The Fracturing of Community
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We spent two weeks talking about god’s perfect creation in the Garden, and how God planned for us to live in perfect Harmony with each other and with Him.
From the very beginning, we see God’s vision for community.
In Genesis 1:28 we see…
We are to multiply and fill the earth.
We are to work, and keep the earth.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
In Genesis 2:18, we see
3. Wives are to be a help to their husband.
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
So we see God’s plan for community.
We see That they lived in perfect harmony with each other,
Nature,
and with God.
Through the inspiration of God, Moses explains this well at the end of chapter 2.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Please keep all of this in mind as we begin to work our way through Genesis chapter 3.
During this journey through the chapter, we are going to look at…
The Satan of sin
The Seriousness of sin
and
3. The Salvation of sin
So let’s start with The Tempter of sin in Genesis 3:1
1. The Satan of sin
1. The Satan of sin
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made……..
This should come to no suprise to us here in China, especially as we enter into the year of the snake.
China has always connected cunning craftiness to the snake.
But there is something deeper here as well.
The Hebrew word here means Serpent or snake,
but the wording,
grammar,
and attributes
attributed to it signal to the reader that this is no mere animal.
Both The Old and New Testaments,
as well as ancient mideast teachings,
make a connection between the serpent and Satan.
We see this a couple times in Revelation 20, but let’s just quickly look at the second verse.
Revelation 20:2 (ESV)
2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
So the Serpent, who is Satan in the form of an animal said to Eve in the second half of genesis 3:1…
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)
1 ………“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
What’s Satan doing here?
He’s asking questions designed to Make Eve doubt God.
For those who know me well,
you know I love asking questions,
and I love answering questions.
I have stood up here and even encouraged you to ask the hard questions.
We find truth by asking the hard questions and seeking the answers.
But we have to be careful how we go about this.
Asking questions wanting to find truth is one thing,
but asking questions to doubt the words of God is a very different and dangerous act.
Even the wording of Satan’s question is manipulative.
Do you see the manipulative wording?
Let’s look at the second half of 3:1 side by side with God’s command in 2:16-17
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Where God highlights the wonders He has given them to eat and enjoy,
Satan focuses on what she can not have.
I say this to tell you that the enemy’s tactics have not changed much over the years. It is still an attack he uses today,
and if we are not careful Hutong Church, we will fall for this temptation.
One example of this is that God has given us the gift of intimacy to be enjoyed within the safety and beauty of marriage, but too often, even Christians begin to look beyond that to what He has forbidden.
Whether it's pornography,
adultery,
or any sexual pursuit outside of marriage,
we must not chase after a counterfeit,
ignoring the deep connection and joy that come from honoring God's design for marriage.
We must see what God has given us as a blessing, but we must also see what He has witheld from us as a blessing as well.
Continuing our story,
Eve replies to the Serpent in verse two by explaining how they may eat of any trees in the garden,
but not the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.
That leads us to verse four.
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Here we see Satan continuing to deceive Eve,
giving her half truths so that she begins to lose trust in the one who created her.
He questions the motives of God.
He paints God as a God who is only trying to protect His power by keeping Adam and Eve in ignorance.
Again, Satan has not changed his tactics.
We see John 8:44
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Jesus connects the teachings of the Pharisees to that of Satan.
He says that He does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in Him.
His very character is lies because he is the father of lies.
So what lies is Satan telling you today?
In what areas is He convincing you that to disobey God is not a big deal?
You might think, “God wants me to be happy, so this sin must be fine.”
There’s a half-truth in that—God does care about your joy. But true joy comes from obedience, not from sin.
Satan also whispers, “It’s just a small sin, it doesn’t really matter.”
This is what Satan was in part, tempting Eve with. Making the Sin sound as if it was not a big deal.
But every sin separates us from God.
Did Eve see through the lies of the Serpent?
Did her husband see what was going on and run to keep her from sinning against God?
Sadly, no.
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
After allowing herself to listen to lies about the very character of God,
Eve began to see the forbidden fruit
not as a danger,
not as the rule she joyfully follows, trusting in the goodness of the rule giver,
but rather as something that looks good,
something that is a delight,
and something to be desired.
That leads us to a great practical question.
Are there sins in our lives that instead of seeing them as disgusting acts against a Holy Righteous God,
we have begun to see them as desirable things being witheld from us?
Eve failed because she started to doubt God and began to focus on the fruit.
We fail when we choose to focus on the enjoyment we are not having in sin instead of the joy we could be having in God’s glory being the focus of everything we do.
We will succeed in our obedience when we daily trust God,
spend time with God in order to know God,
and flee from even the thoughts of sin.
So Don’t be in the presence of evil.
Take captive your thoughts.
Cry out to God, and find someone to hold you accountable.
But sadly, we know that’s not what happened in our story.
Eve ate, and she gave the fruit to her husband, who also ate.
This leads us to our second point, The Seriousness of Sin.
2. The seriousness of sin.
2. The seriousness of sin.
This is an important point,
because I see too often that we, even in the church,
fail to see the seriousness of sin.
What do we see happening as soon as Adam and Eve sinned against God?
At the moment of their sin, they for the first time felt shame.
Look with me at verse 7 and 8.
7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
We do not know how long they lived in the garden before this event,
but up until now,
they were in a state of innocence.
Their sin was a broken covenant with God,
introducing fear and shame,
that led to an inadequate attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves.
This covering however was not able to cover their shame,
so they hid from God,
no longer being able to be in His presence.
That is the seriousness of sin.
Our sin has broken our relationship with the creator.
Where once mankind walked in the garden in perfect community with
each other,
nature,
and God,
it now walks in shame.
Community has been fractured.
Do you remember the perfect community order God gave in Genesis 1 and 2?
We are to multiply and fill the earth.
We are to work, and keep the earth.
Wives are to be a help to their husbands.
With those in mind, let us read verses 16-19.
As we read the judgments given to Adam and Eve, as well as humanity as a whole, I want you to think about how these verses relate to those three commands and see that the judgments are not arbitrary, but rather a direct connection between the effects of sin and the role of humanity.
So please read along with me starting in verse 16.
16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
17 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, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
They were told to multiply and fill the earth,
but now doing so is going to be painful.
It’s not going to be easy.
They were told to work,
and keep the earth,
subduing it,
but now there are thorns,
and growing food is no longer easy.
Nature itself has been corrupted by sin.
That is the level of seriousness of their, and our transgressions.
Nature no longer makes it easy on us.
Thorns, weeds, bugs, and disease often choke out and kill what you try to grow.
This was not always the case.
This is a result of sin.
I know today, most of us no longer make a living farming.
But does this not ring true even in our jobs?
Work is not always easy.
Work is not always fun.
But it was not always this way.
Lastly, they were told that Eve was created to be a help to Adam.
Not in a demeaning or negative way,
but in love and respect for each other.
But because of sin, this has become incredibly difficult.
look at the second half of verse 16.
Genesis 3:16 (ESV)
……Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
This is the start of all marital issues.
This is why there are so many examples of men taking advantage of their wives, treating them more as property than a great gift from God.
This is why we see women often belittle their husband and try to take over his role as head of the family.
Sin has fractured the family.
It has broken the relationships in the home.
But what is beautiful is this is also why women have throughout history ran to Christianity.
Because where the world is living in to the consequences of sin,
the church sees it for what it is and tries to bring us back to the Garden.
Let’s look at what paul writes for us in Ephesians 5.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
This is a whole Sermon by itself, and we will examine it more closely in a few months when we preach through Ephesians,
but what I want us to understand here is that sin has made relationships,
including our marriages difficult.
But even in a broken world,
our marriages work when we give ourselves and our families to the structure and order found in scripture.
Because of sin, this is not easy.
So again, I hope you are able to see the Seriousness of sin.
I hope your able to see how it has corrupted all of our relationships.
It has corrupted our relationships with each other.
It has corrupted our relationships with nature.
But most importantly, it has broken our Relationship with God.
Where as before, Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden, now they hid.
Why did they hide?
Because the shame of sin can not come into the presence of a Holy and righteous God.
That is true for us today as well.
romans 5 verse 12 says
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Adam’s sin has corrupted us all.
None is righteous, no not one.
All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.
Because of this sin, we can’t come in the presence of a Holy God.
That is what Paul meant when He said, the wages of sin is death.
Spiritual death is eternal separation from God because of our sin.
But the story does not stop there.
Even all the way at the start of sin corrupting the world, we see God promising a deliverer who will crush the head of Satan.
This leads us to our final point.
3.The Salvation of Sin
3.The Salvation of Sin
Some of you maybe noticed that we skipped verses 14 and 15 earlier. Let’s look at them now.
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
We have seen the consequences of sin to humanity,
but now we see the consequences to the Serpent.
This is where the bad news of sin turns into the good news of redemption.
A future offspring of Eve is going to be struck by Satan, but this future offspring is going to strike back.
This is the only way we could ever hope to be saved from our sins.
Any attempt we make on our own to cover our sins is going to be as effective as Adam and Eve covering themselves with the fig leaves.
If we try to cover our sins with good deeds, we will find it’s not good enough.
If we try to cover our sins with giving away money, we will find it is not good enough.
If we try to cover our sins in any way outside of Christ, we will find it is simply not good enough.
This is why we see God in verse 21 covering them with skins.
21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
This is a foreshadowing of what it would take for our sins to be covered.
An animal had to die for their covering.
But even this was not enough.
Look with me at verses 22-24
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”
23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
24 He drove out the man, 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.
The death of a mere animal is not sufficient to pay the cost of our sins.
God by His great mercy took them out of the Garden so that they would not live forever in their broken spiritually dead state.
But He did this only after promising them that one day,
someone would come and defeat their enemy.
Sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and that brought death.
Righteousness has also come into the world through one man, Jesus Christ, and that has brought life.
Where the fig leaves were inadequate to cover their nakedness.
Where the skins of an animal sacrificed for them was inadequate to cover the cost of their sins.
The death of Jesus Christ on the cross was sufficient.
His death was sufficient to change mankind morally.
His death was sufficient to to defeat the power of evil and free us from it’s bondage.
His death was sufficient to to satisfy the rightful and just wrath of God.
His death was sufficient in allowing us to have a relationship with a Holy Righteous God.
This is the Promise given in Genesis 3.
This is the Promise given to the Church.
God has removed the Garden from us.
But because of the descendent of Eve who bruised the head of the Serpent,
we will one day return to the Garden.
Christ will return,
defeat Satan fully once and for all,
and those who are called by His name will forever rejoice and worship Him in Paradise.
Until that day, He has given us the Church.
It is in the Church that broken people,
saved and changed by the Grace of God come together and see relationships the way God sees them.
We see that sin has broken community,
but as we grow in Christ,
so does our relationships.
We desire for each one of you in this room to know Christ as we do.
So if you have never repented of your sins and been made a new creation in Christ, I encourage you to find someone in the room to talk to.
Me,
Rick,
Korrie,
Ennia,
Benjamin,
Tony,
Kelsie,
and many more people in the room
would love to help walk you through what it means to be saved.
I have heard Pastor Rick say and pray over and over again that He desires that this church be a house of prayer.
So let us go into prayer right now.
When we get into our groups, let us first spend time worshiping and thanking God His word this morning, and for sending His Son to defeat the Serpent.
Let us then take time to repent for our sins, and ask for God to lead us from temptation,
As well for the salvation of those who do not yet know Him.
Let’s pray.
