WEBVTT 00:00:00.180 --> 00:00:01.170 I'm going to invite you to Genesis. 00:00:01.680 --> 00:00:03.140 Chapter three is where we're going to be today. 00:00:03.880 --> 00:00:08.160 Genesis Chapter three, This incredible section of the Bible. 00:00:08.180 --> 00:00:09.980 I told you we're going to go through the Book of Genesis. 00:00:10.180 --> 00:00:11.610 We're going to pick up speed from here. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:19.320 But these first three chapters, I want to go through a little bit slower because the first three chapters of Genesis lay out the foundational beliefs 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:20.940 of all of Christianity. 00:00:21.160 --> 00:00:28.200 These first three chapters, the foundational beliefs of Christianity that are explained further throughout Scripture are really found in 00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:35.270 these first three chapters, these first three chapters paramount for us, and especially when you understand the context in which it was written. 00:00:35.860 --> 00:00:43.060 This was written, I told you, by a man who was a fugitive, sent back to the land that he was running as a fugitive from Moses to proclaim to Pharaoh 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:44.820 to let God's people free. 00:00:45.340 --> 00:00:50.630 And so he's speaking to Pharaoh on behalf of a group of slaves that have spent generations in slavery. 00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:53.860 You can imagine all of the trauma and difficulty that would come along with that. 00:00:53.940 --> 00:00:57.120 And they're leaving from this land into a promised land. 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:04.340 And God has shaping in them as they're journeying from a place of slavery to a place of promise in the Lord as they built a nation, 00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:12.700 God is shaping within them the foundational beliefs of what is essential in order really to succeed in what God has called us to 00:01:12.700 --> 00:01:18.710 in life, to find our worth and our value and our meaning to fulfill a purpose for which you were designed. 00:01:19.320 --> 00:01:27.040 And so these first couple of chapters lay that out and communicates to us the significance of humanity, both male and female, and what we mean 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:33.090 to the Lord and how God has designed us as the crown of His creation and the worth that you've been given by him. 00:01:33.540 --> 00:01:38.740 You know, the apart from God in this world, people tend to find their value based on what you do. 00:01:38.740 --> 00:01:44.410 It's your performance, your worth is attributed to you based on what you contribute. 00:01:45.800 --> 00:01:53.180 And so as long as if you do that within life, the challenge that you have is as you walk through life, you find out there's always some someone 00:01:53.180 --> 00:01:56.380 bigger, stronger, faster, better looking than you, right? 00:01:56.380 --> 00:01:59.070 So the question becomes, does that make me worth less? 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:06.240 And apart from God, if you find your worth based on what you do, the challenge you discover is, well, you're not worth as much 00:02:06.240 --> 00:02:13.540 as someone else simply because if your value is based on what you can accomplish and someone can accomplish more and do better, then they might be worth more. 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:20.370 But in the eyes of God, that is not the case that we as human beings are given intrinsic worth made by our Creator. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:22.600 That your worth is not based on what you do. 00:02:22.600 --> 00:02:28.700 Your worth is based on who you are being made in God's image, and God created you to connect to Him. 00:02:28.700 --> 00:02:35.980 God made you for relationship that you would first connect to your Creator God who is not just your creator, but also your Savior who 00:02:35.980 --> 00:02:37.780 came to give his life for you. 00:02:37.780 --> 00:02:42.750 No one has loved you the way that God has loved you, and so you were made for relationship in the Lord. 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:47.640 And that through that relationship with God, you would bless relationships around you. 00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:53.840 God has made you as a relational creature and knowing God, we live for His glory and bless others. 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:57.080 And the first couple of chapters of Genesis lays that out. 00:02:57.200 --> 00:03:04.320 But the in the first well, the century when this was written with Moses, the question they would ask then is if God has designed it like this 00:03:04.320 --> 00:03:11.310 and all of creation for his glory and wear the crown of his creation and were made to know God and it was perfected by the Lord, what in the world happened? 00:03:11.500 --> 00:03:18.680 You look at life around you and you think, this is this is not obviously what God intended because there's struggle to this life and there's hardship 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:22.060 and people don't treat one another the way that God has designed us. 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:24.020 And some people don't even walk with God. 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:25.020 What is going on? 00:03:25.160 --> 00:03:27.740 And Genesis chapter three answers that for us. 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:33.540 It talks about the fall of mankind and how were to respond in that fall. 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:40.880 What you discover in these first six verses is that man, early in his creation, probably even within the first day, 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:41.450 it could have happened. 00:03:41.920 --> 00:03:47.200 He acts like an unsupervised toddler and does exactly what God says not to do. 00:03:47.380 --> 00:03:49.670 And the only thing God tells him not to do. 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:52.860 And mankind partakes of the fruit, which is symbolic, right? 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:56.840 You see, in the Garden of Eden, there's the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 00:03:57.420 --> 00:04:03.520 If they pursue what God desires for them, which is life, they would embrace that tree and find life with God forever. 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:05.240 But rather they oppose God. 00:04:05.260 --> 00:04:12.380 And they take the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is a way of saying, rather, rather than allow God to be God of our lives, 00:04:12.420 --> 00:04:17.380 we usurp the position of God declaring ourselves God and determining right from wrong. 00:04:17.440 --> 00:04:21.579 The tree of knowledge, of good and evil is man's independence apart from God. 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:26.750 And they buy into the lie of Satan that Adam and Eve were given in the first six verses. 00:04:26.820 --> 00:04:31.180 If you remember the story I told you last week, you may have grown up your whole life believing this was a snake. 00:04:31.480 --> 00:04:32.540 It is not a snake. 00:04:32.760 --> 00:04:33.440 Right? 00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:33.700 But. 00:04:33.820 --> 00:04:37.330 But the snake is symbolic of what the serpent represents. 00:04:38.580 --> 00:04:42.070 And you'll see a snake bite in a minute related to the gospel. 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:42.800 But. 00:04:43.020 --> 00:04:47.890 But you see the serpent appear and the serpent doesn't come with pitchfork and horns. 00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:54.800 I think there's this image in our mind that when Satan appears, you're going to know it's Satan because he's going to have this, he's going to be very red. 00:04:54.820 --> 00:04:56.860 And who knows, fire may even come from his mouth. 00:04:56.980 --> 00:04:57.240 Right. 00:04:57.360 --> 00:04:57.780 It's very deceptive. 00:04:58.340 --> 00:04:59.870 That's not the way Scripture talks about. 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:00.460 Satan at all. 00:05:00.460 --> 00:05:03.660 In fact, in second Corinthians 11, it describes him as an angel of light. 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:04.760 He's deceiving. 00:05:04.760 --> 00:05:06.090 He is a deceiver and a tempter. 00:05:06.460 --> 00:05:07.960 And this is how he comes to Adam and Eve. 00:05:07.960 --> 00:05:10.550 He doesn't come out and say, Look, I want you to kill, steal and destroy. 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:21.920 But rather what he does is he simply asks Eve a question. 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:21.920 Did God really say? 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:21.920 And then he just perverts the truth of God. 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:22.920 He allows a tinge of God's truth to be there, but he just changes it. 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:25.160 And really, to find your life destroy. 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:27.420 That's all you need is just a half truth. 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:31.200 And he and he delivers this half truth to Adam and Eve, and they believe it. 00:05:31.200 --> 00:05:38.200 And what they start to believe is that God is withholding his best from them and that the right choice for them, since they know 00:05:38.200 --> 00:05:41.880 better than God is to partake of what God told them not to. 00:05:42.780 --> 00:05:44.840 And what it leads to is destruction. 00:05:44.900 --> 00:05:52.260 But what Satan is proclaiming for them is freedom, or at least a concept of freedom that he is introducing. 00:05:52.740 --> 00:05:54.910 That's not biblical and it's not free at all. 00:05:55.780 --> 00:05:58.800 I think some people see that relationship with God. 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:02.780 They when they hear about a relationship with God, they think it might be restricting to their lives. 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:07.010 And they decide rather than follow after God, they want to be independent and they want to be free. 00:06:07.140 --> 00:06:09.780 But can I tell you that that's not the definition of freedom. 00:06:09.780 --> 00:06:11.520 That's actually anarchy. 00:06:12.840 --> 00:06:19.860 You're created for a purpose and anything designed for a purpose to then determine to live for something outside of that purpose is 00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:21.030 to not truly be free. 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:22.960 I mean, I could give you a simple example. 00:06:23.380 --> 00:06:30.480 If you were to make a train and all of a sudden decide, you know what, I don't want to run this train on a track, you and I could easily 00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:35.520 tell that the purpose of that train will never be fulfilled because the train was made to ride on a track. 00:06:35.540 --> 00:06:40.440 Or if you decide you're going to create a plane and all of a sudden just floating in the ocean, that's not how that works. 00:06:41.540 --> 00:06:48.900 And the same is true for us, that the purpose that you were created was is to know God and to understand who you are in light of who he is. 00:06:48.980 --> 00:06:53.670 And it's not until you're connected to God that you can fill the fulfill the purpose for which you were designed. 00:06:54.900 --> 00:06:58.360 But Adam and Eve, rather, they buy into this lie. 00:06:59.160 --> 00:06:59.480 D.l. 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:00.640 Moody once said it like this. 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:07.860 He has said, I have never met a man who has given me as much trouble as myself, but give 00:07:07.860 --> 00:07:11.820 your life to God and he can do more with it than you can. 00:07:13.140 --> 00:07:19.980 And for Adam and Eve, it was really coming to this place of recognizing the goodness of who God is and what He can do for our lives. 00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:23.400 But now that they've partaken the fruit, the question is, what do you do when you mess up? 00:07:23.860 --> 00:07:30.860 And this is an important chapter for really all of us, not just Adam and Eve, because the question for us today should be in our relationship with 00:07:30.860 --> 00:07:31.280 God. 00:07:31.280 --> 00:07:35.040 What do I do when I mess up or I've been in rebellion against him? 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:36.770 How is God going to look at me that way? 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:44.120 And this story with Adam and Eve, I would say for them, if I'm giving them a little bit of grace, they don't know necessarily what God might do 00:07:44.120 --> 00:07:46.510 because, well, to this point, no one has messed up. 00:07:46.640 --> 00:07:47.460 Right. 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:50.800 And we're going to look at how man chooses to respond three ways. 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:53.660 Man chooses to respond in light of them messing up. 00:07:53.780 --> 00:07:55.580 And all three ways are not healthy. 00:07:55.580 --> 00:07:57.030 So do not partake of these three ways. 00:07:57.940 --> 00:08:01.360 But then we're going to look at the way God chooses to respond in His grace. 00:08:01.840 --> 00:08:09.300 And the way God responds is important for us to recognize, because this helps set the course of how our lives should respond 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:11.630 when we mess up in this world. 00:08:12.440 --> 00:08:15.100 And so point number one in your notes humanity's plan. 00:08:15.180 --> 00:08:20.190 What man does tending to respond in one of these three ways, none of which are good. 00:08:20.540 --> 00:08:23.200 Number one is they tried religion. 00:08:23.940 --> 00:08:25.480 Adam and Eve tried religion. 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:28.650 And verse seven, it starts to lay that out for us. 00:08:28.760 --> 00:08:32.570 It says, Then the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked. 00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:35.539 Someone said this morning, this is the first episode of Naked and Afraid. 00:08:35.700 --> 00:08:38.559 This is this is not that you should watch that, but this is what happens. 00:08:38.580 --> 00:08:40.770 They know they're naked and they're afraid. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.940 And at the end of chapter two, it described Adam and Eve as being naked at the end of chapter two. 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:53.300 But there's a difference, actually, in the Hebrew word between the word naked at the end of Chapter two and the word naked here in chapter three, verse seven, and 00:08:53.300 --> 00:08:58.240 the word naked in chapter two, verse 25, you would think the word naked just means naked. 00:08:58.400 --> 00:09:03.260 But in chapter two, verse 25, it's just simply saying this is their state of being. 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:06.030 This is who they were, this is what they were about. 00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:08.250 They had no reason to be afraid. 00:09:09.060 --> 00:09:14.630 They just had intimacy, enjoying of relationship, which they were created with one another and with the Lord. 00:09:15.060 --> 00:09:18.560 But in chapter three, verse seven, it carries the idea of helplessness. 00:09:19.520 --> 00:09:26.540 So they've gone from this place of innocence in chapter two, and their nakedness to all of a sudden in chapter three, they realize in their 00:09:26.540 --> 00:09:28.440 nakedness they're helpless. 00:09:29.040 --> 00:09:30.260 And then they start to panic. 00:09:31.220 --> 00:09:37.680 And the response, when they knew they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 00:09:38.900 --> 00:09:46.220 You know, one of the things I hope you've appreciated over these last three chapters we've looked at together is the first three chapters of Genesis is written poetically and 00:09:46.220 --> 00:09:49.560 behind this Hebrew description of this poetry. 00:09:49.560 --> 00:09:54.650 There's much bigger images than we get when we when we look at it from just simply an English translation. 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:59.160 And the first way you can see this in chapter three is by this word loincloths. 00:09:59.560 --> 00:10:05.180 At the end of the chapter, this word loincloths literally means a soldier's garment. 00:10:06.140 --> 00:10:07.340 This is putting on armor. 00:10:07.740 --> 00:10:13.900 In fact, that reference there in Second Kings chapter three, verse 21, there's a there's describing a battle and putting on armor. 00:10:13.900 --> 00:10:17.840 It's the same Hebrew word what Adam and Eve are doing in the Garden of Eden. 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:22.700 They've realized they've messed up and they're taking it upon themselves to fix the problem. 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:30.420 And so they decide that rather than go to God with the problem, they decide they're going to handle it on their own and they prepare themselves to fight this 00:10:30.420 --> 00:10:31.420 battle. 00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:36.560 Here they are in a spiritual world sinning against the Lord, and they think they're going to handle their problems physically. 00:10:37.460 --> 00:10:42.390 And so they prepare for this battle as if to say, God, we've got this, we're going to take care of this. 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:49.740 And they prepare themselves to fight for what they just caused in this Garden of Eden and what 00:10:49.740 --> 00:10:50.660 Adam and Eve done. 00:10:50.780 --> 00:10:53.340 They've created the first manmade religion. 00:10:54.420 --> 00:11:01.560 And if I were to describe maybe the way that most of us define religion today, there's if you look up the word religion, there's multiple definitions for 00:11:01.560 --> 00:11:02.460 the word religion. 00:11:02.700 --> 00:11:05.100 But we tend to think religion in terms of this. 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:09.460 It's a practice by which I participate in order to avail God's love. 00:11:09.480 --> 00:11:11.860 To me, it's a performance in which. 00:11:11.880 --> 00:11:14.080 I live in order to make God love me. 00:11:15.420 --> 00:11:18.920 And so Adam and Eve in this garden, they realize they've messed up there. 00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:22.420 They're concerned about how God might perceive them, the way God might respond. 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:24.340 And so what do they decide to do? 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:26.090 They take on the form of religion. 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:33.380 But here's what we learn about religion in this very first few chapters of the Bible and the way religion plays itself out throughout all of 00:11:33.380 --> 00:11:34.810 history, it's just a facade. 00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:42.240 It's putting on this outward appearance as if everything is okay, which when on the inside it's not. 00:11:43.340 --> 00:11:48.320 It's trying to impress God with what we do, but never getting to the core of the heart of who we are. 00:11:49.220 --> 00:11:56.310 And that's the problem, because God created us to connect to us in our heart, to then transform our lives in the way that we live. 00:11:56.500 --> 00:11:58.600 But what Adam and Eve are doing, they're doing it exactly backwards. 00:11:59.560 --> 00:12:04.460 They're putting on this facade, this performance on the outside to try to impress God with who they are. 00:12:04.900 --> 00:12:12.140 And the important question then to ask is what in the world are you ever going to do to impress a God that can do everything for himself? 00:12:13.300 --> 00:12:18.530 There is nothing you can do for God in which he's going to look at you and say, Oh wow, I could not have done this right. 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:20.960 That is incredible, right? 00:12:21.040 --> 00:12:23.720 God is capable of everything within himself. 00:12:23.980 --> 00:12:25.520 He's not dependent on anything. 00:12:25.520 --> 00:12:28.860 He is the uncaused cause that created all things. 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:32.920 And so there's nothing you're going to do to impress God. 00:12:32.940 --> 00:12:39.580 In fact, to take it a step further, no matter how much good you do, it will never undo what you've done wrong. 00:12:42.360 --> 00:12:43.260 And let me ask this way. 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:47.220 What is it that you're going to do in life? 00:12:48.880 --> 00:12:52.100 That could possibly be any more than what Christ has accomplished for you on the cross. 00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:56.260 What could you even add to that? 00:12:57.500 --> 00:13:01.220 And Jesus hung on the cross and said, Paid in full, it is finished. 00:13:01.260 --> 00:13:04.220 He's talking about the sacrifice for your life. 00:13:04.400 --> 00:13:05.300 He covered it all. 00:13:06.520 --> 00:13:11.280 What are you going to do in religion to add anything to what Christ has already done? 00:13:12.880 --> 00:13:20.320 Might I just suggest that trying to add anything to what Christ has already done for you is actually an 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.880 insult to what Jesus has accomplished for you? 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:29.740 The point being and looking at what Adam and Eve is trying to accomplish is it doesn't work. 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:35.570 And in fact, in Matthew 23, verse 37, that was Jesus's warning to the Pharisees. 00:13:36.540 --> 00:13:38.780 He referred to them the great warning. 00:13:38.880 --> 00:13:44.800 And in Matthew 23, to the religious leaders, he described them this way on the outside whitewashed tombs. 00:13:44.820 --> 00:13:47.810 It may look beautiful, but on the inside it's full of dead men's bones. 00:13:49.520 --> 00:13:51.460 It's not what transforms the heart. 00:13:52.500 --> 00:13:59.700 It's just a facade of trying to impress, but it's not what fixes what we need 00:13:59.700 --> 00:14:01.000 from the Lord. 00:14:02.420 --> 00:14:05.640 One of the most deadly forms of pride. 00:14:06.380 --> 00:14:08.120 Exists in religion. 00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:16.760 Because rather than come to this place of humility before the Lord, it's thinking that you're the solution, when 00:14:16.760 --> 00:14:20.550 in fact, what we discover in this passage is that it's Christ alone. 00:14:21.160 --> 00:14:28.580 Any performance you do to make God love you or to try to cause God to love you screams You 00:14:28.740 --> 00:14:30.720 don't understand the gospel. 00:14:31.940 --> 00:14:36.400 You don't understand what Christ has done for you. 00:14:36.680 --> 00:14:43.980 The God's desire is to connect to your heart, and God has laid His life down in order that you could have the opportunity to do 00:14:43.980 --> 00:14:44.720 that. 00:14:44.980 --> 00:14:51.060 We don't need more effort from ourselves, but rather what we need is humility in us and confidence in his grace. 00:14:51.140 --> 00:14:53.600 So point number one, Adam and Eve, what they tried was religion. 00:14:54.400 --> 00:14:57.040 And then verse eight, he goes on further that they tried hiding. 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:02.680 It says verse eight, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden of the cool of the day. 00:15:03.400 --> 00:15:08.040 And the man and his wife hid themselves the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 00:15:09.180 --> 00:15:15.000 This word cool is actually the word ruah, which also translates wind and spirit. 00:15:15.020 --> 00:15:17.280 It's similar to like in John chapter three. 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:21.880 The Jesus describes the spirit of God coming and going like the wind. 00:15:21.920 --> 00:15:26.700 You don't know where it comes from or where it's going, but the spirit of God is represented like a wind. 00:15:26.700 --> 00:15:34.080 And so when Adam and Eve are in the cool of the day and they hear the sound of the Lord, they know the Spirit of God is moving in the garden, This is the reason they 00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:34.980 hide themselves. 00:15:35.140 --> 00:15:37.800 But they try to run away from their guilt and shame. 00:15:37.800 --> 00:15:37.920 And. 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:45.080 But by the way, can I just tell you, in this entire chapter, this is what Adam even they're dealing with is what do I do with my guilt and 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:45.430 shame? 00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:47.830 I know I've messed up. 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:50.710 Is religion going to fix me? 00:15:50.760 --> 00:15:51.140 No. 00:15:51.140 --> 00:15:52.760 Can I just keep it away from God? 00:15:52.760 --> 00:15:53.870 Can I hide from God? 00:15:54.620 --> 00:16:01.820 Which is even more foolish thought to consider, as if God doesn't know what's going on or where you are, or the things 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:03.020 that you've done in your life. 00:16:03.040 --> 00:16:05.120 He's omniscient, but. 00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:09.520 But Adam and Eve decide in these moments in trying to deal with it, that maybe they'll just hide from God. 00:16:09.540 --> 00:16:13.560 Maybe they think it'll bide some time for them so they can figure it out. 00:16:14.340 --> 00:16:22.120 And in running from God immediately in their sin, it's like they instantly forget who they are and they begin to forget who God is and 00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:29.240 they forget who they are and they're forgetting who God is made in the image of God and that relationship with God for which they were created and who 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:30.530 God is in his grace. 00:16:30.660 --> 00:16:32.880 He made this world not because He needed it. 00:16:33.800 --> 00:16:34.740 God doesn't need anything. 00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:35.400 He's not dependent. 00:16:36.420 --> 00:16:39.330 He's the uncaused cause, not relying on anything to exist. 00:16:39.880 --> 00:16:41.520 He didn't make this because he needed it. 00:16:41.520 --> 00:16:42.600 He made this for his glory. 00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:46.680 And he made you the crown of his creation that you could see his glory reflected in the world. 00:16:47.620 --> 00:16:48.220 It's not for him. 00:16:48.220 --> 00:16:48.900 It's for you. 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:57.520 And so they think in seeing this gracious God who's created everything, they begin to forget who they are, made in the image of 00:16:57.520 --> 00:16:59.770 God for relationship and who God is. 00:17:00.120 --> 00:17:07.440 And, our tendency and our guilt and shame as people, we start to we do that when we mess up, we start to look within ourselves thinking, 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:10.930 oh, no, I just messed up and I've got to perform and I got to fix this and I got to run away. 00:17:10.980 --> 00:17:17.980 And once I get my life right, then I can come back to God and we start to think the answer is us and we start to diminish who God is 00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:23.640 and we start to elevate ourselves in that because we feel like it should rest on our shoulders to find the solution. 00:17:25.810 --> 00:17:27.680 But the answer for us. 00:17:29.260 --> 00:17:31.600 The answer for us is not found in us. 00:17:31.600 --> 00:17:38.920 Sometimes our tendency will be like passages in Romans 1013 that says whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. 00:17:39.960 --> 00:17:41.640 And we'll read passages like that. 00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:44.590 And then our guilt and our sin and our shame, we'll say to ourselves. 00:17:44.940 --> 00:17:46.720 And that's great for everyone else. 00:17:47.080 --> 00:17:48.900 But that's for everyone else. 00:17:48.900 --> 00:17:51.980 That's not me, because do you even know what I've done? 00:17:51.980 --> 00:17:54.030 We'll start to isolate ourselves like we're the exception. 00:17:54.300 --> 00:17:58.230 Like God's going to say, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. 00:17:58.680 --> 00:17:59.280 Except for Tim. 00:17:59.280 --> 00:17:59.960 I hate Tim. 00:17:59.980 --> 00:18:00.320 Right? 00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:02.480 Like we tend to see ourselves like that. 00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:04.770 We think, Oh, this is true for everybody but me. 00:18:05.060 --> 00:18:12.080 And in so doing, we think, if I could just look more at myself and love myself more, then 00:18:12.080 --> 00:18:13.580 I'm going to be so much better. 00:18:13.660 --> 00:18:16.580 But the problem is, you're looking at yourself too much. 00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:22.120 You're thinking too much about you and too much about yourself and not enough about the Lord. 00:18:23.240 --> 00:18:26.020 And do you understand who he is and what he's done for you? 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:33.700 Rather than running and hiding from God, they should be running to God to receive his grace and to find mercy and 00:18:33.700 --> 00:18:37.240 to confess where they're at and find God restoring them in Him. 00:18:39.100 --> 00:18:46.390 But Adam and Eve, rather, they they're elevating themselves in this position, which is what got him to this problem to begin with. 00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:52.580 And once again, pride is destroying their walk with God. 00:18:54.200 --> 00:18:54.380 Can. 00:18:54.480 --> 00:19:00.560 Can I just encourage you, If you ever sin, if you ever mess up, you ever walk with guilt and shame and you feel that way. 00:19:01.580 --> 00:19:04.180 Can I lovingly warn you? 00:19:05.300 --> 00:19:07.420 And encourage you and tell you the problem. 00:19:08.820 --> 00:19:10.550 It's still low lying pride. 00:19:12.280 --> 00:19:13.240 It's still us. 00:19:15.740 --> 00:19:21.160 To think that we could be the solution, or to think that God's love can reach everywhere but me. 00:19:21.880 --> 00:19:24.320 It's thinking too much of self. 00:19:25.540 --> 00:19:26.680 And not enough of him. 00:19:28.120 --> 00:19:35.860 In fact, the very next verse it tells us, but the Lord God called to man and said to him, Where are you? 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:40.380 I love this verse ten or verse nine. 00:19:40.380 --> 00:19:40.580 Excuse me. 00:19:40.620 --> 00:19:43.840 Some people may read this and think, Well, God's lost Adam and Eve again. 00:19:43.900 --> 00:19:44.190 Oh, my goodness. 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:44.560 Right. 00:19:44.800 --> 00:19:45.940 That's the kind of question. 00:19:45.940 --> 00:19:46.620 God's coming to the garden. 00:19:46.620 --> 00:19:47.580 Where are you, Adam and Eve? 00:19:47.580 --> 00:19:50.400 Like, he doesn't know where Adam and Eve is, and God knows exactly where they are. 00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:55.480 God's not asking this question because God's, like, lost in the garden somewhere trying to figure it out. 00:19:55.580 --> 00:19:56.360 He made the garden. 00:19:56.360 --> 00:19:57.140 He made Adam and Eve. 00:19:57.140 --> 00:19:57.900 He knows all things. 00:19:57.900 --> 00:19:59.120 He knows exactly where they are. 00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:03.760 The reason God's asking this question is not so he can figure out where Adam and Eve is. 00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:05.320 He's asking this question. 00:20:05.320 --> 00:20:07.900 So Adam and Eve will come to the place to realize where they are. 00:20:08.980 --> 00:20:09.890 Well, God is doing. 00:20:20.660 --> 00:20:21.720 He's prodding them to ask a question of the heart. 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:21.720 Adam and Eve do. 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:21.720 Do you know where you are? 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:21.720 And Adam and Eve from this point. 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:24.780 Then he they start to respond to God as he asks the question, Adam, where are you? 00:20:24.780 --> 00:20:29.400 And then and notice when he comes in the garden, the first person he goes looking for who ate of the fruit first. 00:20:30.620 --> 00:20:31.260 You can say it. 00:20:31.600 --> 00:20:32.040 Who ate it? 00:20:32.290 --> 00:20:32.740 Eve. 00:20:33.420 --> 00:20:34.860 But who does God go looking for first? 00:20:35.820 --> 00:20:36.200 Adam. 00:20:37.660 --> 00:20:39.160 Guys, can I just encourage you? 00:20:39.560 --> 00:20:41.960 We looked at the first six verses. 00:20:41.960 --> 00:20:42.340 Remember? 00:20:42.360 --> 00:20:45.560 In the Garden of Eden, we said last week that it was. 00:20:45.620 --> 00:20:46.600 It was actually Adam. 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:49.330 Given the law that God said, Don't eat of the tree. 00:20:49.800 --> 00:20:52.000 And it was Adam's responsibility then to tell that to Eve. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:59.260 There's no record in the first two chapters where God shows up and says the same thing to Eve, but rather he said it to Adam and it was Adam's responsibility to share 00:20:59.260 --> 00:20:59.820 it. 00:20:59.980 --> 00:21:01.970 And then from there, Adam and Eve could both share it. 00:21:02.280 --> 00:21:03.640 But it was Adam's responsibility to share it. 00:21:03.660 --> 00:21:09.950 And what we find in Genesis chapter three, verse five and six, when Eve partakes of the fruit, Adam is not off doing something in the garden. 00:21:09.980 --> 00:21:13.580 Adam is standing right beside of her, letting her take the fall. 00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:18.860 I told you one of the greatest sins I think men struggle with is the sin of passivity. 00:21:19.780 --> 00:21:23.510 Not taking responsibility for what God has called you to in this world. 00:21:24.460 --> 00:21:27.740 And here we find in the Garden of Eden, God is holding Adam accountable. 00:21:28.100 --> 00:21:31.090 I think man could represent both of them in this sense and mankind. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:36.960 But God goes in the garden looking, and He's asking this question so that we can pause in our own lives and. 00:21:37.380 --> 00:21:39.000 And really ask the same thing. 00:21:39.100 --> 00:21:41.820 Where are you in your relationship with God? 00:21:44.500 --> 00:21:47.940 What do you depend on to find God's love in your life? 00:21:47.940 --> 00:21:48.080 Is it. 00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:48.610 Is it religion? 00:21:52.740 --> 00:21:55.020 Are you hiding yourself, trying to run from him? 00:21:57.320 --> 00:21:58.220 Where is your heart? 00:21:59.260 --> 00:22:00.860 Is it making too much of you? 00:22:02.580 --> 00:22:09.780 Is it really seeing him in the greatness of who he is in his grace towards you, that God desires to connect to you 00:22:09.780 --> 00:22:10.700 through your heart? 00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:16.460 Where are you? 00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:21.280 And then it goes on in verse ten, and he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden. 00:22:21.280 --> 00:22:22.130 This is Adam talking. 00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:23.410 I heard the sound of you in the garden. 00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:26.390 And I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. 00:22:26.860 --> 00:22:28.140 That's a good time to hide yourself. 00:22:28.260 --> 00:22:30.360 You should always lock the bathroom door when you go in. 00:22:30.500 --> 00:22:33.000 Verse 11, he said, Who told you that you were naked? 00:22:33.300 --> 00:22:33.850 Have you eaten? 00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:36.720 Of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? 00:22:37.820 --> 00:22:39.640 This passage. 00:22:39.640 --> 00:22:41.620 I feel like my wife is the master of these. 00:22:41.740 --> 00:22:43.270 These two verses here. 00:22:43.720 --> 00:22:48.780 When my kids do something wrong, I just come at them and I say, you did this. 00:22:48.900 --> 00:22:49.490 This was wrong. 00:22:49.600 --> 00:22:50.260 You know, whatever. 00:22:50.520 --> 00:22:51.160 Fix it. 00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:54.640 When my wife knows my children have done something wrong and I don't know if my kids are in here. 00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:55.090 Are they in here? 00:22:55.120 --> 00:22:55.940 Okay. 00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:56.600 Okay. 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:57.660 Never mind. 00:22:57.680 --> 00:22:58.750 I should not reveal these secrets. 00:22:58.860 --> 00:22:59.660 She is just she's. 00:22:59.820 --> 00:23:01.700 She is great at asking the questions. 00:23:01.700 --> 00:23:02.520 Right. 00:23:02.580 --> 00:23:04.300 And it's true for all of us. 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:05.940 You just ask the question. 00:23:05.940 --> 00:23:06.740 God comes in this garden. 00:23:06.740 --> 00:23:08.000 He knows everything. 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:09.440 He knows what's happened. 00:23:20.840 --> 00:23:21.230 But he asks. 00:23:21.340 --> 00:23:21.340 He asked these questions, these probing questions. 00:23:21.340 --> 00:23:21.340 Not not not because he's ignorant to the reality of the circumstances. 00:23:21.340 --> 00:23:25.200 But he wants Adam and Eve to search their own heart in the way that they've responded. 00:23:26.660 --> 00:23:29.700 To help them get to the place where they need to be in relationship with him. 00:23:30.740 --> 00:23:34.080 I mean, it's not until you're willing to confess, right? 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:38.470 It's not until you're willing to take that step that you're able to heal what's broken. 00:23:38.620 --> 00:23:42.600 They said the first step to healing in life is confession. 00:23:43.880 --> 00:23:46.700 And so God's asking this question in the garden. 00:23:47.080 --> 00:23:50.630 And then Adam and Eve, they try the third thing here, which is they tried blaming. 00:23:52.500 --> 00:23:53.210 They tried blaming. 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:55.000 Here's Adams approach. 00:23:55.140 --> 00:24:00.400 The man said the woman the woman who you gave to be with me. 00:24:00.520 --> 00:24:02.520 She gave me the fruit of the tree of life and I ate. 00:24:02.540 --> 00:24:05.840 And then the Lord God said to the woman, What is it that you've done? 00:24:05.900 --> 00:24:08.620 The woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. 00:24:08.840 --> 00:24:11.620 This is just maybe something you could maybe try. 00:24:11.620 --> 00:24:11.900 I don't know. 00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:13.360 This probably won't work out well for you. 00:24:13.420 --> 00:24:14.540 But here's what Adam is doing. 00:24:14.540 --> 00:24:18.640 He's saying, Look, God, it's not my fault you made her right. 00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:21.440 So it's either her fault or your fault because you created her. 00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:23.380 She ate of the fruit I just gave her. 00:24:23.460 --> 00:24:23.540 She. 00:24:23.700 --> 00:24:24.120 She cooked. 00:24:24.360 --> 00:24:25.240 I just gave what she. 00:24:25.260 --> 00:24:26.440 She cooked for me to eat. 00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:27.580 I was being a good husband, right? 00:24:27.580 --> 00:24:29.310 I was just doing what I was told. 00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:29.540 And she. 00:24:29.780 --> 00:24:31.760 She makes the food and I ate the food. 00:24:31.760 --> 00:24:33.820 I mean, how can I be responsible for this? 00:24:33.820 --> 00:24:46.560 I'm just a victim, right? 00:24:46.560 --> 00:25:06.400 This is. 00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:09.960 This is what Adam is saying, and it's her fault or it's your fault. 00:25:53.320 --> 00:26:04.080 It can't be my 00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:05.620 fault. 00:27:17.700 --> 00:27:48.720 God victim here. 00:27:54.480 --> 00:28:29.140 And then I love 00:28:29.140 --> 00:31:37.740 what Eve does. 00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:41.420 She's like, Oh, man, he's. 00:31:42.840 --> 00:31:59.440 He's gone after 00:32:09.060 --> 00:32:10.360 me. 00:35:38.820 --> 00:35:46.720 So what am I going to do? 00:35:49.160 --> 00:37:18.400 She claims 00:37:18.400 --> 00:37:45.800 like spiritual attack. 00:38:14.340 --> 00:39:49.420 It's demonic, 00:39:49.420 --> 00:39:52.480 right? 00:39:54.520 --> 00:39:58.380 I had a I had a little cousin one time, a little terroriser. 00:39:58.380 --> 00:40:11.780 And every time my cousin did something wrong, they always blame 00:40:25.820 --> 00:41:28.700 the devil. 00:41:28.700 --> 00:43:13.880 They would say, the 00:43:24.430 --> 00:43:26.000 devil made me do it. 00:43:26.380 --> 00:43:26.860 So you could try that guess. 00:43:26.940 --> 00:43:30.920 But this gets a little scary for some people. 00:43:30.920 --> 00:43:31.000 Sometimes if you start blaming spiritual things. 00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:31.020 It wasn't my fault the devil made me do it. 00:43:31.020 --> 00:43:32.880 But this is exactly what Eve says. 00:43:41.420 --> 00:43:41.680 She. 00:43:45.140 --> 00:43:46.620 She. 00:44:01.600 --> 00:44:04.300 She blames. 00:44:05.080 --> 00:44:05.080 I'm the victim. 00:44:05.080 --> 00:44:05.080 Satan made me do it. 00:44:05.080 --> 00:44:05.080 It's. 00:44:05.080 --> 00:44:05.080 It's our tendency as human beings, Right? 00:44:05.080 --> 00:44:06.920 This is this is kind of the default when we don't know what else to do. 00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:06.920 Right? 00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:06.920 We can't make an excuse. 00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:06.920 We can't create religion. 00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:06.920 We can't hide. 00:44:07.260 --> 00:44:13.940 All of a sudden we start blaming and hold other people accountable for our actions. 00:44:17.020 --> 00:44:19.850 We We justify our behavior based on what other people do, as if we're not responsible for ourselves. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I'm okay to act like a rear end because, well, you started it, right? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Or we could say my parents were bad to me, so that gives me an entire life pass. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And like, I don't want to be insensitive to what people have gone through in life, but at some point you've got to take responsibility. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Even hot topic in our culture today, right? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I went and got a degree in underwater basket weaving and well, I can't find a job now, so you should pay for my education. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 That's. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Or you can just blame the government for everything. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We just we just want to be the victim of all things. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's not our fault. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's everyone else's fault. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I mean, every once in a while, as a as a pastor, I have. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And no one in this room. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Everyone in this room is great. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Okay? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But every once in a while, I'll have someone come to me and they'll tell me where their why they're in a situation in life, and then they'll tell me how they got there. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And in their story they will blame like 20 other people. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's their fault for this and it's their fault for this and it's their fault for this. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And I just sit there and think, man, the only equation of which aligns everything in this is you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I can't believe we got to. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We lost 20 people of like, it's all their fault. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And you've never looked back and thought maybe it's me. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Like, maybe I've not made some healthy choices in my life. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But it's not until you're willing to take responsibility. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 That you're able to move forward. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Making excuses for the past victim rather than taking responsibility for the future. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Our greatest enemy to our walk with God is not someone else. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It is us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's pride. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Yes, all of us face different temptations, and some of us walk a harder road than others. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But we're responsible for what we do. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And learning how God responds to us in our guilt and shame helps us find a better way forward. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You may have had difficult things happen to you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But could I encourage you? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Don't let those things define you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Rather let it refine you and the beauty of who you are in the Lord. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Let God declare who you are. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Not what other people say, but who God made you to be. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This is what the first three chapters of Genesis is about these individuals that were treated as slaves. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Who knows what kind of trafficking they endured. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And now they're finding their true worth and value. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And who God is not defined by what happened to them. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But refined by their creator who made them for a purpose, to know him and to walk with him. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 So not as God, only as God helping them understand who they are in creation. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But He's also helping them understand who they are when they fail, when they sin, when they have guilt and shame. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And so you find in this verse really becomes the hinge point of understanding the story that Adam and Eve in verse 12 and verse 13, while they're making excuses, when they get to the end of their sentence, they finally start to take responsibility. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Yes, God, it was the woman. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But truth be told, I ate it. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And the woman? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Yeah, the serpent. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But truth be told, I ate it. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And at this point, the story then starts to turn. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It starts to make this transition. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And what God pointing to what he does on our behalf, even in our sin. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 D.l. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Moody said this There will be no peace in any soul until it's willing to obey the voice of God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And here's what God says in verse 14. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this cursed. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field on your belly? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You shall go and dust. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You shall eat all the days of your life. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This is the idea of where we take the thought of serpent and turn them into a snake. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Right. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This heel wound. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This is the serpent striking a heel. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And it's. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's thought that the serpent would have poison in his strike, which a snake does. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Right? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Or. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Yeah, pretty much all snakes. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Let's say all snakes are poisonous snakes, right? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 They strike the strikes, the. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The heel of the serpent. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 At least we treat them all like they're poisonous. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Strikes the hill, the serpent or the serpent strikes the heel of the savior and the savior dies. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But the savior also crushes the head of the serpent. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And what you have in Genesis 315 is the first proclamation of the gospel in your sin. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 While God created you beautifully in His image, not only is he your creator, he's also described in Genesis 315 as your savior and not just as your savior. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But I love. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He talks about the seed of the woman here, which I think is starting to point to the virgin birth of Christ, that he will come from a woman and he will crush the head of the serpent, and the head represents his authority, his domain, his ruling. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The serpent is described in the New Testament as the ruler of this world. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 All that he represents and sin Satan and death. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's destroyed by Jesus. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And Jesus, in turn, will suffer a mortal wound, which we know Christ does. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He's nailed to the cross, his heels nailed to the cross. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He suffers that mortal wound, and he dies for us and he's resurrected for us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This is the first proclamation of the Gospel in Scripture. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But it's showing us point number one in your notes that God saves. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 In fact, this idea, this theme of what God's willing to do is reiterated throughout the scriptures in Romans 1620. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Listen to this. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It says, The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 So it's this theme that we're reminded of through the Bible of what Jesus desires to accomplish for us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We've messed up Creator. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God has designed all this for His glory, that we would reflect His glory, that we would bless and take care of it and multiply, as it says in the first couple of chapters. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And then we messed up. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And what does God do? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He doesn't throw us away. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He doesn't cast us out. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He doesn't condemn us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It says in the story that he curses the serpent and the earth is cursed. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But he doesn't curse you and me. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Rather he pursues us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I love in Scripture it plays out this picture of Jesus as a lion and a lamb in Revelation. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It describes him as both of those as a lion and a lamb. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's showing this authority that he's carrying as a as a warrior, as a lion, to destroy what destroys us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And he's this gentle lamb caring for our needs, laying down his own life, sacrificing himself, that we could be set free. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And so we find in the story is that while we sin, God doesn't give up on us and he pursues us in this garden and he promises to give his life for us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 In the midst of that promise, though, we're reminded that sin still has consequence. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Right? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God goes on in verse 16, the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 In pain you shall bring forth your children. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Let me move a little faster. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And to Adam. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I'll talk about both of these here in a minute. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you shall not eat of it. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Cursed is the ground because of you in pain, you shall eat it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 For out of out of it. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You were taken. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 For you are dust and to dust you shall return. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I told you this a couple of weeks ago that when we sinned we really find the uniqueness of our genders in this in this communication that God gives of the consequence of sin. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We talked about there's a difference. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 There's a unique difference to men and women. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And it's honoring to honor that God has made us equal and He's made us unique. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And you see, part of our uniqueness in the way that this curse is communicated the consequences of our sin in terms of the female she, God talks to her in terms of relationship tension and relationship. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And we discuss last week or a couple of weeks ago how females tend to develop better socially, especially when you watch young kids grow up. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I know we would take our young boys around sometimes. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 They'd be around little girls their age and the little girls would just talk circles around them. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And, we look at our boys and we're like, What's going on here? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 There's something, something not happening, right? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 These girls can talk so much. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 What's wrong with our kids? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Like they can make great Tyrannosaurus rex noises. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Want to hear it? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You know, and the girls just better socially. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And then and then you see here in terms of men, there's talking about this idea of physical strength, the tilling of the ground. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Right. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And it's not to say everyone is exactly the same. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 There is some uniqueness, even in our individuality. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But when he talks in terms of the curse, he's helping us recognize the struggle that we're going to experience. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Now, when we think about the idea of discipline, the consequence in this passage, this is not punishment. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Punishment is what the serpent received. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The serpent received a cursing. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You're punished. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You're going to be destroyed. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But we received a discipline consequence. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And I don't I can't get into why bad things happen to us in any depth. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But let me just say one thing. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 When it comes to the struggle of life, if it weren't for adversity, I doubt I would ever have been a Christian. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 If it weren't for the challenges of life, my soul would have not awakened to the need of Jesus. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's because of the struggles that I've gone through that God has used that to bring me to this place of humility in order to search for him, to know him, right, to walk with him. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's the constant reminder of a sin cursed world in which we live that God uses as a tool to bring me closer to him in relationship. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And I think what God is showing Adam and Eve is these things are going to happen. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The thorn and the sweat as a reminder to you, a consistent reminder of how much you need me. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Because when mankind had the opportunity in their innocence in the Garden of Eden, before the curse, Adam and Eve chose contrary to the Lord. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 So we're saying this is being sent as a form of refinement and it's going to it's going to use it as discipline to help our hearts pursue him in the midst of struggle. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 So, God, he saves us and we're reminded of our need for salvation through this because things are broken and our soul cries out. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This is not what we were made for. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We were made for more. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We were made for life. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We were made for relationship. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And so that tension in our soul helps our lives yearn for something better, something different, something that only God can restore and offer. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Which Point number two, then in your notes. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God restores. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We see in verse 20, the man called his wife named Eve because she was the mother of all living and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife, garments of skin and clothed them. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 This idea of clothing them. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's the same or excuse me, the garments of skin is the same Hebrew word for priestly garments in the Old Testament. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 So the picture that God is drawing for us here is in the beginning, Adam and Eve, they created these fig leaves. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 They put on these this armored soldier battle garment of which they thought they were going to try to fix what they had done wrong. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But what God does, he shows up in the garden. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He promises salvation. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He pursues them and he reminds them of his goodness. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And when he finds them, when he sees them, he rips off the soldiers garments. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God makes the first sacrifice in the garden. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He sacrifices an animal and he clothes them in skin. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The first death that we have recorded in Scripture is by the hand of God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God sacrifices an animal to clothe them in these priestly garments. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And it's God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He's restoring what's been lost. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He's saying that relationship that was destroyed because of sin will be redeemed because of me. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 So they can connect to the Lord again. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's the Lord who heals. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's the Lord who forgives. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It doesn't matter how much good you do from this day forward, it can never undo the things you've done wrong. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 What you need is forgiveness. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And the only way to find it is to lay your life out before the Lord. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And as Adam and Eve confessed and I ate God, I lived in rebellion. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But, God, you're good. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And God you forgive and God you pursued. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And now you're promising your life for me by the seed of the woman. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And it's you that takes off the garments of warfare in my life and in my soul. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And you clothe me in these priestly garments that I can connect to you for relationship for which you have created me to know you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And then, God, we find the story. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God sends. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God sends. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Not sin, but sends. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God sends. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It says. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And the Lord God said, Behold. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which He was taken. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He drove out the man. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The garden, if you remember, is like the temple in the Old Testament. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's where God's presence was made known. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And to stand in that garden without forgiveness of sins would lead to death. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And so what God is doing is he's sending Adam and Eve on mission, really, until Christ comes to be the ultimate sacrifice, that all of us become the temple of God in the New Testament. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 That's the promise to believers is why we don't build temples today as Christians is because we become the temple of God, but God also in reconciling us and saving us and restoring us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He then still sends us on mission in this world. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And can I tell you the encouragement of this of a passage like this is that all of us, all of us in life deal with guilt and shame and how we're going to handle it and how we're going to respond and how does God seed me and where is my worth and what do I do with this? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Am I is my worth based on what I've done? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Is it is it my sin? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Is that who I am? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 I just gotta have something more. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Can I encourage you and I know I've reminded you of this through these chapters. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God's love for you is not based on what you do. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 God's love for you is based on who he is. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 His love is not contingent upon us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He is a loving God because that is his very nature. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And this is the reason we can come to God confidently in our sin. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Because of what he has done for us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Created in his image, pursued us by giving his life for us that we can find freedom in him. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Our sin and shame is not about proving to God anything in religion. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's not about trying to run and hide from God until we fix ourselves so we can come back to him. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 We can't fix us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's only God that restores and redeems and forgives our heart and a brokenness in relationship to him because of our sin. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's only God that can do that. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You know, in any relationship in this world that if you've ever seen in a relationship, in order to see that relationship reconciled, the other person has to forgive you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 In order to be restored. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And the same thing is true with God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You can do all the good you want from that point on, but it doesn't matter until forgiveness is given. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And this is what we find in our walk with the Lord that when we come to God, He's a loving God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He's a gracious God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He's a forgiving God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He's a God that does not give up on us, even when we might give up on him. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And so no matter what you've done, no matter where you've come from, there's always hope. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Because God is for you, giving his life to you that you can find freedom. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Which is why in Scripture, in First Corinthians 1545, there's this concept of the first Adam and the last Adam. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 First Adam was a representative of humanity. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The last Adam became a representative of humanity. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And it was Jesus. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Jesus in the New Testament is referred to as the last Adam. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And so when you see the story of Genesis chapter 1 to 3, you'll find, as you read throughout Scripture, this theme, this story is played out throughout all of the Bible into the New Testament, and it reminds us how Jesus restores us in what we lost in the garden. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Let me give you a few examples. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 In the garden, the first Adam ran from the father, but the last Adam ran to the father in the garden. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The first Adam began naked and unashamed. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The last Adam was stripped naked and bore our shame. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The first Adam brought up thorns from the ground. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The last Adam bore our thorns on his head. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The first Adam tried to take the place of God. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The last Adam was God taking our place instead. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The first Adam ate from a tree and died The last Adam died on a tree that we may live. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The first Adam came to life and brought us death. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The last Adam came from death to bring us life. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 The first Adam was tricked by a serpent. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And the last Adam defeated the serpent. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's not about you. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's about him. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 That our soul would be enriched and the goodness of who he is. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And rather than run from, we run toward knowing the kind of God that will embrace us there. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 It's when that heart is received in His grace that lives are transformed for his glory and the world around us. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Jim Eliot was that famous missionary that went to South America to reach a tribal group that had not been reached. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And he and his friends, they were speared to death when they had their first encounter with this group, he lost his life along with Nate Saint and a few others. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Have you ever seen the movie The End of the Spear? 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 You know what I'm talking about. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 But it's Jim Eliot that gave us this famous quote. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And this quote is what Adam and Eve with struggled, struggled with in the garden, holding on to what they thought would rescue them rather than embrace what God offered. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Jim Eliot said this. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 And that's the beauty of Christ. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Nothing in him is lost. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 When you're in Jesus, you are sealed to him forever. 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:19.850 Not because of what you've done or what you're going to do, but everything he has done on your behalf.