Are You Not Content?

Maximus yells to the crowded stadium are you not entertained?

Gen 3:1-7

Genesis 3:1–7 ESV

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.

As we look at this text there are distinct features that give us insight into the nature of sin, Satan(the devil), and humanity. First we have to look at what are the actions of the parties tells us. What did Satan do and how did that impact the situation? What were the actions of the humans and why did they do them? Have you ever asked yourself just why did Adam and Eve eat the fruit anyway? As we explore the answer to the question we will find that it hits very close to our own hearts and the choices that we make. As I have said many times from this stage, sin is not a mistake, sin is not an oops, sin not an accident; sin is a choice; you choose to sin, it is rebellion, and it will leave you with less than nothing, it destroys.

Who is Satan?

Also Known As the devil

1 Peter 5:8 and John 8:44

1 Peter 5:8 ESV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

The words of God, through Peter, give us insight into the Devil’s intent. He is our enemy. He seeks to cause us to trip up, to cause us suffering; he seeks to cause damage to the image of God that we carry. Looking at the Genesis account we see that Satan comes in an innocuous way, he is just a talking snake hanging out be a tree. He just wants to have a conversation about food. What is harmful about that?

Then Jesus gives us more information through John.

John 8:44 ESV

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.

Here we see that Satan may have had benign demeanor but his nature is to lie. But Jesus and Peter tells us more than that, notice “seeking someone to devour” “your will is to do your father’s desire”. The Devil cannot just devour anyone, he does not have the power to do that, he has to seek those he can devour. The devil cannot always have his will, he has things he desires he cannot have.

How do the devil’s actions impact the fall of man?

Where they innocent questions? When he asked Eve, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” Was Satan trying to learn something, or did he already know the answer?

He intentionally did not tell all the truth

Jesus tells us that “he is the father of liars” and that his natural way of talking is to lie. Next we get insight into why he did it. Peter tells us he is “seeking someone to devour”.

He made an appeal

Satan was targeting, in Eve, something. He was appealing to something in Eve and, through her, Adam. He was trying to trigger a certain emotional reaction. In the past we have talked about how advertising on TV is looking to manipulate you by targeting your emotions. If you are not a believer you belong to Satan, he is, as Jesus said to the pharisees, “your father” and you want to do his will, you love your sin and you do not want to give it up. However, for the believer, someone that God has rescued and give an new nature, the devil’s only power is to advertise sin. His only power is to make sin seem valuable, desirable, needed, or pleasurable and tempt you to make a choice to violate the new nature God has given you.

What was it in Eve’s human nature that the devil wanted to exploit?

She did not want to be stupid (pride)

When she heard there was something she did not know “your eyes will be opened” and the snake knew it, she wanted that for herself. She did not want to seem stupider then a snake, right?

She wanted more knowledge (selfishness)

When she heard that she could “know good and evil” she wanted that power for herself.

She wanted, when God had given her everything she needed (ill-content)

What was really happening to Eve was the devil had tempted her away from being content with what God had given her: “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”. What if she had said, I do not need that wisdom because God is wiser than I will ever been and he takes care of me? The sin would never have happened. Looking at this we see that sin is a result of God’s provision not being enough for us. The answer to sin, the answer to being able to resist the devil, is then God has been enough. James 4:7 says

James 4:7 ESV

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Every time you resist the devil it gets easier and easier to do because each time you find that what God has for you is far better than the sin the devil tempted you to do.

Are you content?

High-school pressure: Relationships Drugs

You are all in high-school and there will be many pressures on you. The most urgent will be either drug use or relationships. The reason these are the most urgent is they have the biggest consequences. Paul tells us 1 Corinthians 6:18

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Sexual sin damages in so many ways that we do not need to get into right now, what we need to ask ourselves is why does it seems like everything in the the world is about sex and drugs. If the devil is “seeking someone to devour” then he wants to cause as much damage as he can. So he not only tempts people to sin, but he also tempts then with the sin that will cause the most damage to them. Think about high-school romantic relationships, you have seen it in your friends and perhaps even in your own life, one relationship after another, one crush after another until you get so desensitized you can fall in and out of love in a week. Of course that is not real love, but that is a sermon for another day. Imagine a boy or a girl that goes through all these relationships in high-school and then one day they meet the one that God sent from them. But, they do not know how to really love anymore because they did not wait for the one God sent but rather spent all their love on themselves. Now they are a broken shell of who they could have been in the relationship with the one God gave them. All of that! All of that could have been avoided just by being content with what God gave them. If they were just willing to wait for God to give them what they needed they would have saved themselves so much heartache.

Drugs are really the same thing. They just act quicker. You live in Hemet you know what drugs do to people. Just think if those people were to be content with what God gave them. If they were, they would never be in the situation they are in.

I ask again, are you content?

Calvary is enough yet there is so much more.

Come with me on a trip. Imagine with me that we are in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, we are standing on a dirt street and it about 8 o-clock at night. Its very quiet, everyone is inside because it is the Sabbath and it is passover. You look around and you see the market stalls that during the day would have been full of people all deserted and the Roman governors house it right in front of you. You can still feel the heat of the Mediterranean day from the land around you but the air has a nip of cold, and you know it will be a cold night. You look down at your feet and you see blood on the ground. It’s dried blood but it is definitely blood and it leads off down the road. Out of curiosity you start to follow it, you go a little way and then you notice right after the blood there is a large groove in the ground where it looks like a heavy log was drug along. Then you come to a place where there is a lot of blood on the ground. It looks like what ever was bleeding and dragging something fell. The trail of blood continues outside the city and up a hill. You can see that there were a lot of footprints going up and down this hill and there are fresh like they went there today. So your curiosity gets the best of you and you follow the blood and the footprints up the hill. You get to the top and you see a fire with a few Roman soldiers sitting around it, but you are not looking at them. Your stomach turns inside you at the horror you are seeing. You see three crosses on top of the hill the ones on the left and right still have living people on them. You want to turn and run but you cannot move, all your days of church and Sunday school come flooding back to you and you know who that one in the center is, that he is Jesus, but as you look at him you can hardly believe it because he so beaten and whipped that you cannot tell for sure that he is human, you cannot believe any human could be so badly beaten. You sink to your knees, you close you eyes tightly, you cannot take any more, you do not even want to breath because you can smell the blood in the air, there is too much of it. Then it is gone, you are back here where we started.

So I ask again, are you content? Is what God did to Jesus for you, for the sin you have commited, sin that would never have happened if you were just content with him in the first place, is it enough for you to be content with him. Will you look at that cross and see him there and not have enough reason to choose God’s way. Will you go out and experiment with sin? Or will you be content with all the God has given you?