Sermon Tone Analysis
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I want us this morning to be completely honest.
First, we’re in church so I would hope that honesty is important in how we think and behave here this morning.
If we’re completely honest we can ask questions that we might consider inappropriate or even childish.
We sometimes feel like we should already know the answer and so we don’t ask the question because we don’t want to sound ignorant, or look silly.
We don’t want to be embarrassed or ashamed.
Our text this morning will respond well to those feelings.
Today we celebrate the highest of holidays in the Christian calendar - the Resurrection of Jesus!
But there’s a serious question we all must wrestle with about this holiday, and indeed about all that has led up to it.
Why?
Why are we celebrating this day?
Why is it important that Jesus rose again?
Why did Jesus have to die?
Why was Jesus’ death so brutal?
These are questions that may seem simple, to some of you maybe obvious, even childish - and yet how we answer these questions not only to ourselves but to others reveals what we really believe.
And WHAT we believe and WHAT we trust impacts our entire life.
Let’s open our Bibles to - that’s the third chapter of the first book of the Bible.
We’re going to begin at verse 6.
If you want to use the Bibles in the chairs, we’re on page 3. The verses will also be displayed here on the screen.
We’re picking up the story sort of midstream.
The man and the woman, we know them now as Adam and Eve are in the garden.
They’ve had this amazing relationship with God and until this time they have no knowledge of what good is, no knowledge of what evil is, to them there is only God.
And last week we met another character the serpent who challenged the woman with a question where he twisted what God had said.
The serpent has suggested to the woman that somehow she is not like God at this point - even though she and the man are both created in the image of God.
The serpent has challenged her trust and belief in what God has said forbidding them from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent tells her at the end of vs. 4, “You will not surely die.” and then vs. 5 we read:
So that’s where we pick up our story.
Let’s read our text this morning starting at vs. 6:
Genesis 3:6-13
After this God speaks directly to the serpent, to the woman, and then to the man, and if we skip down a few verses to verse 20:
Wow, there’s so much there.
We’re going to touch on just a few highlights this morning in the time we have.
First, their eyes were opened...
Why?d
1)
As soon as they ate of the fruit, our text tells us their eyes were opened.
What were they opened to?
They were vulnerable.
They were exposed.
They now see each other and somehow that makes them self conscious, to the point that they need to cover up.
So they sew together some leaves and make themselves a very rudimentary clothing.
Their eyes were opened and now it’s become a divide between them.
Second, not only are they now covering up, or one might even say “hiding” from one another, and they’re hiding from God.
This is where it all begins.
This is where the separation between God and humankind begins and it continues today.
Let’s keep reading.
This is perhaps one of the most grace filled statements in all of Scripture.
God - the all knowing - omniscient God asks, “Where are you?”
As if He doesn’t already know?
Of course He knows.
Right here in the third chapter of of Scripture we have a great description of God inviting us to return into relationship with Him, despite the fact that sin has now entered into the Creation narrative.
We’ve just heard the invitation, “Where are you?”
The man hears God’s call and responds.
Afraid?
Afraid of the one who gave him life?
Afraid - do you see what’s happened?
He’s now somehow afraid of God, afraid of that communion that he once had not only with God, but the the woman as well.
Verses 11 & 12 give us a lot of insight into what this “opening of eyes” has done.
God asks simply - “did you eat of the tree I told you not to?”
Notice how the man says, “Okay, it’s my mistake, but it’s your fault.”
The woman…gave me fruit and I ate.
- but if we look at it closely, he’s not really blaming the woman, he’s blaming God.
“The woman you put here with me...”
“You know that gift you gave me?
That help mate YOU gave me?
Yeah well, she’s defective, you messed up!
Can you imagine?
The woman isn’t much better.
It’s not my fault, it was the serpent - that thing you created and pronounced good, it deceived me.
I invite you to further examine this passage in the coming days, for now let’s skip down to verses 21.
Think of that - the man and the woman - having admitted that they had defied God’s command, having in essence blamed God for their wayward ways are now clothed by God, and look at how.
The Lord God made garments of skin...
Where’d God get the skins to make the clothes?
From the animals created and pronounced “Good.”
God made the sacrifice.
And so God’s response began.
Fast forward through several millennia and you arrive at Jesus.
Most of us have heard .
But so many fail re respond to that love.
Perhaps it’s because we don’t know the verse in context.
The very next verse says:
God way back in the garden could have done away with Adam and Eve.
Instead, God came calling for them...
…instead God invited them to confess what they’d done.
…instead God gave them consequences
…instead God made the sacrifice
…instead God clothed them.
Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds us:
and then in 6:23
It’s important to recognize it was not about when we got our lives in order.
Paul wrote:
I began with four questions.
Let me answer them in reverse order.
4. Why was Jesus death so brutal?
Jesus crucifixion demonstrates both the immensity of our sin and of God’s love for us.
3. Why did Jesus have to die?
Death was a consequence of eating of the original sin.
2. Why is it important that Jesus rose from the dead?
In His dying, Jesus paid the debt for our sin.
In His rising He conquered death as well.
Why are we celebrating this day?
Because Jesus after dying rose from the dead.
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