The Problem and the Cure

Introduction

Wow! It seems like every week it is something new in the news, right?

I saw where there was a black man shot in Atlanta the last day or two at a Wendys and now the Wendys was set on fire and people are protesting.

So let me say a couple of things here in the introduction to the sermon.

First, how we answer certain questions really tell us what our worldview is.

Remember we talked a couple of weeks ago about Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration or New Creation.

Well these words that really ground our worldview flow from a series of questions

Where did we come from?

What is the problem with the world, with humanity?

Is there any hope of the problem being fixed?

Where are we going?

Second, the way any of these questions are answered really effects the way you live and how you think and operate in the world and when those answers are not biblical then it will lead someone away from biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity answers these 4 questions and not to get these answers right are dangerous.

I say all of that brothers and sisters because in our culture today and through media today we are trying to be sold a different narrative than the biblical narrative.

What I mean by that is that our culture is trying to convince us that the great problem in the world is oppression.

That the great problem in the world is that society is set up in such a way that you have oppressed and the oppressor and that the key is to take down the oppressor and liberate the oppressed and they want to do this through political action or social action.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that it is okay for someone to be oppressed or for some to oppress someone else

But one of the things that we have seen with this worldview over the past couple of months is that this worldview is short sighted and flawed.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

There are some that want you to believe that one of the great problems in our country is police and there use of force especially deadly force and especially deadly force against the black community.

So the police would be the oppressor and the oppressed would be the black community.

And what they will do is cherry pick a few incidents and say he look at this, we told you that we were right

Are there some bad cops? Yes

But this does not prove their point, this does not prove that every cop is an oppressor and every person is oppressed by a cop.

And this way of dividing society into the oppressed and the oppressors does not really get to the heart of the problem?

Are there different layers in society? yes

Are there different groups in society? yes

Do some groups have more power or influence than others? yes

But let me tell you the problem with humanity goes far deeper than the media and so many others in our society really understand and that is what chapter 3 of Genesis is about.

I. Setting the Stage

Remember in chapters 1 and 2 we saw Adam and Eve in Eden, Garden paradise where they had fellowship with God and we saw in the text again and again in chapter 1 that things were good.

Another thing that needs to be stated here before we move forward.

We believe that the Bible teaches that Adam and Eve stood in the room and stead of all mankind so that the guilt of their sin was reckoned by God’s appointment to the account of all their posterity.

Adam was our representatives before God so that when he fell into sin, we fell with them.

Read and discuss Romans 5:12-21

What we have is God imputing Adams guilt to everyone.

In other words this is not some isolated historical event that has nothing to do with us today, no brothers and sisters this have everything to do with us today.

Who is this tempter? the serpent?

Here the serpent is the symbol of anti-god.

He is the adversary of God and humanity

Called Satan in the OT (hebrew word for adversary or accuser)

called the devil in the NT (Greek equivalent for the Hebrew word Satan)

We are told that this serpent was crafty and we see that in his cunning distortions of God’s Word.

II. The Temptation and the Sin vv.1-7

What does the serpent do here? He tempts Adam and Eve to distrust God’s goodness, to doubt His Word, right?

“Oh don’t believe what He told you, He is actually holding out on you, let me tell you what will really bring you life and joy.”

Adam and Even disbelieved God and gave in to the lies of the serpent.

And we would say that all sin, is rooted in this very thing, in doubting God’s goodness, no believing God’s Word.

Think of Israel

Jeremiah 2:11–13 ESV

Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

What is the charge against Israel in this passage? It is that they believed that they could find more joy somewhere else outside of God, that God could not deliver, maybe that God was holding out on them.

They did not treasure and trust God above all things.

This is the nature of temptation for us today as well, right brothers and sisters?

We talked about this, for those of us that read Gospel Fluency.

We conquer temptation when we believe the gospel, when we believe God’s goodness and God’s promises.

Treasuring and Trusting God leads to obedience.

But again treasuring and trusting someone or something else other than God leads to disobedience, it destroys fellowship with God and with one another (notice the blaming, the finger pointing)

Read vv.8-13

Something has gone terribly wrong here, right? We go from being invited into God’s eternal rest and all things being good to Adam and Even trying to hide from God

And this condition of not treasuring God’s glory but instead longing for one’s own glory and not trusting God’s Word but instead creating our own story and running from God has been passed down to Adam and Eve’s descendents.

Brothers and sisters, we have a world of people running from God and not running to God.

There cannot be unity, there cannot be peace, there cannot be rest outside of a relationship with the Creator, we talked about two weeks ago.

The ultimate problem with humanity is not that we are oppressed by one another, now that is a problem and when it is a legit problem it needs to be addressed; but the problem is that we are oppressed by the serpent and that his lies rule and reign in our hearts.

III. The Results of Sin

Death, disunity, distress, and disorder follows right

v.16

Pain in childbirth reminds us of the need for restoration, that things are not right.

Oh the joy of the birth of a child, and yet this child is born into a fallen world, this child is born outside of the garden of Eden and in need to redemption and restoration.

We see trouble in marriage as well. That glorious relationship, that closest of human relationships, even it will have strife and difficulty. Again this is a reminder that things are not the way they are suppose to be, we are in need of restoration.

v.17-19

Thorns and thistles remind us of the need for restoration (some of you may want to add other things like roaches or misquitos)

Ultimately physical death, death reminds us that this is not the way things are suppose to be

IV. The Restoration by the Seed

In vv. 14-15 defeat is promised to the serpent and his seed and victory is promised to the seed of the woman.

I would submit to you that this is much of the storyline of scripture as the woman’s seed (the faithful) are in conflict with those who disbelieve God’s Word and align themselves with the serpent.

We see this all through the OT narrative

This battle reaches it apex when the true seed of the woman battles the serpent of old and crushes Him and His Kingdom.

Colossians 2:13–15 ESV

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

One could summarize the Scriptures by saying this is the story of how the promised Seed of the woman came into the the world to redeem and restore a people back into a right relationship with God so that they may enter into God’s eternal rest.

We read promises like this in the OT

Isaiah 55:12–13 ESV

“For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Great promises of redemption and restoration, of the curse being undone and brothers and sisters the NT is clear that all of this finds it’s fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ.

A couple more things

First, we see that Adam and eve laid hold of these promises by faith. v.20

Eve means something like life-giver.

And we as well lay hold of God’s promise of redemption and restoration by faith believing that life comes to us through the seed of the woman, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Second, we see a sacrifice provided for Adam and Eve to cover their guilt v.21

Brothers and sisters this ultimately points us to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. The One who came and lived and died and rose again to take away our sins and to cloth us with garments of righteousness.

This one who came to restore us into a right relationship with God and with one another

Ephesians 2:11–22 ESV

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.