Sin 1

It is coming.

It will come sooner this year than last.

It’ll be here before we know it.

Easter is coming the first week of April.

Before we get to Easter, though, we at this church as well as many other churches go through a time to pray and reflect on the cross and empty tomb.

That is why I thought this might be the right time to talk about… sin.

Why look at sin?

I know it is a subject I haven’t preached much on.

Not because I wish to avoid it.

I just thought that I would wait until around this time before spending some significant time talking about this subject.

I think sin is vitally important to understand.

It is hard to understand the solution to a problem if you don’t understand the problem well.

It is hard to understand salvation and sanctification and our relationship with God… if we don’t understand sin.

So if you would, please turn in your bibles with me to Genesis chapter 3.

15

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

The New Revised Standard Version Another Account of the Creation

25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

The First Sin and Its Punishment

(Rom 5:12–21)

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.” 14 The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

cursed are you among all animals

and among all wild creatures;

upon your belly you shall go,

and dust you shall eat

all the days of your life.

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will strike your head,

and you will strike his heel.”

16 To the woman he said,

“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;

in pain you shall bring forth children,

yet your desire shall be for your husband,

and he shall rule over you.”

17 And to the man he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,

and have eaten of the tree

about which I commanded you,

‘You shall not eat of it,’

cursed is the ground because of you;

in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

and you shall eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread

until you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.”

20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the LORD God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

22 Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

Evil is not an invasion. It is a corruption.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made.”

December 7, 1941

I wonder if it was hot in Hawaii that day.

The day there was an invasion in American territory in WWII.

The enemy planes flying over to bomb Pearl Harbor.

Invasions are a part of war and we could probably think of famous invaders off the top of our head.

Alexander the Great, the Visigoths, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler.

So often, Christians treat the problem of sin as if it is an invader.

Perhaps the war language we use when talking about the battle against evil has played a part of that.

But that isn’t the problem we have here.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made.”

The serpent is an obscure figure in the passage, and the only description of it’s origin is being a part of the animals that the Lord God had made.

But creation, what God made, was good.

By the end of it, God looked and saw that it was very good.

So where did evil come from?

Even if we interpret the serpent to be Satan… Satan was still a part of creation.

Evil is a problem, but evil is not an invasion from the outside.

It is a corruption from the inside.

All that exists was created by God. All that was created was created good.

Our passage doesn’t start out by describing an invasion.

It starts out by describing a corruption.

The serpent doesn’t have power over the world.

He isn’t “doing” anything.

He doesn’t come in to force, to shove the fruit down the people’s throats.

The problem doesn’t start because of the invasion of an evil thing that starts attacking or tearing down or doing.

Why a serpent?

Why a serpent?

I don’t want to run into a snake, but isn’t like it is the most vicious beast you could think of? It doesn’t present itself with such strength or menacing power.

It reminds me though of another verse.

The New Revised Standard Version The Day of the Lord a Dark Day

as if someone fled from a lion,

and was met by a bear;

or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,

and was bitten by a snake.

Evil isn’t presented as a lion or a bear.

It isn’t presented as an animal that is an obvious threat that you can easily see and put yourself on guard against.

It is one that sneaks up.

It is the one that strikes before you realize what has happened.

Progress of sin

I would like to talk about what I’ll call the progression of sin.

It isn’t something that happens all at once.

It is a slow and sneaky process.

A process that plays on our… perception.

1. Distortion of reality/ exaggeration.

The New Revised Standard Version The First Sin and Its Punishment

He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ”

Did God really say?

Did God really say you couldn’t eat from ANY tree in the garden.

The serpent asks the woman to look at the boundary line that God put there as if it was seriously different.

It goes from one tree to ALL the trees.

It is… an exaggeration.

It takes the boundary lines that are there to protect, it takes the order of goods and the way we are supposed to treat them, and it exaggerates those boundary lines and regulations.

Not that we ever like to exaggerate things…

No, we exaggerate all the time.

We start young even.

I remember as a child when I wanted something or didn’t want to do something, and often the words that would come out of my mouther were...

“You never...”

You never take us to McDonalds. or you never let me stay over at my friends house.

Or they would be, “You always!”

“You always say no!” “You always make it less fun!”

Which wasn’t true.

But I really wanted to think it was true.

Because when I exaggerated it, it justified my feelings of being the victim and my parents being unfair.

We exaggerate all the time when we don’t like the boundary lines that are there.

If there is something we want that we know isn’t right, we will exaggerate the boundary lines that are there…

to make them seem as unreasonable as possible.

To make God seem as unreasonable as possible.

Eve’s response to the exaggeration to combat it, but there is still an exaggeration on her end.

She’s starting to move in the serpent’s direction.

Her trust in God starts to break.

2. Half-truths.

Does the serpent lie?

“You shall be like God, knowing good and evil.”

We are created as moral creatures.

We aren’t normally attracted by bad things when we see them as purely bad and hurtful towards us and others.

We try to see certain truths about the goods we want, and we ignore the truths we don’t like.

Justifying cheating on exam.

Justify unethical business practices to survive.

Justifying adultery.

Justify hate and meanness.

We focus on the taste of the chocolate cake, not the calories. We focus on the truths we like, the pleasure in that moment, not the consequences.

Weekly Practice

Reflect on the way you have exaggerated God’s laws or told yourself half-truths to justify your actions or attitudes. You don’t need to revisit anything to beat yourself up but reflecting on these things helps us be more self-aware.

-Lack of self-awareness is one of the most likely culprits when it comes to slipping into sin.