So the other day I came home from work and my wife Christy and my mom were in the kitchen and they were sitting there and kind of milling about.
I think Christy was doing a few things.
My mom was sitting there and they were talking and I put my stuff up, put my wallet up, my phone up, keys up, backpack up.
I sort of start to get settled in there to chat with them and talk with them.
And my mom needs something off of a top shelf, like a high shelf.
And Christy couldn't reach it, and my mom couldn't reach it.
And so they asked me, hey, Russ, with your great height, can you go reach this?
And so I walk over.
Now at this point, I need to pause in the story to tell you that for years Christy has given me a hard time about how my mom will praise me over the smallest of things.
So I walk over, I walk over to this very high shelf, extremely high.
Most people could not do this feat.
And I reach up with my great height and I pull a cup off of the shelf and I hand it to my mom.
And my mom looks at me with such love, beaming with pride, and she says to me, You are so good at getting things off of high shelves.
And Christy and I started to laugh, of course, because we've been talking about this, and then we have to explain to my mom why we're laughing, and so she thinks that's kind of funny.
And so why would my why would my loving mother do this?
I'm 38.
I'm 38 years old.
I'm not five anymore.
I'm 38.
Why would she still do this?
Well, good motherly love, of course, right?
But also underneath that, we praise like this for a particular reason.
And I do it at night.
I do it every single night.
I do it during the day, but I do it at night, especially when I tug my girls into bed and I snuggle up close to them and I say, You are so wonderful and you are so lovely, and you just dote on them.
I mean, we did it yesterday at a soccer game.
I mean, there are five and six-year-old little girls out there.
They don't have a clue mostly what's going on.
The ice cream man pulls up and it's like we can't get them focused again.
One girl, I'm pretty sure she tripped before she she blocked a shot on the goal, and we all praised her like it was the best soccer play that have ever been played before.
We're all standing.
We do this all game for all the girls, not just for one or two, for all of them, right?
Just constantly praising them.
Why are we doing this?
Well, we do this not because they're perfect, right?
We do this because we want them, just like my mom wants me, we want them to live out of their belovedness.
That's what we're doing.
Like, like we're just going, man, I hope this person knows they're loved and they can live out of that, because there's gonna be a whole bunch of other stuff in their life, trying, trying, trying, trying to get them to live out of it.
Because we are, we know we're sinners, we know we're imperfect, we know that.
That's not hidden.
If you're not aware of that, ask a few people around you.
It'll become clear very quickly.
We know that.
It's all there.
And what we've been learning in Genesis chapters 1 through 3 is what we're going through, chapters 1 through 3.
And what we learned, especially in that first chapter, that great poetry, that we were created out of a dance of love.
Every other creation story, every other creation story is a story of chaos, creation coming out of chaos.
And here comes the Christian story.
And it's a story about us being created out of love.
So, identity is always God's first declaration, right?
That's the first declaration over us in the Bible.
Chapter 1.
You are created out of love.
You are beloved.
That's the first declaration put upon you.
And then immediately, immediately, all these other declarations start in on you, right?
To get you to question who you belong to or who you are or what it will be that will make you up to be who you are.
Like, who are you before performance?
Failure or success?
Well, you're Genesis 1.
You are the beloved, created out of a dance of love.
That's who you are before Genesis 3 happens.
What Sam read, what we're going to look at.
We begin just to hear messages, right?
Like with the declaration of God's been given to us, but then there's all these other declarations coming at us, tempting us to believe other things, right?
And we can perhaps begin to believe that we belong to God based on our performance, or he's displeased with us in some particular way.
This week I come home from work one day, I get the mail.
There's five catalogs in the mail.
Four of them were furniture, bedding, clothing, clothing, and the fifth one was like humanitarian aid.
Okay?
It's a pretty good percentage of what we get in the mail.
And so I sit down with these catalogs.
I like catalogs.
And so I sit down with the catalogs and I look through them.
And you know at the end of it, I didn't think to myself, Chrissy, let's give a bunch of money to Puerto Rico.
You know what I thought at the end of it?
We might should buy some new bedding.
New bedding is what I need in my life.
I saw some fantastic pictures of some bedding that could change the way I feel about myself in my home and in my life.
Right?
That's my reaction.
That's the temptation.
That's always the temptation.
Like, oh, if I only had that, if I only thought that, if I only went there, if I only saw that, if I only did that with that person or did that or had that or controlled that, then I would be whatever.
So where does all this come from?
Why aren't we doing any better?
Why aren't you doing any better?
I've been a Christian for 20 years.
Twenty years! Why am I not doing any better?
Maybe I am doing better in some ways.
I'm not really that aware of it.
Paul didn't think he was doing a lot better toward the end of his life.
After all of our advances in education and progress in the world, technology, why is the world not doing any better?
I mean, the church has been around 2,000 years, transforming cities.
Here to transform the city.
Why aren't cities being transformed?
Why is there still problems in cities?
Every city that has a church, and the church is there to transform the city, the city still has problems.
The city will still always have problems.
Why?
Why is that going on?
I mean, I'm I'm created in God's image as God's beloved.
I know I'm redeemed by the work of Jesus.
I'm attempting on some level, on some level, to abide in Christ on a daily basis.
And yesterday, on our way to that very important soccer game where we're going to praise five-year-olds, we're at a red light.
We're about 15, 10 cars back.
We're at this red light.
Busy red light, lots of turn lanes, stuff going on.
We miss our turn.
It didn't give us a green light.
Does that ever happen to you?
Like, not like the guy at the front forgot to go.
Like it never turned green.
And so at first, I'm mad at like the computer box over on the side, you know, where it controls everything.
And like, who is processing this and who's in control of that?
Because this is a busy intersection.
We're going to be another five minutes, a solid five minutes here.
And then, you know, I'm looking up, like, what's you know, who's at the front?
I know there's a sensor underneath that asphalt.
I'm trying to figure this out.
And then I realize there's a motorcycle at the front, and he's not in the center of the lane.
He's over toward the side.
He's not on the sensor.
I'm starting to get a little upset.
He should know this.
And then the guy behind him, I guess he's so scared he's going to knock over the motorcycle.
He's way back.
He's so far back, he's not on the sensor.
Nobody's on the sensor.
We're never going to get a green light, is what I've started.
And I'm getting more and more upset, and very quickly, it doesn't take long, takes maybe about 30 seconds, for me to realize they're both morons.
I'm much smarter than them.
I don't like anything about their lives.
I am much more righteous.
Even then, in all of my anger and issues, I'm more righteous than them.
Right?
Where does all that come from?
Like where does all that self-absorption come from?
Like I've never forgotten something.
Like I've never done something.
But where does that come from?
Where's the anger?
Where's greed?
Where does lust?
Where does it come from?
Well, Genesis 3 is the Christianity story for that.
Where does this come from?
How does it work?
So let's reread this passage that Sam read for us, verses 1 through 5.
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, did he 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.
Now, it's a strange story.
Maybe you've heard it so many times you don't think it's strange.
It's very strange.
Okay?
Let's just can we just come on out and be honest?
There's a serpent talking.
Okay?
That's strange.
Maybe you've just heard it since you're three and you don't think about it.
It's strange.
There's been a lot of debate over the years by Christians and non-Christians.
You know, is this serpent literal?
Is this serpent uh a metaphor?
There's lots of interesting thoughts there.
Lots of interesting thoughts there.
But it's not that's not really the meaning of the text.
That's not the meaning of the text.
The meaning of the text, it takes on questions like how does evil and temptation work?
You have evil and temptation in your life right now.
This is a story for where it started and how does it work?
How is God's shalom, how is God's peace in your life disrupted?
Why do I believe lies about myself that I already know aren't true?
So, four points to lead us as we think about these things.
Point number one, all evil begins with thought, not action.
All evil begins with thought, not act, not action.
Verse one, did God actually say, just to get you thinking, right?
Just to twist the thoughts a little bit.
This is why what you think matters.
Truth matters.
What is true matters.
Right?
In verse one, it's sort of like he's saying, like, sure, you think you know the truth, but but are you sure?
Are you sure what he said?
Could he say this?
Could he meant this?
What about this?
Just twisting it just a little bit because what you think will eventually affect what you do.
Evil always begins with what you think, but what you think will eventually affect what you do.
That's point number one.
Point number two, evil does not deny God.
Evil denies the goodness of God.
Right?
We see here, there's never a question whether God exists.
The question is just whether he's good or not.
To distrust what God has already said about you, declared upon you, and has for your life.
So if we backtrack to verse 4 and then read all the way through verse 7, but the serpent said to the woman, You'll not surely die.
For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open, 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 open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loinclaws.
So here we see two things arrive into the garden, right?
Sin entered.
A way of a living apart from God's provision.
It entered the world.
It entered our lives.
And shame came with it.
And shame is to be living in the thought that you are not enough without something else.
It all began right here.
And we live with it all the time.
I just need some new bedding, right?
Like if I just add some new bedding or something, something else, right?
That's what the serpent is saying.
There's more.
God's withholding from you.
Provide for yourself.
Take more control.
He may be real.
He may be real, but he isn't really good.
Like he's withholding.
Like obedience, obedience, that's kind of like holding you back.
It's holding you back.
You need something else, so break away from it.
And with that lie comes the destruction of sin and it comes the horror of shame.
And it does not create the promise of freedom that it's saying it's going to give.
Point number three: evil is always in the conditional.
Evil is always in the conditional.
Here's what I mean by this.
Say you're in a conversation with your brother.
And it starts out pretty friendly.
You start talking about immigration, friendly conversation.
Then you talk about Trump.
Then you talk about whether an NL player should be allowed to take a knee or not.
Or should he be forced to stand up for the national anthem?
And so you're having a good conversation.
It gets a little heated because your brother is opinionated and he has opinions.
He's strong, he's dominant.
His points get a little longer each time he talks.
And then when you try to share your opinion, he starts to interrupt you.
And what you see at this point is the structure of the conversation changed.
At first it was the structure a certain way, it was a give and take.
It's about 50-50.
But then over time, his opinions are lasting longer and longer and longer.
He's interrupting you, he's getting louder and louder and louder.
The whole structure has changed.
You tell him to cool off a little bit.
Hey, hey, cool off a little bit.
And you know, the odd thing about the whole thing is you and him actually are pretty close to each other in the content of what you actually believe in this conversation.
But the structure has changed it so much that what he's doing is he's reminding you of what he's always done, and that is that he thinks he's smarter than you.
Right?
See, a conversation has content.
Every conversation has content, but every conversation also has structure.
And this is Genesis 3.
Genesis 3 has a conversation that has content, but this conversation also has structure.
And Minister Paul Walker, he's a minister in Charlottesville.
If we lived in Charlottesville, we would shut down our church and we would go listen to this guy preach every week.
And what he says is he says that sometimes the overall structure of the conversation is as important as the content.
Meaning, the serpent speaks in what Walker would say is full conditional sentences, right?
It's like a promise.
Right?
The first clause expresses the condition, the second is the main clause expressing a consequence.
So it's like this.
If it's sunny out today, you will get sunburned.
If I drive a 1961 Porsche 356 Speedster, I would be as cool as Dylan McKay from 90210.
It's a conditional thought.
If I eat of the tree, if I eat of the tree, I'll have more control over my life and be more fulfilled.
See, that's how the serpent speaks.
That's how evil, devil, enemy, Satan, however you want to say it, that's how it works.
Not just in the details, but also in the language that plays out in our thinking that it's harmful to us.
And it starts in our thinking and then it results in our behavior.
So in the evenings, I like to sit on my porch sometimes.
I sit out there and I love it, but sometimes when I sit out there, little mosquitoes come by and they like my ankles, right?
They start working on my ankles.
And you know what?
And I also can't watch a football game when I'm out there.
I can stare at a big oak tree, but it's my front porch.
It's not screened in.
There's no TV out there.
And I think to myself, if I only had a screened-in porch, my life would be better, along with my new bedding.
These things would make my life better.
And this is a big problem for me.
That's what my mind says.
This is a big problem.
I need this screen porch with a fireplace and a mounted TV so the mosquitoes can get to my ankles, I'll be happier, I could rest more, I could be more relaxed, and therefore I'd be a better person and more fulfilled in my life.
Because I've seen people on their screen porches in the fall.
That's part of the problem.
They look really happy.
That's part of the problem.
Right?
The evil is not the porch.
Right?
It's not the porch in this situation.
The evil is to not live satisfied in God and in who he says you are and in the way he wants you to live.
What he's already declared upon you, not satisfied in any of that, because you are busy living in the next thing that you think will be your savior.
That's evil.
That's conditionality, and it's evil.
If my family or life looked like his or hers, then I'll be happy.
If I was with her, if I was with her, if I was with him, oh, if I if I watched this more, if I had that, then I'll be fulfilled, then I'll be happy.
If I had that job or that grade or that bank account, then I'll be happy.
If I had more control, just control more and more and more, then if I was a little more perfect, and then I'll be happy.
Or maybe just underneath it all, if I if I was lovable, then I could be loved.
And it's very easy to exist in just this horrible way of life.
That's evil.
That's an evil way of life.
It's evil thinking that creates horrible behavior.
And the entire time, Adam and Eve and you have all you need.
It's already been declared upon you that you are his beloved.
And this is the last point.
Point number four.
While the grammar of evil is conditional and has been from the beginning, while the grammar of evil is conditional and has been from the beginning, the grammar of God is declarative and it has been from the beginning.
All of this has already been handled.
Your sin, this temptation, the evil around us, the brokenness of the world.
We just have to awaken to the truth that's already been ours, given to us from the beginning.
We see it in the person of Christ on the cross, who took our sin, our failures upon himself, and he gives to us our righteousness.
So we're beloved before God.
We know it.
We can know it and rest in his word.
So temptation and despair do not win in your life.
And here's the thing: your winning doesn't even depend on your winning.
Right?
Your winning or in the Christian service, your victory would be like a big word in Christian service.
Your victory, as we like to call it, and your life being perfect, that doesn't even, that's not even the truth for your winning.
Your winning is because Christ died on a cross for you, because you were declared before whether you win or lose and anything in this game of temptation along the way, from the very beginning, before our failure even begun in Genesis 3, you were declared God's beloved.
And there in the beginning, as we talked about, we had Elohim, and we had the Spirit, and we had the Word, we had the Christ.
And we get to see in the New Testament, as the story plays itself out in history, we see this Christ incarnate into Jesus the Christ, who lives and teaches and dies for us and resurrects so that we can know there's always victory, even in the midst of a world and a life where we deal constantly with temptation.
The last two verses for today, verses eight and nine, we see resurrection right here.
There's resurrection just right here in these verses.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
I mean, at this point, the storyline's death.
I mean, at this story, at this point, they're going, you know, does God turn his back on us?
I mean, you know, is he even interested anymore?
They're ashamed, they're covering themselves.
This is the beginning of humanity, covering ourselves with anything.
Here comes God showing back up.
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?
So, my brothers and sisters, even from the very beginning, right?
Like right after our first mistake, God never hesitated to come toward us and love us and redeem us.
You are and always have been his beloved.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for the great gift of Jesus that makes us your beloved, not by our work, but by his, not by our winning, but by the reality you have already won.
The cross stands for the great act of love that is greater than all evil, all temptation.
Forgive us for all the ways we look for other saviors in our lives.
Would you give us more faith that we might trust more and be satisfied greater in your goodness and your word and declaration upon us?
Would we catch ourselves?
Spirit, would you would you help us catch ourselves when we begin with those evil thoughts?
If I only had that, if I only did that, if I only thought that, if I just keep.
Amen.