Gospel Project S1W3

Human Rebellion

The Fall

Genesis 3:1-24

Can you picture a world where no evil exist?

What would that world look like?

Would it be brighter?

Would people be happier?

Would people be kind to each other? Would we be more polite?

What would that world look like?

What about a world where no sin existed?

Now before you play that whole well thats heaven card, think about a world where sin does not exist.

What does this world look like?

If you know what we are talking about today think about some of the curses that God placed on humans because of their disobedience.

Pain in child birth

The desire to rule over the man of the household

The hardship of work

And death

Those things would not be present, a world where that did not exist, I mean can you imagine a world where no one dyed, that death was not even a thing.

Pretty crazy stuff.

So before we jump into the fall lets recap just a bit

The last couple weeks we have been learning about the beginning of creation.

How God created everything and it was good, and perfect!

Then Last week we talked about how God created man!

How he formed man out of the dust of the ground and God literally breathed into them!

This week we talk we are talking about the fall of humanity.

When God’s creation choose to act in rebellion to God, and just like when we rebel against our parents, teachers, and the law punishments are dished out.

In the previous sessions we learned that God created the world and human beings, male and female, in His image.

As a Father providing good things for His children, God gave Adam and Eve a good world to take care of and enjoy.

Everything He made—sun, moon, stars, sea creatures, birds, trees, and fruit—all of it was good and all of it was for them.

More importantly, God gave Himself in relationship and fellowship to the first people.

All was good, and all was well!

In fact, as we’ve seen, God overlooked all that He had made and declared it to be “very good.”

It’s hard to gain an accurate picture of this time given that the world we now know is not the way it was intended to be.

But in the first two chapters of the Bible, things were exactly as they were meant to be.

That is, until sin enters the stage in human history.

So what went wrong?

What happened in the garden that would forever shape the world and humanity as we know them today?

Let’s turn to Genesis 3 and see exactly what happened and the damage sin caused to the good work of creation.

When sin entered distrust happened

SIN LEADS TO A DISTRUST OF GOD’S WORD

As we begin to read the opening verses in chapter 3, we see that a drastic change is about to take place between humanity’s relationship with their Creator.

And at the heart of this change lies an issue of trust—trusting the goodness of God and His Word.

As we are about to see, human rebellion leads us to distrust the goodness of God’s Word.

This is at the heart of human sinfulness, so it’s no surprise that Satan (disguised as a serpent) chose this line of temptation in the garden of Eden. Let’s read:

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.

The serpent begins by introducing doubt.

Did God really say...?

He’s not denying what God has said, of course, but he is making God’s Word up for debate.

Are you serious?

Did He really, truly say that to you?

Notice also how the serpent twists God’s Word.

God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree except one, but the serpent changes the prohibition:

“Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The serpent didn’t first attack with a statement, but with a question.

His goal was to lead Adam and Eve to doubt God’s goodness.

He followed the question with an outright lie: “You will not die.”

Sin begins with doubting God’s goodness and ends with denying God’s Word.

Of course, Adam and Eve aren’t the only people who have doubted the goodness and truthfulness of God and His Word.

When have you ever questioned the truthfulness of God’s Word?

In the end, the serpent wanted Adam and Eve to think they were missing out and that God was withholding happiness from them.

And so Eve took the fruit, and Adam followed.

This was a simple act of disobedience that carried with it unimaginable consequences.

What happened in the garden was not merely a mistake; it was a rebellion.

Someone once said this about sin:

“Sin lives in a costume; that’s why it’s so hard to recognize.

The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that makes it so bad.

In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil.

Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party.

Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth.

Lust can masquerade as a love for beauty.

Gossip does its evil work by living in the costume of concern and prayer.

Craving for power and control wears the mask of biblical leadership.

Fear of man gets dressed up as a servant heart.

The pride of always being right masquerades as a love for biblical wisdom.

Evil simply doesn’t present itself as evil, which is part of its draw.

You’ll never understand sin’s sleight of hand until you acknowledge that the DNA of sin is deception.

Now, what this means personally is that as sinners we are all very committed and gifted self-swindlers. …

We’re all too skilled at looking at our own wrong and seeing good.”

You see when sin entered the world it literally became part of Adam and Eve’s DNA, And because DNA is based down person to person over and over again, it means that no one is perfect, but we were given hope in Christ as he was the perfect savior.

Sin leads to a distrust of God’s word and…

SIN LEADS TO BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS WITH GOD AND OTHERS

The fallout from Adam and Eve’s sin began immediately.

Their eyes were opened.

Their rebellion caused them to have a new consciousness of their nakedness.

Shame entered God’s good world.

The first couple realized that they were naked, and so they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

Genesis 3:8–16 ESV

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

Adam and Eve felt clothed before they exchanged the goodness of God’s Word for lies.

They had God’s favor; they were unashamed, secure, and provided for.

But when they questioned and doubted the goodness of God, they brought shame into our world.

And with this favor gone, they felt naked.

Before their sin, Adam and Eve felt no shame, there was nothing to hide, and they could be completely vulnerable before God and with each other in complete safety.

There were fully known and fully loved.

And even now, we long to be known and loved.

We all long for deep connection friends, family, boyfriend/girlfriend- that summer time boo.

But shame has infected all of our relationships.

This is why you wonder: What if someone I deeply care for learned how I really am on the inside?

What if they knew the secret thoughts running through my mind every day?

Would they still love me?

Would they abandon me?

God created us to be fully known and fully loved.

But in our fallen state, we’ve convinced ourselves that the only way we can be loved is if we’re not fully known.

We believe it would be impossible for anyone to know the depths of who we are and still love us.

That’s why we hide

But it’s not just our relationship with God that has been broken.

Our relationship with others has been shattered as well.

The expression of sheer joy and excitement we saw in the previous chapter when Adam first saw Eve (“This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”) has been transformed into blame and enmity.

From this point forward, human relationships of all types will experience brokenness to some degree.

Abuse, manipulation, and enmity have replaced the paradise that once characterized human relationships within the garden.

But as we will see soon, there is hope yet for humanity.

Genesis 3:17-24 also reveals another relationship that has been distorted because of sin—the relationship between humanity and God’s good creation.

Genesis 3:17–24 ESV

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Thus, our rebelling against God not only corrupted our relationships with God and each other, but it also shattered the perfect peace of God’s good world.

God called us to fill the earth (Gen. 1:28).

But now this task will come through a woman’s pain and anguish (Gen. 3:16).

God called us to subdue the earth.

But now this task will come through toilsome work, fighting thorns and thistles.

Only by the sweat of our brow will we be able to eat bread (Gen. 3:17-19).

The work God gave us has been invaded by toil.

The beauty of childbirth has been wracked with pain.

This passage ends with the reality of exile.

God’s good world has been marred by human sin, and we are now separated from the perfection of the garden.

Yet as we will see, all hope for humanity is far from being lost forever.

Hope is coming

SIN IS DEFEATED

Even though this story is a sad scene of fallenness and judgment, there is a thread of mercy.

Before casting Adam and Eve out of paradise, God clothed them with animal skins.

God provided the covering for Adam and Eve’s nakedness.

This meant God killing one of His creations to clothes Adam and Eve, the ones who hurt him greatly, God still provided for.

Not only that, but in verse 15 God tells the serpent that the day is coming when a Son will be born through Eve, and even though the serpent will strike His heel, this Son of Eve will crush the serpent’s head.

A Savior will come, and the serpent will be defeated.

The evil unleashed in the garden will be eradicated when the Son of Eve arrives.

God’s initiative here points forward to His Son’s atoning work, when through His own sacrifice, He will take away the guilt of our sin and cover our shame with His righteousness.

Because of sin, Adam and Eve were banished from paradise.

Their sin separated them from God’s presence with no way back in except through the angel’s sword.

But the day would come when the sword would fall on the Son of Eve on the cross.

The Son would be banished by the Father so that we might be reunited.

He would face the sword so that we could return from our exile.

When God’s own Son was born into this world, He undid everything that went wrong in Genesis 3.

He answered the question that Satan put in our hearts: “Is God good?

Does He intend good for us?

Can we trust Him?”

He answered that question with the nails in His hands and a spear through His side—with Him becoming sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God love you even when we sin even in our darkest moment God is still on your side, He is never against you

And even thought Adam and Eve sinned and threw everything off God still loved them and cared for them.

Remember this as you mess up and as we mess up that God still loves, he forgives you and he cares for you

Lets’s pray

Questions:

Can you picture a world where no evil exist? — What does that world look like?

What are some things that you distrust about God?

Would your friends accept you for yourself if they knew all of your deepest sins and thoughts?

Do you have friendships that have been broken?

What does it mean that sin is defeated? Why did sin have to be defeated?