the work: “to work it and watch over it” (Genesis 2:15). Partners. Co-workers. Gardeners of a world God called very good.
Then Genesis 3. We decided we’d rather define good and evil ourselves than trust the One who knows. The partnership broke, and we walked east, out of the garden. Every ache you’ve ever felt for a world that works — that’s homesickness.
But watch what God does next. He doesn’t walk away. The whole Torah is God coming after his people — calling Abraham and making him a promise that bends history: “all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). One family, chosen to carry the rescue to everybody.
The story · Genesis to now
Psalm 1 · Two ways to live
The tree by
the stream
“He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.”
Psalm 1:3, CSB
The songbook of the Bible opens with a choice between two ways. One way looks free but dries up. The other looks slow — roots, seasons, delight in God’s instruction — and ends up alive. Planted, not potted. Fruitful, not frantic.
This psalm is one of SOJO’s anchor texts, because it tells the truth about formation: God’s plan for your life is not a lightning strike. It’s a tree. It grows the way trees grow — slowly, deeply, and on purpose.
Rooted · SOJO Church
Through the lens of Jesus
The Way back
to the garden
Every thread of the story pulls tight in one person.
Jesus is what the plan was always moving toward — God’s space and our space overlapping again, this time in a person. He lived the truly human life we couldn’t, died the death our rebellion earned, and walked out of the grave to start the new creation early. When they asked him about the plan, he didn’t hand out a map. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
“I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”
John 10:10, CSB
Abundant life. Not a bigger version of the life you already have — the life you were made for. God’s plan for your life is not a secret you have to decode. It’s a Person you get to follow.
knowThe plan was never rules. The plan was always coming home.