The Promised King
Notes
Transcript
Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.)
This morning is the first Sunday of Advent—a word that simply means “coming.” For centuries, the church has used these weeks leading up to Christmas to slow down, to remember, and to prepare our hearts to celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ. Advent reminds us that Christmas is not just a sentimental season, but a story—God’s story—of how He kept His promise to send a King who would save His people.
Over the next four Sundays, we’re going to walk through Scripture with one goal in mind: to prepare our hearts to receive Jesus as our King.
Each week we’ll look at a different part of the Bible that helps us understand why Jesus came, what kind of King He is, and why we desperately need Him.
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Now—you’ve heard of Christmas in July…
But have you ever heard of Christmas in Genesis?
Today, we begin at the very beginning—with the very first promise of Christmas, found not in Bethlehem, but in the Garden of Eden.
Before we open our Bibles though, I want to state plainly something we all feel deeply: Our world is not the way it’s supposed to be. We don’t need a theology degree to see that something has gone terribly wrong with our world.
We feel it every time we scroll the news.
We feel it in the bitterness and division on social media.
We feel it in our closest relationships—
when we witness injustice,
when our bodies break down,
when our hearts ache,
when our own sin wounds the people we love.
Maybe for you it shows up as fear you carry into the future…
or disappointment that sits quietly in your heart…
or a brokenness you’ve experienced this year that you still don’t have words for.
It’s that ache that surfaces in the quiet moments—those times when you feel the weight of the world and think, “Surely this isn’t how life was meant to be.”
And here’s the thing: even people who don’t believe the Bible feel this.
It’s why so many stories revolve around a longing for rescue—a hero, a leader, a king who can set things right.
G.K. Chesterton, in his classic Orthodoxy, reflects on his childhood this way:
“The things I believed most then—the things I believe most now—are the things called fairy tales… Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of evil.”
Chesterton is right: evil is already here. What we need to know is that evil will one day be defeated and made right.
Now the long history of humanity seen centuries of man trying to fix the world—through conquest, philosophy, education, politics, entertainment, and even religion.
Just a few weeks ago, in his victory speech, New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declared,
“We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”
Now that’s a bold claim. Maybe well intentioned—but tragically naïve.
And on the other side of the political isle, we’ve recently heard president Trump declare that he will bring “Everlasting” peace to the Middle East. Again: Bold claim — well intentioned but tragically naïve!
Because the deepest problem with our world is not political…it’s spiritual. It goes all the way back to Genesis.
And that brings us to the question that Genesis 3 forces us to ask—
and the question that Advent invites us to wrestle with:
“What has gone so terribly wrong with our world—and who can make it right?”
I invite you now to grab your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis 3:1–19 as we discover the answer to that question.
Scripture
If you need to use a pew Bible, you’ll find today’s text on page 3. Once you’re there, please stand with me if you are able and follow along with me as I read...
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’?”
And the woman said to the serpent, “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 the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
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.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
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.
But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
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.”
This God’s Word!
Prayer
Good Father, may our time spent together in Your Word revive our souls afresh and make us wise in a world that is deeply deceived. We ask this in Christ’s name — AMEN!
Intro: Formal (give context to passage, setting the scene, big idea)
Genesis 3 drops us into a truly good world — perfect in beauty, whole, and filled with His presence.
Adam and Eve lived in perfect fellowship with their Creator. There was no fear, no shame, no brokenness. Everything was ordered under God’s good rule.
But in just a few verses, everything changes. The serpent speaks. The temptation comes. The human heart is tested. And the world as we know it—a world of sorrow and division and death—begins right here.
And so we return to the question that every human heart feels, and that Genesis 3 forces us to confront:
“What has gone so terribly wrong with our world—and who can make it right?”
Genesis 3 gives us God’s answer.
And this is the main idea for this sermon:
“Sin has ruined God’s good world, and only God’s promised King can restore it.”
That’s what this chapter shows us— And these are my 3 main points that will guide us the rest of the way:
1. The Origin of the Ruin
2. The Extent of the Ruin
3. The Promise of Restoration
All three of these movements lead us through Advent, toward Christmas, and ultimately toward the Promised King.
So let’s begin where our text begins:
with the origin of the ruin.
The Origin of the Ruin
The Origin of the Ruin
When we look at the origin of the ruin in Genesis 3, we’re really examining the root system of sin—what lies beneath every act, every attitude, every expression of brokenness in the world. And nowhere in Scripture do we get a clearer picture of sin’s root than right here.
In verses 1–5, the serpent—Satan—approaches Eve. He deceives her, because deception is what he does. Jesus calls him “a liar and the father of lies.”
He hates God’s rule. And he wants to destroy God’s good world. So what does he do? He attacks the very thing he attacked then and still attacks now:
He lies about the nature of God.
He plants a seed of doubt that calls into question God’s goodness.
And once God’s goodness is doubted, two things immediately begin to surface in Eve’s heart:
1. Fear — “Maybe God is holding out on me. Maybe there’s something good I need in order to be happy, and God won’t give it to me.”
2. Pride — “Maybe I know better than God what will make me truly happy.”
So, operating from fear and pride, she takes the fruit God forbade and eats. Then she hands it to Adam—and he eats as well.
Here’s the tragic progression:
Eve listens to the serpent,
Adam listens to Eve,
and no one listens to God.
And that is the root of sin. That is the origin of the ruin.
Sin is the rejection of God’s kingship.
It is not just rule-breaking—it is rule-taking.
It is not merely “doing wrong”—it is placing myself on the throne that God alone deserves.
Sin is treason against the High King of the universe.
And this has been the default posture of every human heart ever since the Garden: a deep, instinctive resistance to let God be God.
Now here’s where this gets painfully practical. Because most people—including many who sit in churches—believe that humans are basically good, except for the occasional mistake. “Nobody’s perfect.” “We all slip up.”
And yes, people can do outwardly moral things— like tell the truth, give generously, and show kindness.
But listen to how God describes the human condition.
Isaiah 64:6 says:
All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
Not our worst deeds—our best ones.
Paul echoes this in Romans 3:10–12:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands; no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Now, most people define sin simply as doing bad things— like: lying, cheating, stealing, and violence.
But if what Scripture is saying is true, then even our “good” acts are compromised at the root.
I’m sure at least some of you came in this morning thinking,
“I’m a pretty good person. Jesus just helps me be better.”
But the Bible says something far more sobering—and far more hopeful.
Jonathan Edwards, one of America’s greatest theologians and philosophers, wrote a work called The Nature of True Virtue. In it he explains there are two kinds of virtue:
COMMON Virtue and TRUE Virtue. And the difference comes down to motivation.
Edwards says most “goodness” in the world springs from COMMON virtue, from which there are only two motives:
Fear and Pride.
Let’s use honesty as an example.
A person can tell the truth because they fear the consequences of lying.
They fear damaging their reputation or their relationships.
Or they’re afraid of getting caught.
Or a person can tell the truth out of pride—
“I’m not like those people who lie. I’m better than that.”
And the irony is that when you think about it, that’s exactly why people lie in the first place: fear and pride.
They fear of the consequences of telling the truth.
They act in pride to protect their image.
Now, Edwards argues that most human virtue operates out of this “COMMON virtue”: Which is nothing more than “good” behavior growing from rotten roots.
Or as Isaiah put it:
“All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”
But Edwards also outlines another kind of virtue—TRUE virtue.
True virtue is doing what is right because God is God.
You tell the truth because God is a God of truth.
You give generously because God has been generous to you.
You obey not out of fear or pride, but because He loves you.
That’s true virtue.
Now maybe you’re wondering why I took all that time to explain this.
It’s because I have to believe there are at least some of you here today who think you’re basically a good people. And Jesus for you, is nothing more than a good example to emulate.
But Jesus didn’t come to help you be a better person!
Jesus came because we are far more sinful than we imagined, and we need a Savior more desperately than we ever realized.
Trying harder can’t kill our fears.
Trying harder can’t cure pride.
Trying harder can’t uproot sin from the human heart.
But Jesus can. And here’s how…
At the cross, He crucifies our pride—because if the death of the Son of God was required to pay for my sin, then I must be far worse off than I ever imagined.
And at the same time, He calms our fear—because if Jesus would die for me while I was His enemy, then His love for me must be far greater than I ever dared to hope.
Jesus alone deals with both fear and pride.
Jesus alone heals the heart.
Jesus alone makes true virtue possible.
Yes—we still struggle. Even as believers, our obedience is often a mixture of both true and common virtue. We are always drifting back toward fear or pride. But we grow in grace as we remind ourselves of the gospel—of what Christ accomplished for us.
And one day—when the Promised King returns—the struggle with sin will be gone forever, and we will be made perfect as Jesus is perfect.
Now we’ve seen how sin begins by dethroning God as King in the human heart—but it doesn’t stay there. Its effects explode outward. So, let’s look now at the extent of the ruin in my second point.
The Extent of the Ruin
The Extent of the Ruin
As I said earlier, we all know our world has serious problems—but just how bad is it? — Genesis 3 gives us the devastating answer.
Let’s take a brief walk through the passage and see just how far the ruin of sin has spread.
1. Sin ruins our relationships with each other (v. 7).
The first thing Adam and Eve do after rebelling is cover themselves.
Before sin, “naked and unashamed” meant vulnerability, honesty, and trust. But the moment sin enters, transparency dies.
Now:
“I can’t let you know who I really am.”
“I have to manage my image.”
“I must protect myself.”
We all do the same thing:
We hide.
We curate.
We self-protect.
We live behind carefully crafted fig leaves—on social media, in marriage, at work, even in church.
Sin fractures human relationships.
2. Sin ruins our relationship with God (v. 10–12).
Adam, who once walked with God in perfect fellowship, now hides in fear and shame.
And when God calls him out, Adam blames—not just Eve—but God Himself:
“You know that woman YOU gave me…I bet you though that was such a great idea…”
This is what sin always does—it makes us defensive, suspicious, and self-justifying before God.
Some of you know that feeling well.
Instead of running to God, you run from Him.
Instead of confessing sin, you explain it away.
Instead of trusting His goodness, you question it.
Sin warps how we see God.
3. Sin brings pain into family life (v. 16).
Childbearing—which was meant to be a joyful participation in God’s creative work—becomes painful.
In other words, sin reaches into the most intimate and sacred parts of human life.
Every parent here knows the ache:
Whether through the pain of miscarriage, infertility, prodigals, conflict, fear, or heartbreak.
Sin infects even the family.
4. Sin strains marriages (v. 16).
This verse describes a tragic relational distortion:
a tug-of-war for control, where wives are tempted to dominate and husbands are tempted to misuse their strength.
Instead of unity, there’s tension.
Instead of partnership, there’s power struggle.
Instead of oneness, there’s deep misunderstanding and pain.
Many marriages today reflect this exact pattern— because sin ruins God’s good design.
5. Sin ruins our work and our world (v. 17–19).
Work itself is not a curse—God gave Adam work before the Fall.
But now work is filled with frustration.
Creation rebels against the ones meant to rule it.
Storms destroy.
Droughts choke out crops.
Earthquakes shatter cities.
We need air conditioning in the summer, heat in the winter—because the very environment fights against us.
We don’t only work in a broken world—we work against a broken world.
Erma Bombeck captured this humorously when she wrote:
“Dirt in the diaper, dirt on the plate, dirt in the rug, dirt on the sheets…
You clean one side of the house, and by the time you get to the end, the other side gets dirty again. And what do you get at the end of life for all this trouble?
Six feet of dirt.”
And Genesis 3 agrees.
Verse 19 says:
For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The good world we were meant to cultivate will one day swallow us whole.
In summary: sin ruins everything.
Spiritually.
Relationally.
Our marriages & families.
Our jobs.
Even nature itself.
It’s as if God’s whole world is coming undone.
Pastor Tim Keller gives a helpful picture here.
Imagine a clock—full of gears and pulleys, each one perfectly placed.
Everything interlocks smoothly. Everything just works.
But then imagine one gear doesn’t like its place.
So, it pops off its axle to rise higher—but instead it falls down into the lower mechanisms.
Now everything grinds and pops.
The entire system shudders and shakes.
That’s Genesis 3.
We are the gear that refused its place.
God wasn’t looking down thinking,
“What can I do to make their lives miserable now that they’ve rejected Me?”
No—this chapter shows that when we decide to be our own masters, we throw ourselves out of alignment with God’s good design.
And once that happens, nothing works right anymore.
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Now before we move on, let me ask you:
Where do you feel this ruin most painfully right now?
Is it in your relationship with God—where you carry shame, fear, and guilt?
In your marriage?
In parenting?
In your work—filled with frustration, futility, and exhaustion?
Or is it in your own heart—shame, insecurity, or fear of being known?
Genesis 3 explains all of this. And all this ruin could leave us in deep despair. But God will not leave His world in ruins. Because even here in humanity’s darkest moment — God promises restoration.
The Promise of Restoration
The Promise of Restoration
In Genesis 3:15 we come to one of the most hope-filled sentences in all of Scripture. The early church called it the protoevangelium—the “first gospel.” In the middle of humanity’s darkest moment, God doesn’t wait for Adam and Eve to climb their way back to Him. He steps into the ruins and gives a promise: evil will not have the last word.
God declares that He Himself will put enmity between the serpent and the woman—between his offspring and her offspring. This isn’t about snakes and humans not getting along. It’s about two groups of people running through the story of the world:
Those who believe the serpent’s lie, and
Those who follow the Lord.
And here’s the beautiful part: God is not giving Satan hatred—Satan already hated God.
What’s new is that God promises to give the woman’s offspring—a redeemed people—a holy hatred for evil and a new desire to follow Him.
Then the camera zooms in. The “offspring” becomes a single person:
“He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
A fatal blow and a painful wound. A Savior who would suffer, yet triumph.
From this moment forward, the whole Bible is the unfolding of this promise—and the entire history of redemption is Satan’s futile attempt to stop it.
Satan worked through Pharaoh when he ordered the slaughter of Hebrew baby boys. He wanted to crush the promised “He” before He ever arrived.
Satan worked through Goliath, the giant who threatened the people of God—yet God turned him into a foreshadowing of Satan’s defeat when He struck him down with a stone to the head.
Satan worked through Herod when he ordered the execution of all Hebrew boys two and under. He would not tolerate the rightful King who would undo his dark kingdom.
But none of Satan’s schemes could stop God’s promise.
And then, at the fullness of time, the “He” of Genesis 3:15 came. Jesus Christ—the promised King—dealt the decisive blow at the cross. Hebrews 2:14 tells us exactly how:
That through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
You see Satan’s only power or weapon was to accuse us before God—to point to our rebellion and demand our condemnation. That is literally what his name means: Accuser.
But when Jesus died as the full and final payment for our sin, the Accuser lost his case. And now for everyone who trusts Christ, their guilt is gone, their debt is paid, their shame is removed.
Satan is defanged.
He has nothing left to point to—because Jesus paid it all.
Think back to the clock analogy:
We were the gear that tried to pop out of place—and in doing so, threw the whole world into chaos. But Jesus made Himself a gear like us. He entered the machine we broke. He allowed Himself to be crushed by it—for us.
And now, by faith in Him, He puts us back where we belong—reconciled to God, and made part of His work of restoring the world.
And here is where this becomes deeply personal:
If you find in your heart even the smallest hatred of sin…
If you feel a longing to be free…
If you sense a pull toward Jesus—
that is the work of God drawing you to Himself.
So hear the call of the gospel:
Turn from your sin.
Trust in Jesus Christ.
Bow to Him as your true and rightful King.
When you do, He forgives you fully, and puts you back in your proper place in God’s good design. And one day, when He returns, He will finish what He started—renewing the world so that His blessings flow far as the curse is found.
This is why we sing at Christmas:
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow,
far as the curse is found.
Jesus is the promised King of Genesis 3:15—
the Destroyer of the devil,
the Savior from sin,
and the Restorer of God’s world.
So let me ask you:
Will you be part of Christ’s renewed world?
Surrender to Jesus, your promised King—
and let the healing begin for you today.
Conclusion/Response (Gospel & Repent/Believe)
As we come to the end of Genesis 3 and to the beginning of Advent, let’s return to the question we started with this morning—
the question every human heart asks at some point:
“What has gone so terribly wrong with our world—and who can make it right?”
We feel the ache of that question in our news feeds, in our relationships, in our families, and deep within our own souls.
But God has not left us without hope.
Genesis 3 has shown us the truth with beautiful clarity:
1. The Origin of the Ruin —
Sin began when humanity believed the serpent’s lie and rejected God’s authority as King.
Fear and pride dethroned God in the human heart, and every sin since then grows from that same root.
2. The Extent of the Ruin —
That rebellion didn’t stay inside of us.
It spilled outward and fractured everything:
our relationships, our marriages, our families, our work, even creation itself.
The whole world groans because we stepped out of the place God designed for us.
3. The Promise of Restoration —
In the midst of the ruins—God spoke a promise.
A child would come.
A King would rise.
He would enter our broken world, suffer for our sin, crush the serpent’s head, and begin restoring all that sin ruined.
And that promised King is Jesus Christ.
So here, at the beginning of Advent, the message of Genesis 3 invites every one of us to look honestly at the ruins within us—and then to look joyfully to the Redeemer who came for us.
Sin has ruined God’s good world,
and only God’s promised King can restore it.
And He has come.
To deal with the root of our ruin, to bear the weight of our sin, to destroy the works of the devil, and to begin making all things new.
So as we begin this Advent season, the question becomes deeply personal:
Have you bowed to this King?
Have you received the restoration only He can give?
Will you let Him put your life back in its proper place?
This is what Advent prepares us for.
This is what Christmas celebrates.
This is why Christ came.
May your heart this season be drawn with fresh love, fresh faith, and fresh affection for the One who stepped into our ruins to bring us home.
Prayer
Closing Song: O Come All Ye Faithful (#145)
Closing Words:
As we leave this place today, having sung “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” I want to offer one more invitation—one more call to come.
If you sensed today the Lord stirring something in your heart…
If you know you need to surrender to Jesus as your promised King…
Or if you simply need someone to pray with you as you take the next step of faith…
People will be available up front here immediately after the service.
They would love to pray with you, encourage you, and help you respond to whatever the Lord is doing in your heart today.
And maybe for you, the next step is baptism…
or getting connected to our fellowship through membership…
or serving somewhere in the life of our church…
or simply asking for help in your walk with Christ.
If that’s you, I want to encourage you to fill out one of our orange “Next Steps” cards.
You can drop it off at our Welcome Counter in the foyer, and we’ll follow up with you this week.
Now Church, this week you are going out into a world that feels the ruin of Genesis 3— in your workplace, in your school, in your home, in your friendships.
Go as people who belong to the promised King.
Go as bearers of hope into a world longing to be made right.
Wherever the Lord leads you this week, shine the light of Christ into the darkness, and point people to the One who came to crush the serpent, heal the broken, and restore all things.
And now, receive this benediction from Romans 16…
Be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. — AMEN
