JOURNEY TO THE CROSS: WEEK ONE

CALL TO WORSHIP SCRIPTURE: PSALM 150:1-6

CHILDREN’S TIME SCRIPTURE: PSALM 108:4 (HAVE A MEASURING CUP AND ASK ABOUT WHAT IT IS USED FOR AND HAVE FUN WITH THEM AND THEN READ THE PASSAGE AND TALK ABOUT HOW GOD’S LOVE FOR US IS IMMEASURABLE.)

Good morning. Hard to believe that we are officially in March. Spring is in just a couple of weeks, and Easter will be here shortly after that. As we get closer to Easter, our lives can become busy where we can lose sight of why we celebrate Easter.

When it comes to Easter, it can be easy to be caught up into what WE make it to be. Yet, Easter matters just as much as Christmas. At Easter, we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is central to our faith as Christians.

Over the next several weeks, we are going to examine Easter as we journey to the cross. We’ll start this morning by diving into Genesis 3 to look at the reason why Christ came — the Fall of humanity. In Genesis 3:14-21, we see the breaking of the perfect creation due to sin, but within the judgment God pronounces we see the first hint of redemption—a promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head, establishing hope amid despair.

As we dive into the passage there are three observations that I want us to understand from the Fall:

THREE OBSERVATIONS FROM THE FALL:

PROMISE IN THE CURSE

PURPOSE AMID PAIN

PROVISION OF GRACE

Let’s pray

1. Promise in the Curse

Today we are going to camp out in Genesis 3:14-21. As you turn there, I’ll give some background on what has happened leading up to this point in the book of Genesis. We have the creation narrative here, and in six days God created the heavens and the earth, the creatures of the earth and the sky and the sea, and man and woman. On the seventh day, He rested. The pinnacle of His creation is man and woman, and He placed man and woman in a garden, where all their needs were met. In the cool of the evening, man and God would walk the garden. Scripture says that they were allowed to eat of any tree in the garden, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The consequence is that if they eat it, they will die. (Have some fun with this - like say, “Have you ever wanted to say to Adam and Eve and say ‘YOU HAD ONE JOB!’”)

SPOILER ALER!! Things don’t work out. Genesis 3 opens with the serpent who speaks to Eve, Adam’s wife, and tempts Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At first she resists, but eventually gives in. Not only does she give in and eat the fruit from it, but so does Adam. They realized what they had done, and were ashamed. That’s the thing with when we give into temptation. It always looks so good, seems like it would feel so good, and yet what usually happens is shame. Shame from the fact that we gave in, when we knew we shouldn’t have and yet we did. For Adam and Eve, they felt the shame of their disobedience, and when they heard God - the hid.

In verses 8 through 13, we read about how God easily found Adam and Eve (talk about how you always feel like this part is like when a toddler “hides” and you find them - have a little fun). And Adam and Eve confessed what they did, while playing the blame game:

“the woman you gave me gave it to me to eat”

“the serpent deceived me”

All too often, we too play the blame game:

“they started it”

“I was mad”

“Everyone else is doing it!”

Despite this, God looks right through the blame game and sees for what it is - sin. And while we will read later on in the chapter about the punishment for Adam and Eve — how they are separated from God, not only them but all humanity. Yet God promises before the consequences of their disobedience, there is hope. This is what it says in Genesis 3:14-15:

Genesis 3:14–15 CSB

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. 15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

God tells the serpent that He is cursed more than any other animal. Now there are those who will examine all that this verse entails, and there are some interesting theories on what the serpent was. However, that is not what this passage is about - its about the finality of the punishment of the devil. When you read in Revelation about what happens in the end, you see how the Devil will face consequences of what he has done - complete and total annihilation. He will writhe and slither (not literally) and the results will be that he will be totally destroyed. That’s a part of the promise that we have in light of the fall. There is coming a day when we will no longer be plagued by him trying to mislead and tear us away from God.

The other part of the promise in this curse will be the manner by which the hammer will fall and the devil will be destroyed. God says that “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” In the middle of man’s disobedience, God gives the hope of redemption.

In the midst of our disobedience promises that there is going to come one who will crush the head of destruction and pain. He will come and while the serpent will strike Him, the one that will come will end the serpent. This is the promise of Christ. God had a plan to restore what was lost through sin, right from the moment of humanity's fall. That’s why Scripture teaches in Romans 5:8:

Romans 5:8 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God, in the midst of our sin, gives us the promise of redemption through Christ. Not only do we see the promise in the curse, but we are also reminded of the purpose amid the pain.

2. Purpose Amid Pain

Genesis 3:16–19 CSB

16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you. 17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”

This morning you might be here and think, “Well if his plan was to save humanity all along, then why didn’t He just do that from the start? or Just redeem them right then and there?” God is not a forceful God. He does not force obedience, but gives us the free will to obey or not. When you love your children, your spouse - you don’t force them to love you. They have the option. Forcing someone is not love, and it is not freedom. We had freedom to obey, and we chose to disobey.

Here, we are given the consequences of sin on humanity, illustrated in the toil and pain here. Not because God forces us to suffer - that’s what we chose. Please understand me - God does not send us to hell. We send ourselves. That’s why Scripture says that in Romans 5:12:

Romans 5:12 CSB

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.

Adam’s sin did not just stay with him. It spread to all of humanity. It is because of our sin that we are separated from God. And we have to bear the consequences of the fact that sin has entered the world: pain, hardship, suffering, immorality, death. No matter how we hard we try, we are never good enough. Church attendance won’t do it. No matter what we do, our own righteousness is as filthy rags. There is no way that we can save ourselves. The difficulty and pain of life are a reminder of the consequence of our disobedience to God.

Yet they also point to our need for Christ and how through him, we can be redeemed and transformed. Paul says this just a few verses later in Romans 5:

Romans 5:18–19 CSB

18 So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is justification leading to life for everyone. 19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Christ came to redeem and transform us. God the Father did not want us to die in our sin being eternally separated from Him. That’s how deeply God cares about you and I. So even as we have to deal with the consequences and the pain that comes from sin, we can still have hope amid life’s struggles. That hope is Jesus. He is our hope that in light of uncertain days we can handle them - because He lives.

God, in the midst of our sin, gives us the promise of redemption through Christ. We see the promise in the curse, we are also reminded of the purpose amid the pain, we see the provision of grace.

3. Provision of Grace

Genesis 3:20–21 CSB

20 The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.

There is something that for years, up until recently, I had overlooked as just a part of the story of the Fall. It is kinda one of those blink-and-you-miss it meanings behind the action. Here God provides clothing for Adam and Eve, made out of skins, and clothes them.

You ever think about that? Do we do that when someone wrongs us? Like would you give someone something like this if they kicked you in the shin? I know I wouldn’t. (Have fun with this).

Yet, God does. God didn’t have to, yet He did. And He doesn’t just give them clothes made of leaves. But from animal skins. Animal skins that weren’t created, but from animals that were once alive. The first sacrifice.

This is what is so significant about these last two verses - they reveal the grace and provision of God. God clothing Adam and Eve before sending them out of the wilderness when He didn’t have to is done out of His grace for His creation. God is a god not of destruction. He could have just kicked them out and made them deal with the harsh reality of the fall on their own. But God is not a cold or dismissive god. He is a God of grace and mercy.

There’s something else here. Not only does God clothing Adam and Eve show a provision of grace, but the act of clothing them foreshadows the ultimate covering of our sins by Christ’s sacrifice. Just as God covered Adam and Eve, so does Christ’s sacrifice cover us in our sins, enabling us to have a restored relationship back to God.

God's redemptive work through Jesus covers and renews us, inviting us to accept His grace and walk in newness of life.

Go down for the invitation