New Beginnings Part 6

When we look at those moments in our lives where things just don’t make sense. When there seems to be more crying then laughing, more hurt than happiness, and more pain than there is relief what we are experiencing is a direct result from what happens in Genesis 3.

God in His infinite love for himself creates all things. He creates light and darkness, land and sky, birds, fish, and land animals, He creates man and woman and places them in the Garden. In perfection and says take what you see here and spread it to the ends of the earth.

But we saw last week that the enemy steps on the scene. He tempts Adam and Eve and they easily and quickly fall right into his trap.

They choose to disobey the Creator and choose to indulge in an act that would cause the world around them to begin to fall apart.

Big Idea: The wages of sin is death

Romans 6:23 NIV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It has always been that way, ever since God warned Adam and Eve in the garden not to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But the enemy comes, the serpent comes. He deceives Eve and she eats, she hands it to Adam and he eats and just like that, sin enters the world. Ever since that day, death has stalked us. They ate, and so we die.

Now, that may not seem fair but it’s just the way that it is. Sin = death.

And if that wasn’t enough, it does more than just that.

Our text today is all about the consequences of the first sin. It will tell us what happened to Adam and Eve personally. These verses are like a case study in human nature. As we ponder how they reacted to sin, we will see ourselves in them.

What they did in the garden, we still do today. So today we will discuss the consequences of our sin. Let’s first look at the personal consequences of our sin as seen in Adam and Eve.

Genesis 3:7 NIV

7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

SIN LEADS TO Shame:

The serpent came to Eve and tricked her into eating the fruit. She offered some to Adam and he ate, knowing full well that he was doing wrong.

Suddenly the world became a very unfriendly place. Shame entered the human heart for the very first time. Adam and Eve recognized their nakedness, and they were ashamed. The innocence of Eden was gone forever.

This knowledge that they obtained, which they were never intended to possess, opened up their eyes. But, ironically, what it brought upon them was shame.

This word naked in the Hebrew was not just used to describe someone who was without clothes but was also used to describe someone who was “defenseless, weak, or humiliated.”

This new found knowledge that was supposed to make them equal to God only showed them the vast contrast between the two. What was supposed to bring them power, wisdom, and happiness brought them weakness, vulnerability, and shame.

Their innocence is stripped and their response is to cover it up.

What once was a marriage between two who had become one with nothing to hide now has become a game of hide and seek.

Not only do they hide from one another but they use creation to hide from the Creator himself. They sew fig leaves. Something just as fragile as they have become to hide their shame from the one who created them.

Sin leads to shame.

SIN LEADS TO FEAR:

Genesis 3:8–10 NIV

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

Adam and Eve hear the Lord walking through the Garden.

I can only imagine what this would have been like. To literally walk with the Lord daily.

It’s almost assumed that this was something God did regularly. He came so that He could be with His creation and so that His creation could dwell with Him. But this day was different. The Lord comes and Adam and Eve hide.

Something that once would have brought them joy now brings them fear.

We are designed to run to the Father’s presence, but sin will always cause us to want to run away. So Adam and Eve run and they hide.

It says God calls out to them asking where they are. Now why would God need to ask that question. He knows where they are. He is all knowing. He knew before he even came to the garden that they had sinned and yet He still came and He still asks them where they are. But why?

He is prompting Adam and Eve into a confessional. He wants them to confess their sins

But I also believe it's because we are to learn something about the character of God. That He still finds us even when we are lost. He still loves even when we disobey and He never leaves us even when we are running away.

Our sin isn’t just against God’s divine holiness it’s also against His divine goodness and love.

Our sin isn’t just detrimental because it’s deserving of wrath and judgement (although it is) It’s also disastrous because it cuts us off/separates us from the presence of God. We are designed to run to the presence of God and sin causes us to run away.

Essie hiding from me - One of the best feelings as a dad is the welcome you get when you get home.

In the same way, Adam and Eve hide. They hide from God because sinner always hide.

We hide our sin. We cover it up, we run away, we change the subject, we shred documents, destroy evidence and get angry when someone would even suggest that we are in the wrong. Like Essie, we hide in the corner. When every other time we would run to greet our father, our sin causes us to fear and hide.

Genesis 3:11–13 NIV

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

SIN LEADS TO Blame SHIFTING:

Adam is caught. There’s nowhere else to go and nowhere else to hide so then what does he do?

What we all do. He passes the buck. Evades as quickly and often as possible. He says, “well that woman you put here with me - she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.” It’s her fault!

What else was I supposed to do? She gave it to me.

And on top of that this would have never happened if it was just me and the animals. If you wouldn’t have made her and given her to me then we could have avoided all of this.

Of course I’m not complaining because I need her and I love her but really this is your fault God!

What does Eve do? Well it’s the serpents fault. He tricked me, I didn't know, it’s not my fault.

And so we see it. The process of sin and the personal consequences.

Just as Adam does through the first sin so do we. Our disobedience leads to shame, which leads to fear, which leads to hiding, which leads to blaming others and not taking responsibility.

Adam sins but he doesn’t want to admit what he has done.

You cannot have forgiveness without repentance.

Personal responsibility is what leads to restoration.

We will never be fully restored if we just dance around and continue to try to find something or someone to blame.

SIN ALWAYS SEPARATES! It separates us from God, it separates us from those closest to us and it even separates us from ourselves.

We become confused about who we are and how we even got in the mess we find ourselves in.

Sin isn’t always big either.

James 4:17 NIV

17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

So let’s not be quick to dismiss sin in our lives because it’s not some massive, life altering sin.

If we truly want to become more like Jesus we won’t abandon the good we are called to.

Adam and Eve are now separated from God and each other because of their sin.

He blames God, he blames her, she blames the serpent. And we do the same today.

It’s always the husbands fault or always the wife’s fault, or the children, or your boss, or your parents, or teacher, or someone else because it can’t be me.

In the end, after all the effort to avoid it, they own up to the truth. Adam finishes with “and I ate it.” Eve finishes with “and I ate.” You can only lie for so long, you can only hide for so long, you can only blame for so long. We will not find rest in the Father until we confess our sins.

Proverbs 28:13 NIV

13 Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

When we sin, we only have two options.

Option 1 is to conceal it. Cover it up, to make excuses, to rationalize, to pass the buck. When that happens, we do not prosper. We go through the internal hell of living with a guilty conscience. In the words of Psalm 32, our bones waste away and our strength is sapped. We suffer physically and mentally because we conceal our sins. Nothing works right.

Our other choice is to confess our sins and to renounce them.

Both those words are important. To confess means to own up to what you did. When you confess your sins, you are saying, “Yes, I did it and I know it was wrong.”

To renounce your sins means to take steps to break the sinful pattern in your own life. When you renounce your sins, you are saying, “I’ve been walking in the wrong path and now, with God’s help, I’m not going to walk in that path anymore. I’m going to change the direction of my life. Instead of running away from God I’m going to run towards Him.

The wages of sin is death.

There is no getting around this eternal principle. You can pretend it doesn’t exist or you can say, “No one saw it” or “Everyone else does it” or “I don’t think it was wrong” or “It’s no one else’s business how I live” or “She made me” or “He drove me to it,” or any of a million other stupid excuses that we make for our disobedience.

We’re good at that, all of us are, and we repeatedly hide and blame, hide and blame, hide and blame.

We learned how to do that from our first parents. But it didn’t work for them and it won’t work for us. Because the wages of sin is death. It’s not something you can hide from or blame away.

The rest of our text will deal with the “divine judgement” of our sin. It will reveal God’s judgement on sin from a broader point of view. So He will speak to the serpent, then to Eve, and finally to Adam.

Serpent:

Genesis 3:14–15 NIV

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

The serpent isn’t questioned, he isn’t given an opportunity to explain or a chance to even talk. He’s told 2 things.

He will crawl on his belly, a sign of ultimate humiliation.

And number 2, there will be unending warfare between the descendants of Eve and the offspring of Satan. That is, there will be constant spiritual warfare going on in the heavenlies.

Vs. 15 is known as the “first gospel” in the Bible.

It’s the first prediction of the coming Messiah, Jesus.

Of course, the first readers of Genesis probably would not have fully understood it, we now see that this verse is predicting the ultimate showdown between Satan and Jesus.

At the cross Satan would “strike his heel,” a prophecy fulfilled literally when the nails were driven through his feet. But Jesus would crush the head of Satan by rising from the dead on the third day.

Satan’s defeat was predicted from the beginning and the outcome of the battle was never in doubt.

The woman:

Genesis 3:16 NIV

16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

The judgment on Eve is also two-fold.

First, she will experience pain in childbirth.

This speaks not only of the literal pain of giving birth, but of the sorrow of bringing children into a sin-cursed world.

Second, God now declares there will be continual conflict between the man and the woman.

Evidently the phrase, “Your desire will be for your husband,” means something like, “Even though he is the head of the home, something in you will rebel against that and make you try to usurp his God-appointed authority.”

And the man “will rule over you.” But the word “rule” in Hebrew has overtones of tyranny about it.

Women, you will try to usurp and husbands, you will try to dominate.

The battle of the sexes has begun. It’s the Rebel versus the Tyrant. Each now strives for control.

The harmony of Eden has been replaced by an ugly competition. It has been that way from the beginning and it continues to this day.

As we come into the New Testament, we discover that through Jesus Christ the effects of this judgment are partially (but not completely) erased through the introduction of God’s love into the marriage relationship.

Wives will want to rule their husbands so they are called to respect in Eph.

Husbands will want to dominate so they are called to love in Eph.

With God’s help, competition and envy, ruling, and domination can be replaced with sacrificial love and mutual respect.

Man:

Genesis 3:17–19 NIV

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it 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 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

At this point, God stops to list Adam’s crimes.

First, he listened to his wife. What he means is, “First, you listened to something and someone over the Word of God.” “Second, gave in when you should have intervened. You gave up your role as head of the home and joined in her disobedience. She led you when you should have been leading her.”

Second, he disobeyed God’s command. He ate when God specifically said, “Don’t eat from that tree.” Eve was tricked but Adam knew exactly what he was doing.

The judgment is once again two-fold.

First, the man will suffer unending frustration in his work. Now his life will be marked by trouble, toil, pain and difficulty. Nothing will come easily to him. It’s not just that he will work hard; it’s that there will be many obstacles and little lasting satisfaction.

He will work long hours and have very little to show for it. This explains why so many men are unhappy workaholics and why they work so hard in a job they can’t stand.

God made men with a dive to work and so that we find a great deal of our significance in our work. And then he arranged things so that our work would never ultimately satisfy us. If we remember, we were always created to work but now we will often seek o satisfaction in our work.

So, we become doomed to a sense of frustration and incompletion no matter how many overtime hours we put in.

Second, physical death now becomes a reality for Adam. He came from the dust and to the dust he will now return.

Now we see the result: Sorrow, sweat, pain, suffering and death. So much for our vain dreams of immortality.

Every graveyard and every funeral home and every hearse reminds us of the truth of these words. Because of sin, we all live with the prospect of our own death. No one escapes and no one postpones it forever.

Once again, we see our Big Idea: the wages of sin is death.

Wrap Up

But, there is good news. The good news is that there is a 2nd Adam.

It is precisely at this point that the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes incredibly relevant.

Because of sin, death now enters the human race and we are all doomed because of it.

In order to reverse that judgment, someone must die. That someone can never be an ordinary person, like you or me.

It must be Someone who is one of us yet is also God.

He must be like Adam and yet much greater than Adam. He must be sinless or his death will do us no good.

He must willingly die the death that we should die for our own sins. He must be able to bear in himself the full consequences of all the sin, all the shame, all the fear, all the blaming, and all the guilt of every sinner from the very first to the very last.

Where will we find such a person who could die a death like that? Our text contains the answer. Verse 15 reveals that “he” will one day crush Satan’s head.” His name is Jesus Christ.

The New Testament calls him “the last Adam” because he succeeded where the first Adam failed. And in his death, he paid the price for your sins so that you could live forever with God.

So let us remember that the wages of our sin is death but let’s walk away this morning and into next Sunday knowing this:

Take Away: Not even death can defeat Jesus

And now, because of Jesus, we have the opportunity to once again dwell in the presence of our Creator. To walk with Him, to rest in Him, to be with Him.

So yes, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but we are also given the opportunity to be made white as snow having our sins thrown as far as the east is from the west because of Jesus.

Let’s stop being slaves to sin and let's start running to the one who puts our sin to death.

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