SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sam, for reading that.
SPEAKER_00: That was a bit of a read, right?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all hung in there.
SPEAKER_00: Good job.
SPEAKER_00: So we're entering a new series, and what we're going to be doing is uh we're going to be jumping through Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: And so what that means is it means we're not going to hit every story, but we're going to hit some of the really big stories as we just go through the book of Genesis for the next uh few months, next couple months.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll be hitting some stories, probably that you're very familiar with.
SPEAKER_00: So even this story, uh, you've been around church, you're like, I know this one.
SPEAKER_00: All right, here we go, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and so I'm saying please don't tune me out too quickly here.
SPEAKER_00: Hang, hang in there.
SPEAKER_00: Because even this week is, I mean, who knows how many times I have read this story, I've heard this story, I have preached this story, I've heard other people preach this story.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but even this week, it was as I was reading it and studying it and spending time thinking about it, it's like layer after layer after layer of truth and goodness um in this story that seems uh quite disastrous, really.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so maybe maybe the story's new for you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's possible.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe you've been around church, um, but for whatever reason, just the story never came up, or maybe you haven't been around church at all, and you're going, oh, I've heard of the Adam and Eve thing, you know, kind of sort of those characters, um, but I haven't quite heard the story.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna tell the story and make a few points, um, and then we'll close with with hopefully something that's that's good for you.
SPEAKER_00: So the Bible says God created a man, and this was Adam, and then out of Adam, uh, the Bible says that God created the woman, which we know as Eve, and they lived happily, not just happily, they lived perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, harmony with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Can you possibly imagine perfect harmony with another person, much less the other gender and perfect harmony.
SPEAKER_00: Perfect harmony with God, perfect harmony, joy and peace, fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: There's no despair, there's no fear, there's no shame, there's no inadequacy.
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they were naked.
SPEAKER_00: That's how comfortable they were.
SPEAKER_00: They were naked, and there was no fear of anything.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one rule, right?
SPEAKER_00: We heard the rule: don't eat of the tree in the middle of the garden.
SPEAKER_00: All the other trees are yours, just don't eat of the tree in the middle of the garden.
SPEAKER_00: And then the source of lies, Satan, the liar.
SPEAKER_00: He comes up because, see, years sometime ago, sometime before this, he decided he was going to try to make himself happy outside of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so out of that, he becomes the liar.
SPEAKER_00: He is miserable, and he's going, I'm gonna drag more and more people, as much as I can come against God, I'm gonna drag his creation out of his realm and bring it into my misery that I am in.
SPEAKER_00: And so he sneaks up as a serpent on Eve and he says, Did God really say you must not eat of any tree in the garden?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, actually, that's not what God said, so it's sort of like the question itself is leading.
SPEAKER_00: Um, because God just said, Don't eat of one tree.
SPEAKER_00: But then in the question, he says, Did God say, Don't eat of any tree?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know this moment when the twisted truth, like the twisted question.
SPEAKER_00: Did he really say not to live that way?
SPEAKER_00: Did he really say, did he really say that he loves you no matter what?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, did he really say that?
SPEAKER_00: Does he really love you?
SPEAKER_00: Does he really see you or care for you?
SPEAKER_00: Is he really with you in all things?
SPEAKER_00: Because perhaps you're going through something and you're going, I'm finding that a little hard to believe right now.
SPEAKER_00: We know these questions that come against us that are formed in lies.
SPEAKER_00: And Eve replies back and says, Well, 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, and you must not touch it, or you will die.
SPEAKER_00: And then the serpent says, Oh, you you won't die.
SPEAKER_00: You won't die?
SPEAKER_00: For God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be open.
SPEAKER_00: You will be like God, you will live.
SPEAKER_00: Make yourself happy outside of God, is what the serpent is saying.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a pe it's it's an appeal to our pride.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Does he really care for me?
SPEAKER_00: Or am I better off on my own?
SPEAKER_00: This question, this isn't just a question for people who live secular lives.
SPEAKER_00: This is a question for people who live Christian lives.
SPEAKER_00: We can be on our own in the Christian world.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just gonna prove it and we're gonna do it by our own strength rather than continuing to rest and place faith and trust in what Jesus has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: This is quite this question is the question that haunts us over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Does he really care for me or am I really best on my own?
SPEAKER_00: But she was in.
SPEAKER_00: She bought in.
SPEAKER_00: Eve bought in, and her heart fractured from her creator, and so she ate.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: She ate the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: We always get the picture of an apple.
SPEAKER_00: She ate the fruit, and then she gave some to her husband, and everything broke.
SPEAKER_00: Everything broke.
SPEAKER_00: I know most days we don't come in touch with a lot of this.
SPEAKER_00: Like inside, our inner beings aren't in touch with the amount of brokenness, but then we get it because our wife gets cancer, or there's that disaster in our family, or something with our child happens, or you find out about that abuse, or you do that thing that you never thought you would do.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's when the news quits being the like rambling entertainment, and you go, 21 people were beheaded this week for believing something that another group of people don't believe?
SPEAKER_00: You go, God, this is broken.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is just incredibly broken.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you just know the brokenness on the personal level, that lie that I can't really trust them.
SPEAKER_00: There's still so much wrong with me.
SPEAKER_00: So we get verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, or naked, if you're from where I'm around where I'm from.
SPEAKER_00: So they sewed fig leaves together and they made coverings for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They were never ashamed before this moment, but now everything is different, and they cover.
SPEAKER_00: We've been covering ever since.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this over and over and over again in our church.
SPEAKER_00: We'll continue to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: They make these little temporary little jungle book clothes and they cover themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And we do it now, and we do it with work, and we do it with achievement, we do it with approval, we do it with power, we do it with control, and we just keep covering our shame.
SPEAKER_00: And if you aren't aware of the fact that you are doing it even now, then you are being controlled by it.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden they hear the Lord God walking in the garden, and you have to you have to know that before, they would have never reacted the way they did.
SPEAKER_00: They would have never ran.
SPEAKER_00: And they run.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: And out of their shame, they're afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And out of their fear, they behave.
SPEAKER_00: And so they run and they hide behind some bushes.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord doesn't turn around and walk out of the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He comes toward them.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's always the question.
SPEAKER_00: He's still what he asks us.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you at?
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you doing that?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: See, he's pursuing them.
SPEAKER_00: He's after them.
SPEAKER_00: We've been hiding and covering, and he's been pursuing us ever since this fracture.
SPEAKER_00: So they heard him, and you gotta wonder how long was that moment behind the bushes and what was that moment like?
SPEAKER_00: You know, Eve, prodden them.
SPEAKER_00: Adam, you better get out there.
SPEAKER_00: You are going out first.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going out first.
SPEAKER_00: You are you you fed me the apple.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you gotta wonder how long that moment was, and finally, Adam mans up and he steps out, he speaks up, and he's got to be terrified for what possibly could go down in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.
SPEAKER_00: Who told you you were naked is what the Lord says.
SPEAKER_00: Who told you you were naked?
SPEAKER_00: How do you have knowledge about the existence of shame and fear?
SPEAKER_00: How do you have knowledge about this stuff?
SPEAKER_00: And then Adam starts the blame game, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the woman made me eat it, and then, you know, I guess Eve's kind of wandered out at this point.
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, the serpent, you know, made me eat it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and neither of them, neither of them just say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the problem.
SPEAKER_00: I am the sinner.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that other group, it's not that other church, it's not that other co-worker, it's not that other person, it's not that it's not her, it's not him, it's me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you even hear that word sin and you think, man, how how negative, like how traditional, how, how 1950s of a word, this word sin.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not really negative, it's just realistic, because it's true.
SPEAKER_00: Because only the reality of sin opens us up to intervention.
SPEAKER_00: See, if you just call it relativism, if it's all just relative choices, you have no ability to speak against it.
SPEAKER_00: If it's just relative choices, you have no ability to for justice or redemption, because it's it's fine to them or to you or to him or to her.
SPEAKER_00: See, the the doctrine of sin is actually in this, it's the beginning of our hope because we are this.
SPEAKER_00: We are, we're sinners.
SPEAKER_00: It's the starting point.
SPEAKER_00: And there's sin in the world, and we all need rescuing.
SPEAKER_00: So there's the story.
SPEAKER_00: Four points.
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's four points here in the story that that jump out.
SPEAKER_00: Four forms of alienation that come out of the sin.
SPEAKER_00: And the first is, and this is in verse 14 and 15, sin creates, I don't know if this is a great sentence structure, sin creates creational alienation.
SPEAKER_00: What am I talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8, all creation is subjected to futility and pain.
SPEAKER_00: So creation itself was fractured.
SPEAKER_00: The world is not working like it should.
SPEAKER_00: Those earthquakes, those tornadoes, the violence where there is peace, there's now strife, where there is fullness and perfect orchestration, it's not that way.
SPEAKER_00: Creation is broken.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a broken world.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible even says that creation groans for redemption.
SPEAKER_00: So, number one, sin creates creational alienation.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, sin creates relational alienation.
SPEAKER_00: So we saw them hide, we saw them blaming each other, and then we get verse 16, and the Lord is speaking to Eve.
SPEAKER_00: I will make your pains and childbearing very severe.
SPEAKER_00: With painful labor, you will give birth to children.
SPEAKER_00: Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
SPEAKER_00: Who loves that verse?
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's there's the one to memorize this week.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not sure about that, are we?
SPEAKER_00: We're just not sure about that verse.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, your desire will be for your husband, he's gonna rule over you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but I don't like that one.
SPEAKER_00: That's not one I'm gonna memorize, I'm gonna forget that one.
SPEAKER_00: Um what this is saying is it's saying a woman's desire from now on will be for her husband's approval.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a real popular statement, 2015.
SPEAKER_00: But underneath kind of the suppression of the reality of that, right?
SPEAKER_00: And that's what it is, is that's just suppressed the reality that that's inside of women.
SPEAKER_00: Um women have the ability to make an idol out of the relationship, to look to their husband for that need of now, I'm a person.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he sees me, now I'm seen.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he has spoken approval, now I'm approved.
SPEAKER_00: And if he withholds, if he withholds something, now it's all broken, it's all horrible.
SPEAKER_00: This is what this verse is talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And when you create an idol out of the relationship, it doesn't mean, oh, well, we're just she's just focused on the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: It's healthy for it.
SPEAKER_00: No, this is different.
SPEAKER_00: An idol out of it creates too much pressure and it leads to alienation rather than intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: So that's number two, sin creates relational alienation.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, sin creates vocational alienation.
SPEAKER_00: And so verses 17 through 19, and the Lord is speaking to Adam.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it interesting that we see sin create relational alienation to women, and then we we see sin create vocational alienation with men?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're going, man, that is traditional as traditional can get, but there's some truth in this.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Cursed is the ground because of you.
SPEAKER_00: Through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
SPEAKER_00: It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
SPEAKER_00: By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you are taken, for dust you are, and to dust you will return.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we're going to see in a little bit in Romans 5 that all of humanity we can pull some truths out of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: That we all come from Adam.
SPEAKER_00: Men, women, me, you, all of us in this room.
SPEAKER_00: So there's some truth to both of these: the relational alienation, the vocational alienation for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: But I think a lot of men can read this and we really associate.
SPEAKER_00: We associate with this.
SPEAKER_00: We know what we want to do, but we can't.
SPEAKER_00: We know what we want to create, and we don't get the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: We have the dream and it just doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: And then when you get there, it is so absolutely difficult, or it's not what you thought it would be.
SPEAKER_00: There's just so many thorns on the plant, and you just didn't think they were going to be there.
SPEAKER_00: And so work is good.
SPEAKER_00: Work was created before the fall, but now it is hard.
SPEAKER_00: And it is difficult.
SPEAKER_00: And this is because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Number four, last point, and it feeds all the other points, and this is this sin creates spiritual alienation.
SPEAKER_00: So we see in Romans 5, sin entered through one man, and in this way to all of us.
SPEAKER_00: So we're all self-bent, we've been away from God.
SPEAKER_00: And this alienation, this is a separation, this is a chasm.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't um, this isn't the creek in your backyard you can jump over when you get a lot of energy up.
SPEAKER_00: This is Grand Canyon stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: There's no jumping.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you and your greatness and your power bar, you're not getting over the canyon.
SPEAKER_00: It's not happening.
SPEAKER_00: You're not getting over that fear and that shame.
SPEAKER_00: But, but, Romans 5, 15, but the gift is not like the trespass.
SPEAKER_00: For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, meaning Adam, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many?
SPEAKER_00: So there's the Grand Canyon separation, the impossibility.
SPEAKER_00: And then when that cross came down, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you've been around church a long time, maybe Baptist church, we we always had the diagrams like on the felt board or whatever, you know, the teacher would draw it, and you would have like the Grand Canyon, and then the cross would come down in between the canyon, and the cross was the bridge, right?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone with me?
SPEAKER_00: You remember it?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you?
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: All right, like, all right, we we can make fun of it, it can be cheesy or whatever, but it's good.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good picture for us to grab a hold of.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the even greater good of it.
SPEAKER_00: Is it's not us walking across the cross over to God because we are so we're dead.
SPEAKER_00: We're not moving.
SPEAKER_00: We are ashamed, we are afraid, we are hiding behind the bushes, and He is coming toward us.
SPEAKER_00: That's a really good picture for us to grab hold of.
SPEAKER_00: Friday night, I was watching Care Bears.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's right, I'm secure enough to admit this.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't by myself, that would just be weird.
SPEAKER_00: I was with uh my three little girls and we're watching the Care Bears, and Wonderheart's belly badge powers had not come in yet.
SPEAKER_00: Which is apparently a big deal in Care Bear Land.
SPEAKER_00: Does Care Bear Land have a name?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: And she's destroyed, nobody will accept her.
SPEAKER_00: Um she's going around like group to group trying to get acceptance in these different groups, and she can't get acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: And so she goes over to Uncle Tenderheart, and apparently Tinderheart, he's the man in Care Bear Land, and he has some Wish Heart bracelets, eight of them, and these wish heart bracelets, when you have them, it's you can you can manipulate and you can pretend like you have powers.
SPEAKER_00: So what she does is she steals them.
SPEAKER_00: And so she has eight wish bracelet powers now that she can go back to all her friends and she can pretend and she can perform.
SPEAKER_00: Are you liking the story?
SPEAKER_00: I'm watching this and I'm going, this is humanity, this is me, this is you, this is life, this is what we do, and it's in Care Bear's.
SPEAKER_00: So you know the story, and it's a gripping plot.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to tell too much, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like in case you watch it, because it's nail biting.
SPEAKER_00: But basically, out of her shame and out of her fear, she creates a mess.
SPEAKER_00: She creates a huge mess.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just watching it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going, man, I I know, I know what little Wonder Heart's feeling.
SPEAKER_00: I know that anxiety, I know that pressure, I know that fear.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm her, I'm a care bearer, is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would love, I would love to be beyond it.
SPEAKER_00: I would love to say I'm beyond it.
SPEAKER_00: I would love to say I'm so mature, I'm so rooted that there's, you know, there's never any shame or fear that drives some behavior.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But I would say probably once a week there's like this mini crisis inside of me that's like what she was going through of shame and fear and inadequacy, and like, does he really care for me or am I best on my own?
SPEAKER_00: And and there's this fight to remember everything that's true.
SPEAKER_00: So I I have uh a friend of mine, we'll call him Andy, so I don't use his real name.
SPEAKER_00: And Andy, uh Andy was always a Boy Scout.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and when I say that I mean uh the metaphor, he was the good kid.
SPEAKER_00: He saw some things when he was younger in his family, and when he saw them, he said, Well, I'm not going that way, I'm going this way, because in this way is the way that I am going, I'm gonna be good, I'm gonna be the better, I'm gonna be the best, and this is the way I'm headed.
SPEAKER_00: And from a very, very early age, that was it.
SPEAKER_00: That was his path to approval and to acceptance was out-achieve everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: But behind this was this haunting question.
SPEAKER_00: This haunting question, do I belong?
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of what Wonderheart was asking yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And so he eventually became the CFO of a very large, successful company.
SPEAKER_00: Um he was on the senior leadership team, he helped build the company.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he would, he was, he was, it was, he was the boys at the top, like that make the decisions, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he belonged.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody belonged, it was him.
SPEAKER_00: He's like number two in charge, and they're making decisions, they're running things, they're taking ground, they're, you know, I mean, so he is, he's it.
SPEAKER_00: He's done it.
SPEAKER_00: And so 2007, 2008 hit, and uh the bottom drops off uh economically, and so they have to make cuts in his company, and so the senior leadership team, they gather together on a Friday and they plow through and they decide who's getting cut, and he goes home for that weekend, and he comes back Monday and he walks into his friend's office, the CEO, his buddy, the one that he belongs with, and he's been cut.
SPEAKER_00: And he was devastated because not only did he get fired, it cut to the core of a question of some shame that he had been fighting to cover his entire life.
SPEAKER_00: Do I belong?
SPEAKER_00: He had worked his way into acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: We do this.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the way to go.
SPEAKER_00: Working your way into acceptance is not the way to go.
SPEAKER_00: He had insulated himself with success and still he didn't belong.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my friend, he was crushed.
SPEAKER_00: He was crushed.
SPEAKER_00: He had to disc he had to discover the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Because that makeshift fig leaf that he had sewn together, it was ripped away from him.
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is he received something much better.
SPEAKER_00: And we see it in the story.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in Genesis 3, because once Adam and Eve they come out of the bushes, they come out of the hiding, they're so scared, they're so ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: And the most lopsided trade in history occurs.
SPEAKER_00: And it has been going on ever since.
SPEAKER_00: Because what God does is God He makes clothes for them.
SPEAKER_00: The skin of an animal, leather clothes.
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful picture for us to grab onto this morning and for our lives that He provides for them.
SPEAKER_00: He gives to them, He covers them, He does it with the skin of an animal.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of years later, He does it with His own skin, his own self, His own body dying on the cross to cover us so we don't have to keep covering our own shame and our own fear.
SPEAKER_00: But we can know in our shame and in our fear, the incarnate love of God is true for us.
SPEAKER_00: And He loves us.
SPEAKER_00: And the blood of Jesus is enough for us, that we are covered, that He knows us and He sees us, and He chose to die for us so that we can be redeemed and we can begin to trust in Him and begin to know healing us pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, we confess that we cover our shame and fear rather than facing it.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than letting you into it.
SPEAKER_00: And we do it with religion, and we do it with work, and we do it with relationships, and we do it with achievement, and we we do it with debauchery, we do we do it with we'll do it with anything, and God we confess that we do this.
SPEAKER_00: Would you help us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help us to receive from you your covering for us rather than us going to manufacture our own covering?
SPEAKER_00: We need you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you help us open our hearts in greater ways to you?
SPEAKER_00: And for many of us that have never placed faith in you, entrusted you as Savior, as our own covering over our sin and shame.
SPEAKER_00: Would this morning be the time we do so?
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.