The First Lie

I want to encourage you to turn to the book of Genesis, chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

I will be reading verses 1 through 7.

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It's on page 2.

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Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 through 7.

Genesis 3:1–7

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 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 may 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 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 it.

And she gave also some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Then their eyes, then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loinclaws.

This is God's word.

I hate being lied to.

What's even worse is when you're lied to and you believe it.com defines a lie as a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive, an intentional untruth, a falsehood.

I had a friend of mine in high school who was a perpetual liar.

Except he was horrible at it.

And every time he would lie, he would cover his face.

And he didn't realize he was doing it.

It was just this psychological thing that he did.

And so every time he lied, he would cover his face.

And I remember one time he went in to talk to his mom and he came out and she's like, he's like, I don't know how my mom is so smart.

I don't know how she figured out that I was lying.

Um about 10 or 15 years ago, I met a guy who was such a good liar, you never knew when he was telling the truth or when he was lying.

In fact, to this day, I don't know which stories he told me about his childhood were true, and which ones were completely made up.

Of course, the worst lies are the ones that are a hair's breadth from the truth, but uh have enough untruth in them so that you miss the mark.

I have someone in my life right now that is constantly lying to me, trying to steal my joy, undermine my faith, and cause me to question the work of God in my life.

More than that, he wants to ruin my life and destroy this church.

His name is Satan.

1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8 says this be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour.

1 Peter 5:8

The fact is, he hates your guts.

He hates this church, he hates the gospel because he hates God.

John 10, 10 says, the devil is a thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

He traffics in lies and deception.

In John chapter 8, verse 44, Jesus says that the devil was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand for the truth because there is no truth in him.

John 8:44

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Paul says that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

Paul in 2 Corinthians says that he blinds the minds of unbelievers, lest the light of the glory of the gospel should shine in.

But the reality of it is that Satan lies about God and the gospel to us as well.

What Satan does is maligns God's character and calls into question his goodness.

In fact, that's what he does when he says to Eve in verse 5 of Genesis 3, he said, God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

In this one sentence, Satan calls into question God's goodness, his love, and his grace.

We began this year by spending five weeks looking at the gospel, and I thought it would be good for us to close the year also looking at the gospel and reminding ourselves of God's goodness.

Reminding ourselves of his love, reminding ourselves of his forgiveness and his acceptance.

There's a subtlety and a craftiness to Satan's lies.

And it's not just Christians that get caught up in it.

We do as well.

In fact, Paul warns us of that.

He says this in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 3, and I'll read from the New American Standard.

2 Corinthians 11:3

He says, But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by her craft by his craftiness, that your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

You see, the Bible warns us that we have an enemy, and he not only deceives unbelievers so that the light of the gospel doesn't penetrate their hearts and their minds and they come to Jesus Christ, but the fact of the reality is that Satan wants to blind our eyes to the reality of the gospel in our own lives.

He wants us to go about as beggars and paupers when in reality we are children of the King, having been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, that we are blood-bought saints, heirs of the promises of God in Christ.

But Satan would love nothing more than for you to not recognize that, for you to not believe it in your heart of hearts.

And I've told you that for years that was the reality of my life.

Things that I knew in my head that I had studied in school, in Bible college, in seminary, reading hundreds and hundreds of books over the years, but the reality of the gospel didn't travel from my head to my heart in its full impact and implication.

And I believe that my experience isn't unique or unusual, but that the reality is that we know more than we believe in our hearts.

We know more about God cognitively, rationally.

We would get an A if we were quizzed on the attributes of God and the character of God and the person of God.

But in our heart of hearts, if we were asked, but are you trusting him?

Do you have a peace?

Do you have a joy?

Do you rest in the reality of your forgiveness and your acceptance in Christ?

I think that for the majority of believers, if we were honest, we would say no.

And so the gospel is something that we need to go back to over and over and over again, reminding ourselves of the reality of who we are in Christ, because Satan wants to blind us to the gospel and the goodness of God in our lives as believers.

Satan questioned God's word, he distorted God's word, and Eve helped him with that.

He contradicted God's word.

But the reality was he was questioning the character of God in all of this.

He was planting a seed of doubt, of questioning does God really love me?

Does God really care about me?

Is God really interested in my life?

Is God really gracious and good?

And these were the things that Satan does, the very things that he did to Eve.

So this morning I want us to look at this and really recognize what lies underneath the lie.

The question, is God good?

Is God loving?

Is God gracious?

And so let us examine these three questions in light of the text, in light of the gospel, beginning with the first question, is God good?

Satan questions God's word, but he's really questioning God's character when he says, Did God really say?

He's questioning the character of God.

Satan wants us to question God's motives.

Is God really good?

What he's saying to Eve is, God is doing something to deprive you.

God's commands are odious and onerous.

They're a burden, they're heavy.

God's commands aren't good for you.

They'll deprive you and they'll hinder you and they'll harm you.

You see, Satan tries to convince us that God doesn't have our best interest at heart.

That God's really just a celestial killjoy who's here to suck all the fun out of life and to tell us not to do things.

And if you really follow Jesus, that you're gonna miss out on so much of life, and so you need to figure it out on your own.

There's a goodness to God's commands.

In fact, whenever we violate God's word, we do it to our own hurt.

Deuteronomy chapter 10, verses 12 and 13, God tells his people in the Old Testament, What does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you this day for your good.

Deuteronomy 10:12

You see, God's word is given to us for our good, to protect us from ourselves, from our sin, from our sinful desires that would lead us astray and lead us into harm's way.

But Satan lies to us and says there isn't a moral order to the universe.

Don't worry about the consequences of your choices.

You're young.

Everybody does it anyway, so what's the big deal?

In fact, it's wrong to deny your desires.

If you do, you'll be repressed and you'll end up psychologically scarred.

And life's about being happy anyway.

And so if you're not happy, you need to change your life.

You can ignore the moral order of the universe, but you can't deny it.

There will be pain as a result of denying God's good commands.

And what we don't recognize is that our very desires are disordered because of sin.

Sin is tainted every part of our lives.

There's not a part of us that is not tainted by sin.

And so every one of our desires is tainted by sin.

And so our very desires are disordered by sin.

And so, far from God depriving you, he's actually sparing you from emotional, psychological, and physical pain and spiritual devastation.

There's a goodness to God's commands, and Satan wants us to believe that God isn't good.

There's a goodness to God's providence.

In other words, God is guiding human history and God is guiding the events of our lives.

Nothing happens in your life that was not previewed and permitted by God.

God is the sovereign Lord, He is the King of kings, He is overall, and there is not one inch of the created order that is outside of God's ultimate control.

And God permits all things that happen, and he has a purpose for them, and that is God's providence.

But Satan wants to say that, uh, to call into question God's goodness.

In other words, how can a good God let so many bad things happen in your life?

You see the lie that Satan is trying to get you to question God's goodness.

Is God really good?

If God is so good, why do things go so bad?

How could God be good and let you get sick?

How could God be good and let your marriage fail?

And let your spouse cheat on you and walk out, and then you're left holding your life together.

How can God be good when children die?

The consequences of the very sin that Satan introduced by deceiving Eve and Adam being tempted and willfully giving in are the very things that he uses to question the goodness of God.

Romans 8.28 says, all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

He says that all things are under God's guiding hand.

And for the believer, for the person who knows Christ, everything in your life God is working out for good.

It may not be the momentary good of your life in this instant, but there is a purpose that God has for everything that's occurring in your life, and ultimately it will be for good.

And that means that God is able to redeem your cancer, redeem your broken marriage, redeem your personal loss.

Like Job in the Old Testament, we don't always know this side of heaven what God's doing.

One of the interesting things about the book of Job, if you read through all 42 chapters, all of these things happen in his life, and yet he is never told what we know.

We read the book and we know what's going on behind the scenes.

We see what is happening, what God is doing, what he's allowing, and what purpose he has.

But you can read through all 42 chapters, and Job never knows.

In fact, Job went to his grave not knowing.

And yet, for 2,800 years, God has given us this book, and we find encouragement in the suffering of Job.

And God used the circumstances and the pain and the loss in Job's life for God to be glorified for 2,800 years, even though Job didn't know in his lifetime what God is doing.

And there are things in your life that you may not understand this side of heaven.

God doesn't tell you that he's going to give you every answer for every circumstance in your life, but he does say, trust me, I have a purpose in all things, and it is a good purpose for you because you're my child.

There are times God will let us know, but it may not be in the time frame that we want.

And I think of Joseph, and we've mentioned him in the past.

But it was 17 years between the time Joseph was sold into slavery, was accused falsely of assaulting Potiphar's wife, his boss's wife, going into jail, ultimately being ascended into the right hand of Pharaoh and going through years of plenty and then years of want before he finally has a chance to talk to his brothers.

He didn't know for years and years what God was doing.

And yet he could say to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

He could say to others, God sent me to Egypt.

Even though when you look at the circumstances, it would be hard to see how God's hand was in all of that, but it was.

But Satan's subtle lies of saying God isn't good.

What Satan lies, he says, if you can't know the reason that there is, therefore there isn't a reason.

And we believe the lies, and so we hesitate to trust God.

And yet we can look back in our lives and see God's faithfulness year in and year out, how God has proven himself over and over that he is good.

And I don't know what you're going through, and I may not have the answers to why God is allowing what's happening in your life.

And we may not know this side of heaven, but I know God and I know he's good, and there's a reason for it.

And we believe the lie sometimes and we take matters into our own hands instead of waiting on God.

We believe the lie when we hesitate to do what's right for fear of the consequences.

I know young people who believe the lie that they're never going to find a godly Christian man or woman, and so they settle for somebody who doesn't know the Lord.

Because they don't want to wait on God.

We believe the lie when we tell ourselves everyone's having fun and we're the only ones that aren't, and God must be punishing me because I'm home on Saturday night alone.

We believe the lie when we say everyone else is cutting corners and getting ahead, and if I obey God, I'm gonna fall behind.

There's another aspect of Satan's maligning God's character.

Not only does he question God's goodness, but secondly, he questions, is God loving?

One of the things that Satan deceives Eve with is questioning God's care.

Is God a loving God?

Behind these comments is the sentiment, God doesn't care about you.

God doesn't notice you, he doesn't know what's going on in your life, God doesn't love you.

If God really loved you, he'd want you to be happy and he'd give you what you want.

And so Satan lies to us to get us to not only question God's goodness, but to question his love.

How do you know God loves you?

If you ever question God's love, I I I encourage you to look at the cross of Christ.

God created this world knowing that it would fall into sin.

God created you knowing that you would fall into sin, knowing you were born in sin as a sinner with a sin nature.

He knew the choices that you would make.

He knew the decisions that you would make, the directions that you would go.

He created you knowing that you would sin.

When you came to Christ, God accepted you knowing every sin that you've ever done, knowing the things you struggle with right now, and he knows every sin that you will ever commit for the rest of your life.

And he says to you, You are my beloved child.

You are my son or daughter, and I have chosen to love you.

None of those sins were a surprise to God, and he says, I want you to be my beloved child.

I think for many of us, we get the father's love backwards.

I think for many of us, we We get the Father's love backwards.

We think that because Jesus died on the cross, that God the Father is now obligated to love us.

We have a distorted view of our Heavenly Father that thinks he's perpetually angry at us and upset at us and disappointed with us.

But Jesus dying on the cross makes God the Father have to love us, or he wouldn't otherwise.

More than that, I think that sometimes when we think of our Heavenly Father, when we think of our Father in heaven, we believe that even now God is disappointed with us.

He looks at our lives and thinks, well, I just have to put up with you.

I have to put up with you because of Jesus.

And sometimes we think that maybe if Jesus wasn't there running interference, that God would bring the hammer down on us.

That God the Father, the only reason why he's not right now is because Jesus is running interference.

But that's a complete distortion of who God is and a totally inaccurate understanding of our Heavenly Father.

It is out of God the Father's great love for you that he sent Jesus.

He gave Jesus to die for your sins.

Let me give you an illustration.

It's an imperfect one, but maybe it'll help understand, explain what I'm trying to help you understand.

A friend of mine recently got engaged, just over the last couple weeks.

When he proposed to his girlfriend, his now fiancé, he gave her a beautiful ring.

He gave her this ring.

It was because of his great love for her that he gave her the ring.

It was because he loved her.

It would be absurd for her to turn around and say, Well, you didn't love me before you gave me this ring, but now that I have this ring, you have to love me.

You see, the gift was an expression of the love that was already there.

And the Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

God the Father loved you so much he sent Jesus Christ.

In fact, it says in Romans chapter 5 that God demonstrates, he shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

And so if you ever question the love of God, look at the cross and recognize that the cross is the demonstration of God the Father's love for you.

He demonstrated his love for you in that while you were a sinner, Christ died for you.

And Satan would love nothing more than for us to have a distorted view of our Heavenly Father thinking of his divine disappointment.

But what we need to recognize is that God is only always motivated towards you out of love.

All of the anger and wrath that God had towards sin was fully and completely poured out on Jesus.

There is no wrath and anger left for you as a child of God.

That you have been completely and fully forgiven, and the only thing that God has for you is as your heavenly Father is love.

And everything he does is motivated out of that love.

Even his discipline is motivated out of his love.

It says, Whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.

Not only is God motivated out of love for you, he's delighted in you.

He positively delights in you.

And I don't think this is something that can be said too often because of the lies that we believe from the enemies and the lies we tell ourselves.

God the Father looks at you and he delights over you.

And it's not because of what you've done, it's because of what he's done for you.

In fact, in the Old Testament, some call this the John 3.16 of the Old Testament.

In Zephaniah 3.17, it says, The Lord your God is in your midst, the mighty one who will save.

He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you by his love, he will exult over you with loud singing.

That God the Father, when he looks at you, when you wake up in the morning and God the Father looks at you, he delights in you, and you haven't done anything.

In fact, in 1 John chapter 3, verse 1, it says, and I like how the New International Version says it, it says, See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God.

1 John 3:1

You are the object of God's affection.

Never question the love of your father.

Don't believe the lie.

Well, there's a final accusation.

A final lie.

Not only does he question God's goodness and his love, but his final accusation is to question God's graciousness.

Is God gracious?

See, Satan's lie to Eve, to tell her to take matters into her own hands, was really to say, Eve, God asked too much of you.

He's a demanding slave driver.

Work, work, work.

No matter what you do, it's never going to be enough, so you might as well not even try.

What a burden it is to obey.

A college friend of mine told a story about when he was growing up.

He grew up in a military family, and his father was an exacting man.

He was a career military guy, and everything had to be picture perfect, ship-shaped.

There was no room for error in this family, in this man's life.

And this friend of mine told me a story when he was finally old enough to uh to be left home alone.

For some kids, that's like 19, but he was in middle school, late middle school, early high school, finally old enough to be uh home alone, and he decided that he was going to surprise his parents by cleaning the house.

And so he he scrubbed the floors, he he vacuumed the carpets, he folded the laundry, uh, he he even scrubbed the toilets.

He he did everything that he could, and he just couldn't wait for his parents to come home so that they could see what he had done.

And his parents walk in, and his dad starts walking around and looking at everything.

And the first words out of his father's mouth are you missed a few things, son.

And for some of us, that's how we think God is.

We have a distorted view of the Christian life.

We think that God tells us that you need to work and work and work and work and never stop, but you know what?

It's never gonna quite be enough.

You need to work a little bit harder and do a little bit more.

And no matter what we do, we think it meets with divine disapproval.

That God's never quite satisfied.

We live with this vague sense that God the Father is perpetually disappointed with us and he just puts up with us.

And we spend our whole lives trying to earn our Father's approval, but we never are quite sure that we have it.

And that's a lie.

The gospel tells us that we're already fully accepted in Christ.

The Christian life is by grace from beginning to end.

And this is the lie that Satan wants us to live under so that we put ourselves under a false sense of obligation that God the Father has not put us under.

When you die and stand before God, and if he were to say to you, Why should I let you into my heaven?

What would you say?

Well, the only answer to that is that, God, I don't deserve heaven.

There is nothing that I could ever do to earn your love.

But I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and paid the full penalty for my sins, and he rose again.

And I've placed my trust in Jesus Christ alone.

And so that is it is 100% what Jesus did and zero of my own effort.

It is all because of Christ.

No, let me ask you a different question.

This morning, when you woke up, why did God accept you?

I remember sitting in a Sunday school class once, and that question was asked, and for several minutes people began to say, Well, you know, I try my best to love God, and I try to do my devotions and read my Bible, and I try not to sin, and you know, I go to church and and and I I give to charity and to the church.

And they began to give all of these answers when they were asked, why does God accept you today?

But if you give any other answer to the second question than the first, you're missing the gospel.

The only reason why I stand before God today, loved and accepted, is because of what Jesus did on the cross.

It is 100% Jesus' work and 0% mine.

I am accepted because of Jesus' death and resurrection on the cross for me.

It isn't because of what I do, it's not because of what I've done, it's not because of the ministries I'm involved with, it's not because of my devotional life.

God loves you and accepts you because of Jesus.

And we need to recognize that the same gospel that saved us and the same gospel that will get us into heaven is the same gospel that today we stand before God, loved and accepted and cherished in the beloved.

It is because of Jesus.

It's not because of what you do.

And we need to recognize we think that God is a hard taskmaster.

We think that God is just breathing down our neck and looking over our shoulder and just waiting for us to mess up, but that is not the God of the Bible.

You never have to earn God's love.

In fact, you never have to do anything to be accepted by God.

Jesus did it all.

He fully obeyed the Father.

He never sinned.

He died on the cross for your sins and rose again.

And so you stand before God today, loved and accepted because of Jesus.

It is 100% Jesus and 0% you today.

In fact, that is the only motivation that God is looking for to realize I don't do things in order to earn God's love.

Because I'm loved, I want to love God in return.

You see, the Bible says that we love because he first loved us.

So our love for God is a responsive love to his love for us.

The lie of Satan is to keep on working, but it'll probably never be enough.

And so you'll lay down at night thinking, I should have done just a little bit more.

But Jesus says this come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.

And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

God wants to lift the burden of duty and drudgery that you think is the Christian life because that is not the gospel.

Have you lost your joy in the gospel?

Have you lost your awe of salvation?

Have you lost the delight in your forgiveness?

Have you lost the wonder of the reality that you have a relationship with the God of the universe?

Have you lost sight of the gospel and the goodness of God and his love and his graciousness?

Satan wants you to believe a lie.

He wants you to believe a lie.

He doesn't want you to believe that Jesus loves you.

And this I know.

He doesn't want you to rest in the truth of who God is and what Jesus has done for you.

This morning I want to close a little differently.

I would like to ask all of the children to come up and help us sing Jesus Loves Me.

So if you're if so, all of the children, preschool, kindergarten, grade school, if you want, if you come up, and I really do need help.

You see, I didn't become a Christian until I was in high school.

And um, and so not being a Christian until high school, um, you really don't sing these songs in college much.

And so it wasn't until I had children that I began to to learn it.

And so I I need some help.

So plenty of room?

You just keep filling in.

And I want you to join.

All right, so let's let's stand together and we're gonna sing Jesus Loves Me.

Ready?

The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.

The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you peace.

May you go knowing the love of your Father, and may you go knowing his goodness, and may you go knowing his grace.

May you go this day reveling in the gospel that you are loved, you are forgiven, you are accepted, you are his child.

Go in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.