KTC: Rejecting The Call (Genesis 3:1-10)

I love my little girls, I am their Father and want nothing but for them to be happy. But because I love them, I want to protect them from harming themselves. Graysen often likes to stand up on her play horse at home…in perfect evil keneval style…she spreads her arms to the sky…free to enjoy her adventurous spirit…but I quickly tell her and then make her get down…much to her frustration…she does not like this at all! One time, she did this and ended up falling off the horse after not listening to Ashley and I… she had a “boo boo” and we kissed it made it better, but her lack of trust and obedience in her loving parents resulted in consequences. All I asked her to do was to TRUST AND OBEY ME, because I loved her, I am her Father, who wants the best for her and will give anything for her…just trust and obey me and you will have more fun.

Trust and obey, why is this so hard for us to do? How many times, like Graysen has done with me, do we doubt the goodness of God as our King and loving Father and do not take him at His word? How many times do we forget how much he loves us and only wants to protect us and provide for us because we are his beloved sons and daughters? Why do we not trust that He knows best for us and want to take control because we think we know what is best?

Genesis 3:1-10 provides the answer to why Adam and Eve and you and I have rejected God’s call to be His representatives, why we doubt God’s goodness and love for us, why we forget our identity in Him and try to find it in other things… it is all a result of doubting and forgetting God’s word.

Now let’s look at our text and unpack how this happened.

Read Genesis 3:1-6.

They Forgot God’s Goodness

Before looking at chapter 3, lets go back to chapter 2 to see some important details about how God, the King, commanded Adam and Eve to live in the garden and be in a covenant relationship with Him.

Read Genesis 2:16-17.

God gives the conditions and expectations of his covenant relationship with Adam and Eve. These conditions were meant to protect Adam and Eve so that they could enjoy a loving relationship with God.

Essentially, God simply asked them to trust and obey Him.

God said the could eat freely from any tree in the garden except one tree, and the day they ate from that tree, which was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die.

But from the very beginning, Satan who has taken the form of a serpent, begins to change and twist God’s word.

God said Adam and Eve could eat from ANY tree of the garden except one. Satan said God said you COULD NOT eat from ANY tree.

One of Satan’s chief tactics is to get us to doubt God’s goodness and that God is keeping something from us because He does not want us to be happy.

But God as King, has revealed himself from some of the first verses of Genesis that all He is is good and everything he has made was very good indeed.

God had done everything for Adam and Eve, He had chose to create them when He did not have to, He chose to make them rulers of the earth and represent Him, He gave them a special relationship with him, and he gave them food to eat from every tree in the garden, except one.

Yet, Satan says that God is still holding back on them…look at verse 4-5 again, Satan makes it seem like God does not want you to eat from the tree...not because you will die (to protect you from something bad)... but because he does not want you to be wise like Him (to prevent you from something good).

What God calls good, Satan will call bad; and what Satan calls good, God calls bad. Satan is a liar and the father of lies. His aim is the deceive, to kill, steal, and destroy.

Eve had forgotten what God had told Adam and she added to God’s word in verse 3. Either Adam had given Eve stricter commands than what God had said, or Eve just flat out lied, either way, because she had not remembered and trusted in God’s word, she bought the lie that God was not good.

What about us? How do we often doubt God’s goodness in our lives?

Every time we sin, in that moment, we are saying “God you are not good and this is better.” We are saying, “God, you are not King, I am, and I know what is best for me, not you.” Instead of trusting God’s control over our lives, we want to be in control.

If I could only enjoy ________, If I could only have ________, If I could only experience _________, then I would be happy and have everything I need. Whatever you put in that blank is your god.

We forget how glorious and awesome God is and we settle for lesser pleasures believing that they will satisfy us when only God can.

We forget how God has given us everything we need in Christ and believe that God is keeping us from having fun or enjoying life.

porn, sex, gossip, mistreating others,

sin looks good and does feel good but its pleasure is temporary and unfulfilling.

We forget what God has done for us in Christ to save us and believe the lie that we have to make up for our mistakes through doing good things.

Did God really say that Jesus has paid for all your sins? There is no way God will love you now after you have slept with your boyfriend, looked at those videos, or done that to your body.

We must trust in God’s word and remember that He is abundantly good and find our joy and satisfaction in Him alone.

They Forgot their Identity

Forgetting God’s word also led Adam and Eve to forget their identity. Look again at verse 5.

Satan says that if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then they would be like God, they would be gods themselves, they would be kings.

But the fact was God had already made Adam and Eve servant-kings of his creation to represent him and rule over all things!

They forgot that God had made a covenant relationship only with them and had crowned them with glory and honor.

They forgot that they had been made unique and different from the rest of creation being made in God’s image to share in his characteristics and relational tendencies.

They forgot that God loved them and had given them everything, that they were the apple of his eye, his prized possession, that they were fearfully and wonderfully made.

They forgot the God given roles-Adam forgot he was the leader and protector and Eve forgot that she was called to allow Adam to lead and be His helpmate, they both forgot that they were to subdue and rule over creation…yet they both submitted to creation and allowed the serpent to rule over them.

What about us? How do we so often forget our identity like Adam and Eve?

Girls: Body image, acceptance, false perceptions (social media)

Guys: Ball field, Billfold, Bedroom.

True Manhood (LEAD):

Lead Courageously

Expect the greater reward

Accept Responsibility

Deny Passivity

Who defines our identity? The world? Social media? Our Friends? Our boyfriend or girlfriend? Or our good and loving creator?

We must remember who we are in Christ

Lion King Illustration

Because Adam and Eve doubted God’s word, they doubted God’s goodness, and forgot their identity. As a result, both Adam and Eve rejected God’s call to be His representatives and chose to make themselves kings apart from God… and the consequences were devastating.

The consequences of rejecting God’s call

The consequences of rejecting God’s call were guilt, shame, fear, and death.

Look at verses 7-10

As soon as they ate the fruit, they were ashamed of the way God made them. What was good was now considered evil.

They felt guilty for what they had done, and attempted to cover up their guilt themselves.

Adam and Eve were now afraid of God because their sin had separated them from Him and caused spiritual death. As a result, they were afraid and did not want to be in his presence.

Application

Just like Adam and Eve, we have believed the lies of the enemy time and time again… and as a result of doubting God’s word, we have doubted His goodness and forgotten our identity.

So what must we do when we reject God’s call to be His representatives and instead choose to make ourselves kings?

We must look to Jesus

Jesus succeeded in every way that we failed and he paid for all of our failures on the cross through his sacrificial death on our behalf.

Just as Jesus used God’s word in Matthew 4 to defeat the lies of the enemy, we must remember the gospel and preach the gospel to ourselves every day.

We must remind ourselves who God is, and who we are in light of what Christ has done for us through His life, death, and resurrection.

To respond to God’s call to be His representatives, we must remember and trust in the gospel and what God has done for us in Christ to have victory over our sin and temptation.

Now lets spend some time in our LifeGroups discussing how we can practically do this… Let me pray.