Thank you, worship team, for being my sermon illustration.
That was a first, only took five years, but
that, it is impossible to find a version online of people doing
those verses. They only do the first three and they're like,
okay, we're good. When really, if they knew anything about the
sermon I wanted to preach today, they would have put those, can
we put those lyrics up one more time? Just start with come,
desire of nations come. That this is in fact, Advent. This is
exactly what I'm hoping to get across, not only today, but as
we work through the mess and the miracle, our Advent sermon
series, go ahead one more time, keep going. This is all about a
certain place and a certain event that happens. Keep going.
Keep going. Keep going. And good. What event is that song
singing about?
No, all of those wrong. What is that verse about?
The garden, right? That the garden is where we find
ourselves this morning. Shepherds, that was an easy
guess. It's a Christmas guess. I get it, Nikki. But no, this is
about the garden. This is actually where Advent starts.
That this beautiful manger scene actually starts in the
garden. It actually starts in paradise. It starts with the
creation that God had for us in creating the world, all that is
in it, and creating you and me in his image. That Advent
starts in the garden and it's really weird to think about
because we want to go to the shepherds. We want to go to the
manger. We want to go to the angels and King Herod and the
wise men and all of these things and we'll get there. But
today it starts in the garden. And my hope this morning is
that we're going to engage the garden in a way, and again, in
the middle of January, it will be 17 years in the ministry. I
have never ever seen an aspect of something I've preached on.
We did a whole sermon series in Genesis, yet the Holy Spirit
brought me to something and it might just be me. A bunch of
you are probably like, oh, I already knew that. But, and
that's fine, just act surprised. It was an incredible
understanding and the power of Advent found in the book of
Genesis. So let's start in Genesis chapter 3. We know, I'm
not going to do a lot of the conversation between Eve and the
snake and Adam. That's for a different sermon, but we all
know what happened. I'm going to start in verse 8, okay? So if
you pull out your Bibles or look on the screen, Genesis 3
starting with verse 8. Again, we use the English standard
version here, but use whatever version you want. And they heard
the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
And the man and the wife hid themselves from the presence of
the Lord, the Lord God among the trees in the garden. But the
Lord God called out to the man and said, where are you? And he
said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid
because I was naked and hid myself. He said, who told you
that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I
have commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you
gave to me to be with me, she gave me the fruit and I ate.
Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have
done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.
We've heard this account. You've read it. We've talked about
it. This is the beginning of the journey, if you will, right?
And we're not even at the part of Christ yet. We'll get there.
But as we go through the absolute mess that is the garden
of Eden post chapter 3, so it's chapter 3 and beyond, prior to
chapter 3, there was no mess. It was perfect. And I want us to
just, let's play around with this just a little bit. Prior to
chapter 3, now we don't know how many actual days there were as
far as Adam and Eve kind of doing their thing and naming the
animals and all these kind of things. And it's really weird to
think about it because you have these two naked people, right,
that are just, they're just living in the garden of Eden.
And it's beautiful and it's perfect. And we have absolutely
no idea how to engage that. I don't spend a lot of time there
because I know, like I've said before, chapter 3 is coming like
a freight train. Sin's going to enter the world. And it's weird.
We almost find, we're almost more comfortable engaging after
chapter 3 because we're really okay with sin and we're like,
well, there's sin and then there's redemption. What do we
think life was like prior to the whole apple eating business?
Go ahead. What do you think life was like? Heaven. Aversion of
heaven, sure. Peaceful. Interesting. I'm going to
challenge you on that. I don't know who it was. I think we know
peace because we know pain. I don't know if they, there would
have been no need for peace. I know it's going to get hard.
The mental gymnastics are like Olympians right now. I get it.
But the things that we draw in life, peace, comfort, happiness,
all of those things, we only really know these because of the
opposite that happens. And I know, again, I might be sounding
like a crazy person, but it's at least on brand. Understand
that you didn't need any of those. There was no pain. There
was no discomfort. There was no anxiety. There was no, it was,
what word can we use? Euphoric, okay. That's an interesting
word, right? Euphoric. Sure. I mean, it's really hard because
you don't have a contrast. You don't have what it could be or
what it was. And so understand as we are in the garden, to me,
it just, it deepens what sin actually did. And as we journey
this Advent season through the mess, we're going to go through
different messes that ultimately need to be cleaned up in the
miracle that is not only Christ's birth but the redemption
found in Christ alone. We have to understand the mess. And I
was in chapter 3 and something dawned on me and it was the
Holy Spirit because I'm not that smart. Adam and Eve did
something very damaging when they heard the sound of God and
they heard the presence of God. And it got me thinking before
I get to the damaging part that they had relationship with God.
They were with God all day. All day, every day, it was just
normal. It was just communion with God. It was life in the
presence of God in a perfected way that none of us get. We
don't get it because we have sin and we don't know what life
would be like without it. And even those people that claim
that they died for a couple of minutes, they went to heaven and
felt all the things and rode all the rides and all that kind
of stuff and then they wake up and I don't think any of that's
true personally. It just is mind boggling. And then Adam and
Eve does something that like I've said, I preach this text.
It's an easy preach, friends. It's not very difficult. But
the Holy Spirit opened up something that at the sound,
right, the sound of God in the garden. I only liken this to
maybe being a little kid. How many people would, your mom
would say, just wait until your dad gets home? I'm sorry if
this brings up, that's really weird that Ryan waved his hand
next to his dad. But it's, you know, that there's, that's
really one of the only things I could think of. Carrie's only
invoked that a couple of times, which is shocking. But she's
only invoked that a couple of times. But I remember my mom
never really did that because I didn't really have a dad in
those formative years. My mom got remarried right before I
entered high school. And waiting until your dad gets home
when you're a junior in high school is very different when
you're four, okay. When you're four, when your mom says that
what happens to you when you're four? For those of you that
rose to Curtis, you rose your hand, right? Right? Yeah, okay.
We saw you, so don't lie. When mom would say that to you, what
as a four-year-old Curtis, what were you thinking? What? Fear?
Say it again. Joel, give him a high five. Fear and high. That
was a great point. The lights just went on, right?
Absolutely. You were afraid, so you hid. Now, did you like, did
dad like not be able to find you when you got out of the
punishment? No, because you're not that good of a hider. And
so understand that fear drove a decision to hide from dad. It's
exactly, now did I tell you to say that? No, that was on your
own volition. That's exactly what Adam and Eve did. And this
is, ugh. What is the definition of hell? Go ahead, Thomas.
Death and a life without God. I knew that's what you were
going to say. Is that not the same thing? They heard the sound
of dad in the garden, the creator God, the one they had
communion with. They hear that he's there. They get scared and
they hide. So I'm going to use this as a verb. My wife makes
fun of me because I make up words on stage and you guys just
take it, which is nice. But they held, didn't they? H-E-L-L
apostrophe E-D. I know it's a made up word, but we got this.
They actually created the first version of hell. That they heard
the sound of God. They were afraid and they said, we don't
want to be in his presence. I don't know about you, but that,
what an absolute mess that is. Life was just breathed into
from dust you, you came to dust you will return. That out of
nothing God creates everything and they hear so they hide. Is
that not true for us today? Is it not true that there are
things in our life that we hide from and if Christ is in us,
then we hell all the time. That we think and we try to keep
stuff from an all knowing, all powerful, everywhere God, how
much fools are we? But that is a natural reaction in us to the
presence of God. That hell, that sin is so deeply in our bones,
thank you Adam and Eve, that our reaction to God is to hide from
him. What an absolute mess was made in the garden. So that's why
the promises had to come. What if God would have just left it
there? What if God just did one of these and said at that moment,
no, I'm God, I can start over. No. Because what is one aspect
about a mature believer, we learned it in Hebrews, and a
mature person is an honest person. You can't say I am a
mature individual and lie. It makes, it's very hypocritical.
Same goes for a believer. That to say I am a mature believer,
I've been in the church for years, I've been an elder, I've
taught Sunday school, I've done all of these things, but I hide
stuff from God. That is not maturity. And the opposite of
maturity I guess would be immaturity, that's easy, or
foolishness, or insert whatever word here. But the promise had
to come because God is telling each of us, I see you, I know
you, I know what you've done. Is that not grace? Right? That
God knows what we do and loves us anyway. One of the only
things I can liken it to being a parent, because kids are easy
sermon illustrations, is you know your kids are going to mess
up. You watch them mess up. But none of us go and you're done.
I mean maybe you say that and you send them to your room, but
you don't give them away in that sense. But it's the exact same
kind of relationship that not only Adam and Eve had to the
creator, their God, the one that they were in communion with,
we do it too. And we need that relationship. We need that
grace because given to ourselves we will hide all things always.
We'll lie. We'll bend the truth. White lies, red lies,
whatever lies. We'll do all of those things because in us we
can't stand and say this is who I am. Good, bad, and ugly.
Friends, we see what the good, the bad, and the ugly is right
in Genesis chapter 3. And it starts with the ugly. It starts
with deception. It starts with kind of lying. It starts with
bitterness. It starts with passing the buck. We see that in
the relationship. I'm not going to go down there because that's
the easy sermon too. The blaming and the throwing under the bus,
that happens when dad, the creator, is asking for an account
of the information. Any of you that have kids know what is one
of the greatest things your kid can say? They did it. Right?
They don't take, I mean, I would love a day for Joey or Teddy or
Jack to come up and say, Dad, I messed up. I did this and I'm
sorry. But we have to learn that. And if we're really honest with
ourselves, we almost have to get burned by that first in order to
learn it. But that shouldn't be how it is. But that's the mess
that we've made ourselves. That's the mess that sin makes.
That's why the promise of something better is coming. But
for now, for this Sunday, we sit in it. We sit in the mess. We
sit in not only the promise to come, but we sit in the
consequence of what we've done. One of the probably more
frustrating conversations that believers can have is I
apologize. I said I was sorry. Why do bad things or why do the
consequences have to happen? Because you broke a rule. You did
something. Right? That idea of Christian liberty, of I'm a
believer. I can do whatever I want is not a thing. Is everything
permissible? Sure. Is everything beneficial? Not by a long shot.
What would it have looked like? This thought's just coming to me
now. What would it look like if instead of Adam blaming Eve, Eve
blaming the snake, what if all three of them would have just
turned, bowed, and said, I'm sorry? They had the chance. They
had the chance. And they blew it. What does Adam do? This woman
you gave me. Right? So not only does he not take responsibility,
he actually is blaming God. Right? It's like having the middle
kid say we didn't need a third. Right? All of those things. It's
understanding that there's the passing of the buck, the
passivity, the passive aggressiveness, the lying, the
deceit, the deception. All of that happens right here. And it's
in our blood forever. At least forever on this earth. Then God
looks at Eve, what is this you have done? Right? It was a snake.
It was the snake's fault. The serpent deceived me and I ate. Now
what if Jesus would then sit on a rock, explain to them what
they've done, and say all is forgiven? It would be a very
different book. You'd be a very different person. We probably
wouldn't need church. But it didn't happen that way. Because
there needs to be accountability. There needs to be
correction. There needs to be something to learn from. Because
as I started, whatever the euphoric, and I like that, Bev,
we're going to use that word, the euphoria that was chapter one
and two, now there's a contrast in chapter three and on. That
whatever this was is no longer attainable now. It is no longer
attainable on earth. It is no longer attainable, buildable,
receivable, whateverable by you and me. That something had to be
done. And those were the consequences. Starting with verse
14. The Lord 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. The dust you shall
eat all the days of your life. It's a bad day. It's not the
reason why I hate snakes. Me and Indiana Jones, right here,
that's, that's, that's, I mean if you're the snake, you're like
that's going to be rough. No one wants to eat dust. Now, there
have been depictions on what this serpent looked like and all
of that, that, you know, that on your belly you shall go. What
actually, what, I don't, it's not Selvitic, don't worry about
it. But at the end of the day, here's, here's where the promise
comes. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your
offspring and her offspring. What is God telling us in this
curse to the serpent? It's not going to be mano a mano, right?
It's not going to be God v. Satan. Nothing v.s. God, right?
There's nothing that high that can ever be the opposite of God.
No, it's going to be sin's offspring. It is going to be the
hurt and the pain of generations. That is the curse. I will put
enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and
her offspring. He shall bruise your head, you shall bruise his
heel. The key word in there, he. Who? Not Adam. No, Adam made a
mess of it. Adam had his shot and he blew it. The he is the
promise. And I love that he is given before, because I am not
resonating with the snake. I don't crawl around on my belly. I
try not to eat dust. We don't resonate with that. We'll
resonate in about 30 seconds. But don't you love it that the
promise of Jesus came before the curse to the man and to the
woman, before the curse for you and me? The promise of Jesus was
there. Not only was it established, it was now foretelling.
O come, O come, Emmanuel.
Wouldn't we just love it if we just stopped there? And he shall
bruise your heel. Amen. We don't need to go on. But we do. To
the woman he said, I shall surely multiply your pain and
child bearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your
desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule
over you. Women in the room, how are you feeling right now? I
hate to say it. Pregnant women in the room, how are you
feeling right now? Sorry, that wasn't fair. Sorry, Mandy. But
understanding, this is where there needs to be consequences.
Understand, life was euphoric before this. Generations are
going to come. Why? Because the curse said it would. Offspring.
It's the first mention of it in the curse to Satan. But it's
also for our generation as well, the generations to come. And
not only is it the child bearing side, which again, as a male
pastor, you have to be very careful how you preach this,
right? Or you preach it and then take a vacation. Understanding
that there is not, the pain in the child bearing is that part
of the curse? Absolutely it is. But it's also the exhaustion. It
is also the complications. It's also the infertility. It's also
the stillbirths. It's also all of these things that come along
with the greatest aspect of life for a lot of people is the
birthing of children. That in that moment, something washes
over you that you don't really get any other time. I don't care
if you get the greatest gift ever. It's not the same as the
day that you have a child born. And I think I'll go to the map
for that. That's not a slap on the wrist. That's not go to your
room. This is going to be all consuming consequence. But a lot
of times we just keep it to the childbirth. Now, I don't know
if before this, because we don't have any record of it, if like
the babies just fell out and that was it. I have no idea. And
I'm not going to keep going there because even for that
comment I know I'm going to get emails. Sorry elders. But
understand that I think the curse is hitting us what we
value most, our children and our spouses. That's the curse.
That's the all encompassing curse. And that's the big one.
Your desire shall be contrary to your husband. What in the
world does that mean? Why does that have to be in there? Right?
If I'm a female, I'm going to be careful, isn't the first one
enough? The first one has a whole bunch of junk in it. Why
do I? Then the only thing that I would want to cling to,
hopefully then, is my husband. When everything in childbearing
and childmaking and all of those things is going to be awry and
is going to hurt, I at least can find comfort in my husband.
Nope. That's going to be tough. You're going to have to work
at it. It's one of the reasons why they say marriage takes
work. It's not 50-50. It's 100-100. It's choosing every
day if you are married to turn back to your spouse in the
commitment you have made. But even saying that, I know the
hurt and the pain in this room. There's pain of adultery.
There's pain of a divorce. There is pain of all different
kinds. Why does it have to be so painful? Because that's what
sin is. Sin is painful. Sin is a life without God. We are bent.
It's our depravity. It's in our nature.
Alright. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the
voice of your wife and have eaten the tree of which I
commanded you, you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground
because of you. There's a lot to unpack there. This isn't, and
a lot of people say, well, this is why women should be quiet.
No. That's chauvinistic and dumb. This is an understanding of
you did not protect your marriage. The person that you
coveted to love the most, period ever, period, you did not
secure that. You did not protect that. Because what if, what if
Adam would have done his job, right, got in front of her and
the snake, it's a talking snake, Adam, come on, and said no,
killed the snake, frolicked away. Everything would have been
great. But you didn't do your job. And now the temptation
every day is that men aren't going to do their jobs. This
doesn't mean occupation, even though it does, right, that's
all built into this, right. Some people look at this very foolishly
and go, well, I'm not a farmer so it doesn't matter. No, that's
not it. Yeah, does Jesse Smedberg probably relate to this a
little bit differently than I do? Absolutely he does. For those
who don't know, he's a farmer. And understanding that
everything you're going to try to do to provide for your family,
to provide and do the job that God has willed you to do is
going to be hard. Even if you're good at your job, it will be
hard. Even if you make a lot of money, it will never be enough.
Even if you're just scraping by, you'll have to continue to do
it. Because you didn't do your job, you didn't protect the
house, so to speak. This is why you're going to be cursed. This
is why sin is going to be ever at your door, which we see a
couple chapters from then with Cain and Abel. Right there is a
huge stop sign. Don't do it. Cain, don't murder your brother.
Sin is crouching at your door. And he succumbs to it. If this
isn't messy, I don't know what is. If you're looking at this
and go, that's not a big deal, then you're a fool. This is
massive. Cursed is the ground because of you. Continue. 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. Clearly we're called to eat, okay, but it's all going to
be cursed and might not all taste good. Till you return to
the ground from out of it you were taken. For you are dust and
dust you shall return. Hey, men in the room, how are you
feeling? Probably pretty accurate. Probably not a whole
lot to say. But here's another aspect that I've never thought
about. For the men in the room, you had to hear the curse of
your wife. God didn't forgive Eve. He didn't forgive Adam. But
they had to be there for each other's curses. That in the
good times and the bad they had to take it together. That was
uncovering that and praise to the Holy Spirit for doing that.
That it was, the only thing I can liken it to, and you can talk
to Care about this, is she made me go skydiving on our
honeymoon. And I mean it that way. She had no problem with it.
I was scared to death. I asked why is the door open as we took
off. And the guy reminded me that's what we're jumping out of.
I was like, oh, that's right. She said the scariest moment for
her was I jumped out first. And in the video that we have, you
see me jump out. She said that was the only time I was scared.
Now, we jumped at 13,000 feet. And that's when she was scared
because it had to do with me. So, yeah, she loves me. That's
excellent. Right? It's our honeymoon. We just went through a
nice wedding. So, we're good. Now I say it out loud and go, we
were married like three days and then we jumped out of an
airplane. I don't know about that. But she said that was the
scariest point for her. That when something is happening to
your spouse, to the people we love in our life, it affects us.
Some of you, like me, are the sensy type, right? We're sensies.
We're sensitive. There's something about justice in us.
I see it in my middle son, Teddy. When Joey or Jack is being
reprimanded, are being reprimanded, when they're in
trouble, Teddy feels it. Now, when Teddy's getting in trouble,
Joey and Jack laugh. So, it's a very different relationship. But
Teddy feels it. And you might be like that. That when bad things
are happening in the world, it drains you. You feel it. It's
like a weight on you. How do I know we have people in that?
Because you took spiritual gifts inventories and we talked about
it. That that's a gift. Some of you are empathetic in amazing
ways. Some of you are empathetic in super annoying ways. But that
is all the result of sin. If we didn't have sin in the world, we
wouldn't have to empathize with anything. Because it would all
be euphoric. Everything would be great. We wouldn't get in
arguments. There wouldn't be passive aggressiveness. There
wouldn't be pain. There wouldn't be death. I think we all can
agree. It's a giant mess. That there is an understanding here
that we, it's an uphill battle. And you're right, it is. But
here's the kicker. God doesn't leave us there. But God's going
to send someone to help make sense of the mess. Does he clean
it? In a way, yeah. The result of ultimate sin is death. We have
new life in Christ. But for the time being, Christ helps us make
sense of the mess and hopefully convicts us enough to not
continue to make it messier. Because we're really good at
that. We're super good at making a mess worse. We see this going
on and instead of fixing it or stepping in and helping it, we
see this fire and we just throw a can of gas on it. Because
that's our sin nature. And it's part of the curse that we're
under. It's part of that nature for us to make it worse. But
that's why God offers us things like peace and comfort and
direction. First Peter, or Second Peter talks about it. First
Peter 2 talks about it in this way. For this you have been
called because Christ also suffered, leaving you an example
so that you might follow in his steps. Everything that Adam and
Eve and the snake felt, Jesus felt. He went through it. Other
world religions, their savior, their whatever, doesn't do that.
They're up here and you have to notch your belt or get enough
check marks or whatever to reach it. Christ says, no, I'm going
to come down and I'm going to show you how to not make it
messier. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his
mouth, shot at Adam and Eve. Thanks Peter. But it's true. When
he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he was
being mocked and jeered and spit on and lied about and beaten,
he could have easily just snap of his fingers, sent legions of
angels to dominate, but he didn't. He did not threaten but
continued in trusting himself to him who judges justly. He
himself bore our sins on or in his body on the tree that we
might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you
have been healed for you were straying like sheep but now
return to the shepherd, the overseer of your souls. So if you
find yourself in a mess today, and I know that some of you are,
if you find yourself in hostility, if you find yourself in
non-marital bliss, if you find yourself in a job that you
absolutely hate, if you find yourself on a street where your
neighbors drive you absolutely crazy, if you're in families
where there's hurt and pain and Thanksgiving wasn't fun, it was
the opposite. Understand that Jesus gets it. And he does it, he
could, just all good. But he gives you perspective. It's not
by his excellence, it's not by his holiness, it's not by his
perfection, it's not by his na-na-na-na-na-na, I've never sinned
because that wouldn't be relatable. By his wounds we have
been healed. By his wounds we are called back. By his wounds we
can say, come, desires of nations, come, fix in us thy humble
home, rise the woman's conquering seed, bruise in us the
serpent's head. Adam's likeness now a face, stamp thy image in
its place. Second Adam from above, reinstate us in thy love.
Hark the herald, us angels sing, glory to.