Breaking the four relationships (Gen 3)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church further exploring Sunday's teachings.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, how are you doing? Tim here, and we are diving deep into this series called Living Scent. So we are picking up where we talked uh from the last episode on this idea that we're made for these four relationships, kind of unpacking what is the good news. And uh so we're made for these four relationships with God, our own selves, with others, all creation, and we saw how those are that's reflected in Genesis 1 and 2. And it makes sense that we are uh we're you are made for relationship, I am made for relationship, which makes sense that we are made in the image of God, and God is a relational being. Relationships are at the center of reality. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, um is a community of divine love, and that the this relationship is at the center of all things, and so to be made in this relational God's image, it then would follow on that we ourselves are made to be in relationships, that that is where we thrive. Um and but those, of course, get broken uh in Genesis 3. It starts with uh breaking our relationship with God because all the others flow out of that. If we're not rightly related um to God, if we're not if we're not trusting in God for our identity, um, for our sense of security, our sense of safety, um, if we're not uh trusting in God, um, even like trusting our sense of control in the world over to God, if we're not obeying, like walking his ways, uh, that all these other things then uh begin to fall apart. And and in Genesis 3 is the primordial story of when uh it this all falls apart. Of course, you know the you know the story. Um, the first man and woman, they're in the garden, there's this one tree. God says, Whatever you do, don't eat from that tree. I will provide fully from you. Just this one tree will harm you. This serpent or the dark power that I talked about on Sunday comes along, this dark power that wants to thwart God's good purposes in the world. Um, but the dark power, of course, doesn't come in violence, it comes sowing distrust in the goodness of God. I mean, the fundamental thing that happens there is that uh the woman is convinced that God isn't really as good as he said as he is. That the serpent, this dark power, is trying to plant lies that are fundamentally about the goodness of God. The woman, you know, the woman said, Um, we may eat from the true fruit, uh, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, you must not touch it or you will die. And the serpent says, You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it, you will be like God, knowing good and evil. In other words, the serpent is saying, God has lied to you. God is a liar, and then God is trying to hold something back from you. And so the the serpent is planning these lies about who the trustworthiness of God. Um, the woman is tempted, the woman um uh then also says to the man, the man is tempted, and they together um they embark on this rebellion against the living God. And then what happens then um as they they step out from the kingship of God, they rebel against him, these we see this fragmentation of all these other relationships. Um God comes in verse this chapter 3, verse 9 of Genesis, God says, Where are you? And um and the man says, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and so I hid. Which is so interesting because um what did we read in the last chapter? Do you remember how chapter two ended? I talked about how it was like this is like this deep meaning to it. They were both naked and felt no shame, right? And so, in this kind of under the reign of God and the kingdom of God, there's this experience of complete transparency, um, complete vulnerability, and being like completely at peace with themselves. This uh, and you the kind of this whole inner wholeness. And what happens here is as soon as they step out of from under the reign of God, they rebel against God, uh, fear and hiding replace that inner, that inner sense of peace, that inner sense of like it, we're right in the world, we're right with God and right with one another. And so um I think you know that fear and hiding, that's I mean, like, I mean, isn't that you I mean, I mean, this this we're we're read reading this ancient, ancient primordial text, but how often do we respond to our own failings with fear and hiding? How often do we like we yeah, we know we fell short, we know we sinned, we know we did wrong, we know we let them down, and how often do we not admit it? Do we not share it? Do we do we not say it to that person, or do we minimize it? We're not fully honest about it. I mean, how much minimizing do we do? Well, where, yeah, we'll admit a little bit of the wrong, but we won't really own up to it. I mean, this and friend, this is not, I mean, this is me too, like this is all of us. Um, and you know, uh, and this doesn't, I mean, it's you know, Christians talk about original sin that somehow this is baked into us, this is passed down from generation to generation. And, you know, I know as a parent, you know, as when this as early as two years old, there's this intrinsic desire to when you've messed up to hide from your parents. That it it's like I don't know where that came from. It's just something about it's in our hearts from day one. And so this it's this inner fragmenting from our own selves, this fear and hiding. And then um, what happens next? Um, God says, Uh, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? And the man says, The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it. And so not only do we get hiding, um, not only get fear, uh, we get blaming. And I would say the man here blames both the woman and God. Because, you know, the woman, you put God, you put here, you're here with me. And he's the the man is blaming everybody but himself for his participation in the rebellion against God, the not trusting in in the instructions of God. And uh again, like how is you know, how often does um when we uh yeah, when we are we are walking, we we aren't trusting, we aren't resting in our identity as beloved sons and daughters of our Abba Father, we aren't living in the forgiveness of Jesus. And we aren't even like walking in step with the the Spirit and letting his like letting God's character form in us, character of integrity and truth-telling and and forgiving and generosity and serving others, and when we're not living in that, just it how quickly it goes wrong with us and others, um, blaming other people and even blaming God. Um, and so here we see this fragmenting, um fragmenting of self, fragmenting between others, and really you could go, you know, I'm this is kind of spinning off, but you can go throughout the next number of chapters of Genesis and you see how that fragmentation of human relationship, because the next thing that happens, of course, Cain murders Abel, and then you get um you get Lamech bragging about um uh about uh responding to a small hurt with um massive violence. Um you get the story of Noah and violence covering the earth, and then even after the story of Noah, you get the Tower of Babel, a whole society built on arrogance and building a name for itself. And so we see all the ways that this this central human rebellion um spins out and in harming human relationships. And um, and I don't think it takes a lot of imagination to map that on to uh our lives today and and in fact our our culture and society and world today, whether it's uh whether it's family and friendship relationships breaking down all the way out um uh to to uh war and violence in our world. We see this still today. And then, of course, so these four relationships, you know, with God, with our own selves, um, with others, and then um with uh with the created world itself. By the time you get to the consequences of sin that God speaks, God speaks over the serpent and the woman and the man. Um but in verse 17, God says, Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat from from food from it all the days of your life. It will produ it will produce thorns and thistles for you. Um uh and then it goes on um uh until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. From dust you are, and to dust you will return. And so there's this breaking, you know. Back in chapter two, of course, the man uh was told to be the gardener, the steward, the protector, to serve the garden. Um, but now it's a it's the the relationship to the created order has changed. Uh where the the original vocation uh was to be this this caring gardener. Now something has gone wrong, and thorns and thistles will be uh produced in the world. That um there's this that something has gone wrong with with humanity's stewardship of creation. And then even, you know, I mentioned on Sunday that our um the most intimate way we interact with physical creation, our own bodies. Of course, that death is introduced, you know, in in God's words, from dust you have come into dust you shall return. No longer. I mean, the whole point was that in the garden, eternal life was possible in the kingdom of God, uh, because there was the tree of life, right? They could eat from the tree of life, they could continue to live. Eternal life was there from day one. Uh but now because they have stepped out from under the trusting the kingship of God, the tree of life is now no longer accessible to them, and they've introduced death, the breakdown of creation in their own bodies. Um, they've brought this in. And so we see this, um, Genesis 3, we see this full picture of sin and its consequences, of the way it impacts uh uh our we are alienated from God, our own selves, from others and creation, and it's all begun because of this dark power that lures us away from trusting in the goodness of God. Um and I and I know that it's sobering to talk about sin and the effects of sin, but we can't really understand the good news unless we understand the bad news. And there is the good news. All right, grace and peace.