God’s Good Creation and the Fall

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

There was a family getting ready for a party as extended family was coming into town to celebrate a birthday. This family getting ready to host this birthday consists of the mom and dad and there are three boys all 2 years apart. The boys are middle school, high school age so there is some level of responsibility there, but not complete independence, because they are high schoolers. This family especially the parents had the same reaction that many of you may have when you have to host a party for the all extended family - they were stressed! They wanted everything to go well, they wanted everything to be done as perfectly as possible. They wanted to impress their other family who was in town to see their new house. So the mom and dad led the charge and got to work around the house tidying everything up, cleaning the downstairs area, the dad was even a perfectionist and went around the whole house making sure that all the pictures on the wall were straight. And after a while of cleaning, everything looked good! The parents noticed that their fridge was empty and they needed some supplies to bake the needed birthday cake - after all you need a birthday cake for the party. So they went to the store together but before they left - they gave the boys a set of instructions, pretty simple, don’t break anything and keep things clean. At first by themselves things were going pretty well for the boys, everything was pretty peaceful as they sat and watched the Chiefs game on TV together. Everything was fine until one of the boys spoke up and said, I bet I could score on you - just like Travis Kelce did to the other team. But the other boys quickly spoke up - oh yeah, prove it! So they grabbed the football that was laying around the house and the boy who had the ball was running and spinning and juking just like the saw on TV. But then to avoid a tackle from his brother, they bumped a beloved family picture on the wall and the frame of the picture broke and shattered into pieces. They all stopped instantly! One of them cried, “What do we do?” Dad is going to be so upset. But they reasoned with one another saying, let’s fix it, I bet they won’t even notice. So one of the brothers cleaned up the broken and shattered glass. Then together they got out the hot glue gun to try and put the broken frame together again, they tried to put the bent picture back in the frame like it was before, and after all of that they tried to put it level on the wall like it was when their parents left the house. You could see glue running down the sides of the picture frame, one of them left tried to wipe it up and left a huge stain on the frame. You could smell glue throughout the whole living room. The more the boys began to mess with this broken picture frame, the less it began to look like the way it was before.

We hear in Genesis - that there was nothing in the beginning. That God spoke things into existence and there was. He spoke “Let there be Light” and there was light. He stated, “Let there be living creatures” and there were. At the beginning, we see God create out of nothing to bring life to this world. The God out of universe created and man and woman and everything was good. But in our text today, we see Adam and Eve the parents of humanity are in the Garden in Paradise and they are confronted with temptation in the form of a question, “Did actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden.’ and we see the woman, Eve, say back to Satan, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”But Satan spreads more lies, by saying you won’t die, but your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. That certainly sounded interesting to the Eve and she desired to see what this was all about. Here Adam and Eve are in Paradise where they are able to walk closely with God in pure fellowship and everything was GOOD! But we see as Eve is tempted by the devil that she looked at the forbidden tree and “saw that it was good for food, and that it was delight to the eyes…” Everything that God created was good, but Eve and Adam eventually thought they could find something better. So they took the fruit from the tree and ate of it. Suddenly everything changed…

The garage door to the house was opened, Mom and Dad had returned from their grocery shopping and because the boys were busy cleaning up it seemed a lot faster than the normal shopping trip. They knew that picture wasn’t perfect like it was before, but it was going to have to do; it was going to have be good enough. As the parents walked in the door, the boys ran up stairs because they didn’t want to be near the broken hung picture frame. They didn’t want to be near the area of the crime scene, if you will. They also didn’t want to be near their parents because they felt sorry, they felt like they had let their parents down. Their parents had a funny way of being able to read their body language and could tell if something was wrong, so they wanted to avoid that situation completely. But the dad, called from down stairs, “Hey lets go and play catch outside.” They replied - we’re ok. Or the mom called upstairs, “Hey let’s turn the rest of the football game.” They replied - not right now. The boys distanced themselves from the thing that they had broken but also relationally from their parents.

Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree and suddenly there eyes were opened. They discovered that they were naked, they felt shame for the first time, they discovered the feeling of disappointed as the experienced the reality of sin. And trying to hid this feeling from God - we see that they made for themselves fig leaves to cover themselves and also they hid themselves from the presence of God because they were ashamed. God searches for them in the garden, and they finally confess that they hid because they were ashamed because they ate from the fruit of the tree that God told them not to eat from. God in Genesis gives out punishments or consequences to the devil and to Eve and Adam for the sin that they had committed, but at the end of our text we see Adam and Eve separated or cut off from God who is the source of Life. They are banished from the Garden as they searched for something better.

Now this is just the reality, for Adam and Eve, how many moments in our lives do leave behind the good that God has given in search for “something better”. God tells us over and over in His Word that He is the source of all contentment and peace, but how many moments do we chase after accolades, financial gain, to experience peace? God tells us time and time again, that is in Him where we experience love and life. How many moments do we set aside time with Him to chase after things that we label as better or more important. How many moments do we value moments in hobbies over time spent with Him? How many moments do we seek after acceptance from others rather than the love He has for us? There are times in our lives where we set aside the good that God gives in pursuit of something better. And just like with Adam and Eve - we find ourselves distant from Him - We find our relationship broken, we find ourselves distant from God and His promises.

The parents could tell something was wrong, but as they looked around the house they saw a beat-up, broken, crooked picture frame on the wall and had a feeling it involved this. So the dad pulled it off the wall and they carried it upstairs to go and be with their sons. They didn’t spend time arguing in frustration, they didn’t try to hear three different accounts of the same story to figure out who the culprit was, but the Dad smiled and says, doesn’t it look nice? It’s looks good, you are forgiven.

God loves what He has created and as He sent Adam and Eve away from Paradise - He makes a promise that a Savior will come to strike the head of Satan to crush him completely. We know the fulfillment of that promise to be Jesus as He took the sins of the world upon Himself to give you life! God doesn’t just throw away the world that He created, but He sent His Son Jesus to come to broken people like you and me to bridge the gap that sin created. Jesus came to seek and search you out - that you may know God’s love for you! It’s through the work of Jesus as He has taken your sins away- that God looks at you and declares you good, perfect. You are declared to good, forgiven and brought back into fellowship with God.

As people who experience this great love of Jesus - as He comes to restore us back to God and forgive us completely, we are called to seek restoration with the broken relationships in our lives. That person who has hurt you - go and declare forgiveness. That person who you can’t always see eye to eye with go and share God’s forgiveness with them. The people have hurt us - seek them out in hopes of sharing love with them. You are restored through Jesus, no longer distant. You are declared good!