Genesis 3 - What's wrong with the world

The reading today is from Genesis chapter 3 and it's found on page 5 of the church bibles.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

!

The woman said to the serpent,

When she saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and

also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked.

So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden

in the cool of the day.

And they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?

He answered, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked.

So I hid.

So I hid.

And he said, Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?

The man said, The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done?

The woman said, The servant deceived me and I ate.

So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this,

cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals.

You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

The woman, he said, To the woman he said, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe.

With painful labor, you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.

To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you,

must not eat from.

Cursed is the ground because of you.

Through painful toil you will eat food and it will, sorry, eat food from it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you.

You will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken.

For dust you are and to dust you will return.

Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all living.

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

And the Lord God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.

He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.

So the Lord God banished him from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the garden of Eden,

cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Amen.

Thanks, Dorot.

Let's pray as we come to God's word.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we want to quieten our hearts before you now.

We want to pray and ask that you might be at work this morning by the power of your spirit for the sake of your glory.

Lord, we've sung together of our need of you.

We know we need salvation.

We know we are hungry to hear you speak.

We know we are ignorant and need your wisdom.

We know that we are lost and need your salvation.

Please, Lord, show us these things from your words this morning, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, you don't need me to tell you that we live in a world where things go wrong.

Your experience will tell you that.

Things like sickness, unemployment, homelessness, relationship breakdown, poverty, war.

And whenever we face things like that, especially when we face them personally,

the question that comes to our mind is the question, why?

Why is this happening?

Why is this happening to me?

Why now?

Who is to blame?

How could this have been avoided?

I'm sure you've asked those questions yourself about countless different situations that you've faced.

But what I want you to see this morning as we start is that the why question,

the sort of instinctive why question that we all ask,

is making in itself a massive assumption.

You see, the assumption of the question why that we ask when we suffer

is that things shouldn't go wrong.

Right?

There's a category in our minds called the category right.

And that's how things should be.

And when that is not our experience and things are wrong,

well, then something is broken.

Something has gone wrong.

In other words, and this is probably a more philosophical way to put it,

the question why assumes that we were made for a world that is better

than the one that we're currently experiencing.

Do you understand what I mean?

It's assumption that really there's something not quite right about this.

I was made for something better than this.

Now, in a sense, that's quite simple.

But notice with me that the world has no good answer to that.

Not only does it have no good answer to the why question,

it has no good answer for why you ask why in the first place.

If the assumptions of the people who kind of make our TV,

teach in our schools, rule our government are right,

and there is no God, there's no creation, no Genesis 1 to 3,

then, of course, along with ditching all of those things,

they also ditch the category wrong.

Things just are.

There's no design.

There's no ideal.

There's no moral being behind it all to determine what is right and wrong.

The category is not wrong.

The category is is.

Things just are as they are.

And our appeal to the idea that the world should be better to be right,

well, that's just an illusion.

Richard Dawkins puts it famously like this.

He says,

Now, I don't know all of you in this room very well.

Now, I don't know all of you in this room very well.

I know most of you.

It's great to have people with us this morning,

who are guests with us.

But let me ask you,

in the midst of whatever it is that's going on in your life,

does the question why feel to you like an illusion?

Does it feel to you as if it doesn't really matter?

Does it feel as if justice is just irrelevant?

Of course it doesn't, does it?

Every fiber in our being when we're suffering is crying out,

Why is this like this?

In fact, this desire to live in a unbroken world

is right there in the center of our hearts.

And we need to know,

Why is this world broken?

Who broke it?

How did they break it?

How can it be fixed?

And those are our questions this morning.

And we're going to find our answers in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

So let's start this morning by setting the scene of Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And this is a little bit of a recap

for those of you who've been here for the last few weeks.

The scene in chapter 2 is the scene of the garden.

Now, hardly any of us in this room have gardens,

but we sort of know what a garden is, don't we?

We know what that means.

But if you remember back a couple of weeks,

you'll know that there's something special about this garden.

The garden isn't just, it's not like Kew Gardens.

I mean, it might have been,

but it's not Kew Gardens just there to be looking nice.

Really, the purpose of the garden is a place for God to be with his people.

That's why he builds the garden.

The goal of creation was that God would be with his people

in an endless day of rest.

God with us.

But I want you to notice now that in one sense,

the garden is itself unfinished.

So if you go back to chapter 2, verse 15,

you read that man was put in the garden to take care of it.

Take a look at the verse.

Let me read it to you.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden

to work it and take care of it.

I don't know whether you've ever had a gardening job, right?

Surprising as it may seem to you, I once had a gardening job.

I was about 14 and I gardened for an elderly lady

who lived around the corner from where my parents lived.

And my job there was to mow the grass,

kind of trim the hedges and that kind of thing,

and do a bit of weeding.

And on my first day on the job,

when I turned up at this person's house to do the garden,

I was met with her son,

who was there to give me instructions.

This is where the lawnmower is.

This is what a weed looks like, and these are the plants.

Leave the plants, dig the weeds out, that kind of thing, right?

Basic instructions on gardening.

Now I think when you look at Genesis 2.15,

God has put Adam in the garden to garden it.

What you expect to come next are some sort of instructions on how to garden.

Right, Adam?

You'll need a spade.

Make yourself a spade.

You need to dig.

You need to cultivate.

But actually when you look down,

the immediate instructions for gardening are nothing to do with any of that.

There's no lawnmower, there's no hedge trimmers,

there's no plant identification.

What do you get?

Verse 16,

And the Lord God commanded the man,

You are free to eat from any tree in the garden,

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

For when you eat from it, you will certainly die.

Now maybe God did give some instructions on gardening as well.

But as the writer puts this material together,

he wants you to know that fundamentally the job of gardening

in the Garden of Eden for Adam

was not the work of a spade,

but the work of obedience.

Obedience.

Adam needs to obey God.

Obedience to the will and instructions of his creator

are the way that he will garden.

Seen in his refusal to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A tree that chapter 2 verse 9 tells you is in the middle of the garden

next to the tree of life.

Adam and Eve are not to eat from it.

Now think about what's happening here.

The implication is that the garden in Genesis 2

is not really the ultimate goal of God's creation.

The goal of God's creation lies beyond the garden

into what it has the potential to become through Adam's obedience.

Adam, I want you to develop and garden here.

I want you to establish yourself here.

I want you to be fruitful and multiply.

And I want this garden to develop into something.

And if he does that, well, then the tree of life will be his.

Obey me and you will eat from the tree of life.

Recognizing that good and evil is not to be grasped at independently from God,

but in fellowship with his creator,

he is to obey him and receive all that he needs.

Now, there's lots of different ideas there.

Let me try and land some of them with an illustration.

I want you to imagine for a moment that you take a new job

working as a chauffeur for VIP people.

I think Luis had a job a little bit like this at one point,

so you can maybe ask him whether this is true.

But imagine that this job involves you driving a BMW 7 Series

that's been specially modified.

It has massage seats.

It has one of those kind of sky headliners

where you've got the little stars coming out the sky headliner like that.

It's got bulletproof windows and all that kind of thing, right?

You turn up for your first day of work.

Do you expect work to throw you the keys for the £200,000 BMW on your first day of work?

Of course you don't, do you?

Before you really get access to the keys,

although access to the keys is going to be your job, right?

Before you get that job, what you are given instead

are the keys to the Ford Fiesta van

and you're told to drive to Watford to pick up the boss's dog from the vets.

Why?

Why are you told to do that?

Well, because even though your job title is VIP chauffeur,

really you start out your job on probation, don't you?

You are on probation.

And although the BMW will be yours to drive one day,

you are in the beginning being tested to see your faithfulness,

to prove that you're able to drive the big car.

You know, to see whether your manner with the vets and the dog

is good enough for you to qualify for being accessed to the VIPs.

You know, then after a couple of weeks,

when you've proved yourself, you've not crashed the Fiesta

and the boss's dog is not traumatized from driving with you,

then on you go.

Here's the BMW.

Now, in a sense, that's what's going on in Genesis 2.

Adam and Eve have been made for eternal life in a flourishing garden

where humanity will live for endless days in the presence of God with him.

In a garden that they have filled and subdued,

a place for God and his people to dwell together.

But before that, they're on probation in the garden.

And not just them as two individuals,

but in them, all of humanity are on probation.

And the keys of eternal life, if you like to carry on the illustration,

symbolized in access to the tree of life

is only going to be available to them if they obey the Lord.

They pass the probationary period.

And so the focus here is obedience.

Will they obey?

A command which is not intended to prohibit from Adam and Eve

knowing what is good and evil,

but rather is to prohibit accessing that knowledge

outside of relationship with the God who made them,

outside of walking with him,

growing in knowledge and understanding, wisdom and faith.

So the question that's hanging at the end of chapter 2 is,

will they garden faithfully in obedience and submission

to gain access to the tree of life?

Or will they go astray and ruin it all?

And that's the question.

That's the scene.

What's the action?

Let's see the action.

In chapter 3, verse 1, we meet Satan embodied in a serpent

who comes to Eve and says,

did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?

Now, of course, that's a lie, isn't it?

The trees of the garden are provided as food for the people.

So Eve responds and partially corrects the serpent.

Verse 2, the woman said to the serpent,

we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden.

Oh no, we can eat.

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.

It's interesting, isn't it, that Eve's response

gives way in part to the serpent's lie

because she adds this idea

that God has told them not to touch it,

which is not really true.

The serpent takes advantage of that weakness.

He presses the woman.

He says, verse 4,

you will not certainly die,

the serpent said to the woman.

For God knows that when you eat from it,

your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God's,

knowing good and evil.

And then the woman looks at the fruit of the tree

and sees it's good for food,

it's pleasing to the eye,

that it would make you wise.

And so she eats and she gives to her husband

and disobedience enters the garden.

Now, there are loads of things going on here.

The serpent, who's assumed to be the devil

by the rest of the scriptures,

seems to be already established as an enemy of God by this point.

He is a created being,

but his rebellion predates the one that we're reading about here,

and we're not told about it.

The origin of his evil is essentially a mystery,

about which we probably best not to speculate.

But notice what we are told.

Specifically, notice that the intention of the serpent

is not just to get Adam and Eve to eat from the fruit.

It wouldn't be enough, would it,

if the serpent sort of put the fruit on the floor

in front of Adam and Eve

and then just kind of stuck his foot out,

if he had a foot,

to trip them over.

And so they landed face-fail on the fruit

and got a bit in their mouth and ate it.

That wouldn't be enough, would it?

No, because actually what the serpent is trying to do here

is not just get them to eat the fruit,

but he's trying to get them to eat the fruit

by believing something untrue about God and who he is.

So notice what he says.

He sells God as mean.

God's just being harsh to you.

He doesn't really want you to be like him.

He doesn't really want you to have knowledge of good and evil.

He's being harsh with you.

But of course, that's not the point.

God is generously giving them all things,

but all things in obedience to him,

in submission to his will.

And so the lie of the devil really is one of independence.

It's about grasping after the wisdom

of the knowledge of good and evil

outside of knowing God.

It's saying, listen,

this would be yours in relationship with him,

but now reach for it independently of him

and you will be like him,

not in submission to him,

but on a par, if not over him.

Jesus' famous illustration of this

is in the parable of the lost son.

You might know the story.

In the story,

the youngest son asks his father for his inheritance

so he can go and spend it early.

Now, the subtext of that is obvious, isn't it?

It's not really about the money,

just the money, is it?

Because the money would one day be the son's.

And really, the point is that the son is saying

to the father,

I wish you were dead.

I want your money now.

I don't care about you.

I would rather have that money now

and spend it on myself in wild living.

You're dead to me.

And that's what Adam and Eve are saying here.

It's as if, you know,

I know that wisdom of knowledge of good and evil

will be found in obedience to you,

that walking in obedience with you,

you would teach me what good is.

And I know what evil would be in contrast to that good.

But frankly, God, I want that now.

And I want it for myself.

I don't want it in obedience to you.

I want it in rebellion from you.

God, you are dead to me.

I will live for myself.

Give me my inheritance now.

Now, remember the scene that we set,

because the problem here is not just

that it's like every sin that you and I commit,

although it is.

Rather, the significance of Genesis 3

is that all of humanity

are on probation in Adam and Eve.

And because Adam has disobeyed,

humanity is now guilty.

They were there for us.

And not just that you and I would have done the same,

although we most certainly would have done,

but that we are included in them.

All humanity disobey in Adam.

Adam crashes the Ford Fiesta

and never gets the keys to the BMW.

It's worth just pondering this for a moment, isn't it?

According to the Bible,

this is the root of everything that's wrong in the world.

This is where the good world that God made

becomes the mixed broken world that we experience.

This is why we suffer.

This is why we get sick.

It's not just because we do things wrong,

although we do,

but often the link between what we do

and what we experience is a little bit vague, isn't it?

Rather, the reason that we suffer

is because humanity was made for God,

by God,

to live in obedience to him.

The very purpose of our existence

being to glorify him and enjoy him.

And in Adam,

we rejected that,

saying we'll be our own boss,

our own gods,

we'll get what we need ourselves,

we'll do what we want,

hoping to find in disobedience

what was promised only through obedience.

And so the world was broken.

It's perhaps a little bit like the story of David and Goliath.

You know the story, don't you?

Everyone loves the story of David and Goliath.

Little David conquers giant Goliath, right?

And we like to read the story

thinking of ourselves to be like David.

We're the people who conquer the great giants.

But really, actually, in the story, right?

David is champion for Israel.

Goliath is champion for the Philistines.

If David wins, Israel wins.

If Goliath wins, the Philistines win.

And in a sense, because Goliath loses,

all of the Philistines lose with him.

And that's it here, isn't it?

Adam, if you like, is our Goliath.

And because he loses,

we all lose with him.

That's what's going on.

He catastrophically fails and is defeated.

And we're left in a broken world.

Now, there's more to say on that.

But let's think about the results.

Observe the results.

Notice that the results are immediate, yeah?

Adam and Eve realize that they are naked.

It's not I don't think that they were ignorant

of their nakedness before,

but rather that now they can't look on their nakedness

without suspicion and wrong desire.

Now this kind of shaped now by independent self-interest,

admiration gives way to selfish lust.

So they hide their bodies behind fig trees

and they run from the presence of God.

They don't want to be anywhere near him.

When God finds them,

he knows what's happened and acts in judgment,

judging the serpent and the woman and then the man.

Look down at chapter three, verse 15.

The serpent's destruction is there prophesied

at the foot of a human.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman,

between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

The promise that we'll find is fulfilled

in the person of the Lord Jesus,

the one who will finally come and crush the serpent.

For the woman, her role in creation is frustrated,

as what should have brought pleasure now brings pain.

Childbearing is severe, labor is painful,

and the role of helper is frustrated and frustrating to her.

Look at verse 16.

I will make your pains in childbearing very severe.

With painful labor, you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband

and he will rule over you.

Adam is similarly cursed.

Work becomes toil and he has promised to return to dust.

Death reigns instead of life.

And finally, then they're thrown out of the temple garden,

banished and excluded from the tree of life,

which had been set ahead of them,

with the cherubim's sword preventing their return.

Now again, there's loads there that we could look at,

but let's just zoom in on this idea

of returning to dust for a moment.

God had promised Adam in chapter two, verse 17,

that the day he ate from the tree, he would surely die.

And here in chapter three, verse 19,

although Adam doesn't die immediately,

notice that the rot has already set in.

Adam's body will return to dust.

In a sense, really, what's happening

is everything here is being turned on its head.

Yes, so God put Adam in the garden

to obey him and rule over creation,

being helped by the woman to rule over all that's been made.

Now, the serpent, part of God's creation,

speaks to the woman who's there to help the man

and she leads the man astray,

who was there to submit to God and obey him

and he disobeys.

And then what happens,

instead of creation moving forwards to life,

it moves backwards to death.

As death enters the garden,

it descends into less than it was intended to be.

The stewards of the temple garden

are now left rotting away.

Adam was made to live in the presence of God

and now excluded from his presence,

life leaves with God.

Now, the consequences of Genesis three

are not just here in these chapters, are they?

They're all the way through the rest of the Bible

and in our lives today.

A relationship breakdown,

natural disaster,

frustrating work,

painful childbearing and parenthood,

estrangement from God,

death, disaster,

uncertain futures,

fragile lives,

disconnection from a sense of purpose.

All of that is our experience.

And there's a sense in which

that experience kind of grows.

So just like the garden

was meant to become a town

and a city where God dwelt with his people,

so now the backwards is growing, isn't it?

As the land of rebellion has grown

and developed into towns

and cities and nations of rebellion,

they build a giant tower,

gather all the world together,

a few chapters down in Genesis.

But the collective moral weight

of six billion sinners

is greater than just two in the garden.

And this then is the Bible's answer

to the why question.

Why?

Why do we suffer?

Well, it's not, you know,

do something wrong

and something appropriately bad will happen.

It's more nuanced than that, isn't it?

Good things do happen to bad people

and bad things seem to happen to good people.

Now, the point is that we live

in a world of rebels

under the judgment and curse

of the God who made us.

The world is broken from its purpose,

undone by its creator.

It brings thorns and thistles

faster than plants.

It means the relationships

between men and women

are marked by power plagues.

That's, I think,

what's going on here

when the woman's desire

will be for the man

and he will rule over her.

It is not that she longs for him,

but she longs for his role

and his role is now abusive

and power hungry

rather than loving

and one of mutual help.

Now, Adam chose a world without God

and God hands him over

to the chaos of that.

You want me out the garden?

Now you are out the garden

on your own.

I think probably the greatest challenge

has been for me

in this series in Genesis 1-3

is that lots of this

is kind of philosophical

and feels a bit theoretical,

doesn't it?

But this is real, right?

As I was praying in my study

this morning,

preparing the final bits

of this message,

the office phone rang

from David,

Solomon Peter's son,

to say that he'd passed away.

This is the world of death,

it's the world that we live in,

isn't it?

And these things,

although kind of philosophically important,

are personally painful,

aren't they?

We live in a world

under the curse of sin

where death reigns.

Not because God is not good,

not because God doesn't care.

Now actually,

the God of Genesis 3

is a God of promise

and he's keeping his promises.

Now the problem in the world

is that our first parents

and us in them

pushed God out

and enthroned ourselves

and our holy God

cannot ignore that.

A university friend of mine

who was really clever

did mechanical engineering

at university

and went on to do

various different things

but one of the things

that he did

was he ran his own garage.

What he found was

that garages were really bad

at repairing complicated cars.

See, he found that

if you took your complicated car

to the garage,

they'd do two or three things to it

and if they couldn't

work it out from that

then they couldn't fix it.

So they'd plug their machine in

and it wouldn't say anything

and then they would go

underneath it with their torch

they couldn't find anything

and so they couldn't fix it.

And he worked out

that basically

if you're going to fix

complicated cars

the thing that you need to know

is what the problem is.

He was really good

at understanding

what the problem is

which meant that

he could fix it.

If you don't understand

what the problem is

you can't really fix it.

That's the case, isn't it,

in our world as well.

Why do so many things

that we try

not actually fix

our lives and our trouble?

It's because they don't really

understand the problem, do they?

Atheism or even agnosticism

basically thinks

that the problem in the world

is bad luck.

So the solution

to a world

where the problem is bad luck

is good luck, right?

Do everything you can

to be lucky.

Do everything that you can

to kind of swerve the problems.

And of course

that doesn't work, does it?

Because actually

bad things still happen.

Things like Islam

or Catholicism

and its raw form

and other religions

tell you that the problem

in the world

is that we do things wrong.

If the problem in the world

is that you do things wrong

what's the solution?

Do things right.

Yeah?

But that doesn't work, does it?

Not only because

it doesn't matter how hard I try

I can't do everything right

it doesn't work

because even when I do things right

still things go wrong.

There are many people

in the hospitals in London

who are more moral

and upright

than any of us in this room.

Doing things right

is not the answer.

But if Genesis 3

is right

if the problem

is not just that

we personally

are disobedient

which itself

would be bad enough

but also that

we belong to

a condemned race

that has been banished

from God's presence

and is under the curse of sin

then you and I

need a way more radical fix

than good works

or good luck

to fix it.

We need a new creation.

We need

a new

Adam

and that is Jesus

promised in our passage

in chapter 3

verse 15

as we saw

introduced in the scriptures

as a second Adam.

God doesn't so much

create a new man

from the dust

rather it's as if

God takes the dust

to himself

and is born

as a baby.

God

the son

uniting himself

with weak

human

frail flesh

and he

lives in this

broken world

outside of the garden

and he too

is tested by the devil

probation

2.0

and the devil

tries the same

tactic again.

He says to Jesus

doesn't he

Jesus I know

you're born

the king

I know you're born

to rule the nations

and I know

that the way

that you will

rule the nations

is in obedience

to your father

obedience to the father

which will take you

all the way

to the cross

but Jesus forget that

for a moment

won't you

just bow down

and worship me

and I'll give you

all of that.

Obedience is such

a long path

this is much quicker

this is much easier

and you don't have

to die

surely Jesus

you want this

don't you

just bow down

and worship me

and unlike the first Adam

this second Adam

resists the devil

and is obedient

right up

to death itself

you know

that the first Adam

was intended

to obey

in order to receive

eternal life

and pass on life

to us

but the first Adam

disobeyed

and passed on

death to us all

right

the second Adam

Jesus

is obeying

all the way

to death

and handing

on life

to you and me

as the second Adam

rises again

ascends into heaven

and promises

to prepare a place

for us

to dwell with God

not a garden

but a city

a city temple

that he will bring

listen as we close

to how the Bible

describes that city

says this

in Revelation 22

then the angel

showed me

that's John

the river

of the water

of life

clear as crystal

flowing from the throne

of God

and of the Lamb

down the middle

of the great street

of the city

on each side

of the river

stood the tree

of life

bearing 12 crops

of fruit

yielding its fruit

every month

and the leaves

of the tree

are for the healing

of the nations

no longer will there

be any curse

the throne of God

and of the Lamb

will be in the city

and his servants

will serve him

they will see his face

and his name

will be on their foreheads

there will be no more night

they will not need

the light of a lamp

or the light of the sun

for the Lord God

will give them light

and they will reign

forever

and ever

notice the tree

of life is there

and we have access

to it

unyielding access

because it's there

yielding its fruit

every single month

you can eat

and eat

and eat

the tree is there

access to the tree

given through the obedience

of the second Adam

Jesus Christ

let me just

close with this

if perhaps this morning

the why question

why am I suffering

is deeply personal

to you

maybe you're

wondering

why am I

so lonely

why is it

so hard

to find a job

why is my family

in such disarray

why is marriage

so difficult

why have I got

so little money

why is my health

failing

well let me tell you

don't despair

the truth is

you weren't made

for this wilderness

you were made

for this city

that we've just

been reading about

an entry to this city

is not through

your good works

or not even

through good luck

entrance to this city

is through the obedience

of Jesus Christ

obedience all the way

to death

and so for you and I

if you want to exit

this wilderness

for this city

we're to come to Jesus

and say I trust in you

I love you

I want you to be

my Adam

that I might receive

the benefits

of your obedience

instead of the curse

of Adam's disobedience

and if you do that

there will be a day

it's not going to be

necessarily today

but there will be a day

as sure

as you know

where all your wounds

will be healed

all the tears

will be wiped

from your eyes

all the sorrows

will be undone

and in one sense

the beauty of that day

and of that city

will be even more glorious

because of the darkness

of today

and the wilderness

we're in

come Lord Jesus

come Lord Jesus

let me pray

and then we'll sing

Heavenly Father

as we come to you

thank you

that we come

to a God

who knows

what life is like

in the brokenness

of this world

and thank you

that in your son

the Lord Jesus

you have done

all that needs

to be done

to take sinners

like us

to the glorious city

of your holy presence

so we pray please

Lord that you would

keep us trusting

in Jesus

keep our eyes

fixed on him

in the midst

of the pain

and the difficulty

and the frustration

and even the temporary

joys of this life

keep us looking

to Jesus

and trusting

in all that he has done

in his name we pray

Amen

in all that he's