The Original Mess | The Mess & the Miracle

Thank you, worship team, for being my sermon illustration.

That was a first, only took five years, but

that, it is impossible to find a version online of people doing

those verses. They only do the first three and they're like,

okay, we're good. When really, if they knew anything about the

sermon I wanted to preach today, they would have put those, can

we put those lyrics up one more time? Just start with come,

desire of nations come. That this is in fact, Advent. This is

exactly what I'm hoping to get across, not only today, but as

we work through the mess and the miracle, our Advent sermon

series, go ahead one more time, keep going. This is all about a

certain place and a certain event that happens. Keep going.

Keep going. Keep going. And good. What event is that song

singing about?

No, all of those wrong. What is that verse about?

The garden, right? That the garden is where we find

ourselves this morning. Shepherds, that was an easy

guess. It's a Christmas guess. I get it, Nikki. But no, this is

about the garden. This is actually where Advent starts.

That this beautiful manger scene actually starts in the

garden. It actually starts in paradise. It starts with the

creation that God had for us in creating the world, all that is

in it, and creating you and me in his image. That Advent

starts in the garden and it's really weird to think about

because we want to go to the shepherds. We want to go to the

manger. We want to go to the angels and King Herod and the

wise men and all of these things and we'll get there. But

today it starts in the garden. And my hope this morning is

that we're going to engage the garden in a way, and again, in

the middle of January, it will be 17 years in the ministry. I

have never ever seen an aspect of something I've preached on.

We did a whole sermon series in Genesis, yet the Holy Spirit

brought me to something and it might just be me. A bunch of

you are probably like, oh, I already knew that. But, and

that's fine, just act surprised. It was an incredible

understanding and the power of Advent found in the book of

Genesis. So let's start in Genesis chapter 3. We know, I'm

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

not going to do a lot of the conversation between Eve and the

snake and Adam. That's for a different sermon, but we all

know what happened. I'm going to start in verse 8, okay? So if

you pull out your Bibles or look on the screen, Genesis 3

starting with verse 8. Again, we use the English standard

version here, but use whatever version you want. And they heard

the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And the man and the wife hid themselves from the presence of

the Lord, the Lord God among the trees in the garden. But the

Lord God called out to the man and said, where are you? And he

said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid

because I was naked and hid myself. He said, who told you

that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I

have commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you

gave to me to be with me, she gave me the fruit and I ate.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have

done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

We've heard this account. You've read it. We've talked about

it. This is the beginning of the journey, if you will, right?

And we're not even at the part of Christ yet. We'll get there.

But as we go through the absolute mess that is the garden

of Eden post chapter 3, so it's chapter 3 and beyond, prior to

chapter 3, there was no mess. It was perfect. And I want us to

just, let's play around with this just a little bit. Prior to

chapter 3, now we don't know how many actual days there were as

far as Adam and Eve kind of doing their thing and naming the

animals and all these kind of things. And it's really weird to

think about it because you have these two naked people, right,

that are just, they're just living in the garden of Eden.

And it's beautiful and it's perfect. And we have absolutely

no idea how to engage that. I don't spend a lot of time there

because I know, like I've said before, chapter 3 is coming like

a freight train. Sin's going to enter the world. And it's weird.

We almost find, we're almost more comfortable engaging after

chapter 3 because we're really okay with sin and we're like,

well, there's sin and then there's redemption. What do we

think life was like prior to the whole apple eating business?

Go ahead. What do you think life was like? Heaven. Aversion of

heaven, sure. Peaceful. Interesting. I'm going to

challenge you on that. I don't know who it was. I think we know

peace because we know pain. I don't know if they, there would

have been no need for peace. I know it's going to get hard.

The mental gymnastics are like Olympians right now. I get it.

But the things that we draw in life, peace, comfort, happiness,

all of those things, we only really know these because of the

opposite that happens. And I know, again, I might be sounding

like a crazy person, but it's at least on brand. Understand

that you didn't need any of those. There was no pain. There

was no discomfort. There was no anxiety. There was no, it was,

what word can we use? Euphoric, okay. That's an interesting

word, right? Euphoric. Sure. I mean, it's really hard because

you don't have a contrast. You don't have what it could be or

what it was. And so understand as we are in the garden, to me,

it just, it deepens what sin actually did. And as we journey

this Advent season through the mess, we're going to go through

different messes that ultimately need to be cleaned up in the

miracle that is not only Christ's birth but the redemption

found in Christ alone. We have to understand the mess. And I

was in chapter 3 and something dawned on me and it was the

Holy Spirit because I'm not that smart. Adam and Eve did

something very damaging when they heard the sound of God and

they heard the presence of God. And it got me thinking before

I get to the damaging part that they had relationship with God.

They were with God all day. All day, every day, it was just

normal. It was just communion with God. It was life in the

presence of God in a perfected way that none of us get. We

don't get it because we have sin and we don't know what life

would be like without it. And even those people that claim

that they died for a couple of minutes, they went to heaven and

felt all the things and rode all the rides and all that kind

of stuff and then they wake up and I don't think any of that's

true personally. It just is mind boggling. And then Adam and

Eve does something that like I've said, I preach this text.

It's an easy preach, friends. It's not very difficult. But

the Holy Spirit opened up something that at the sound,

right, the sound of God in the garden. I only liken this to

maybe being a little kid. How many people would, your mom

would say, just wait until your dad gets home? I'm sorry if

this brings up, that's really weird that Ryan waved his hand

next to his dad. But it's, you know, that there's, that's

really one of the only things I could think of. Carrie's only

invoked that a couple of times, which is shocking. But she's

only invoked that a couple of times. But I remember my mom

never really did that because I didn't really have a dad in

those formative years. My mom got remarried right before I

entered high school. And waiting until your dad gets home

when you're a junior in high school is very different when

you're four, okay. When you're four, when your mom says that

what happens to you when you're four? For those of you that

rose to Curtis, you rose your hand, right? Right? Yeah, okay.

We saw you, so don't lie. When mom would say that to you, what

as a four-year-old Curtis, what were you thinking? What? Fear?

Say it again. Joel, give him a high five. Fear and high. That

was a great point. The lights just went on, right?

Absolutely. You were afraid, so you hid. Now, did you like, did

dad like not be able to find you when you got out of the

punishment? No, because you're not that good of a hider. And

so understand that fear drove a decision to hide from dad. It's

exactly, now did I tell you to say that? No, that was on your

own volition. That's exactly what Adam and Eve did. And this

is, ugh. What is the definition of hell? Go ahead, Thomas.

Death and a life without God. I knew that's what you were

going to say. Is that not the same thing? They heard the sound

of dad in the garden, the creator God, the one they had

communion with. They hear that he's there. They get scared and

they hide. So I'm going to use this as a verb. My wife makes

fun of me because I make up words on stage and you guys just

take it, which is nice. But they held, didn't they? H-E-L-L

apostrophe E-D. I know it's a made up word, but we got this.

They actually created the first version of hell. That they heard

the sound of God. They were afraid and they said, we don't

want to be in his presence. I don't know about you, but that,

what an absolute mess that is. Life was just breathed into

from dust you, you came to dust you will return. That out of

nothing God creates everything and they hear so they hide. Is

that not true for us today? Is it not true that there are

things in our life that we hide from and if Christ is in us,

then we hell all the time. That we think and we try to keep

stuff from an all knowing, all powerful, everywhere God, how

much fools are we? But that is a natural reaction in us to the

presence of God. That hell, that sin is so deeply in our bones,

thank you Adam and Eve, that our reaction to God is to hide from

him. What an absolute mess was made in the garden. So that's why

the promises had to come. What if God would have just left it

there? What if God just did one of these and said at that moment,

no, I'm God, I can start over. No. Because what is one aspect

about a mature believer, we learned it in Hebrews, and a

mature person is an honest person. You can't say I am a

mature individual and lie. It makes, it's very hypocritical.

Same goes for a believer. That to say I am a mature believer,

I've been in the church for years, I've been an elder, I've

taught Sunday school, I've done all of these things, but I hide

stuff from God. That is not maturity. And the opposite of

maturity I guess would be immaturity, that's easy, or

foolishness, or insert whatever word here. But the promise had

to come because God is telling each of us, I see you, I know

you, I know what you've done. Is that not grace? Right? That

God knows what we do and loves us anyway. One of the only

things I can liken it to being a parent, because kids are easy

sermon illustrations, is you know your kids are going to mess

up. You watch them mess up. But none of us go and you're done.

I mean maybe you say that and you send them to your room, but

you don't give them away in that sense. But it's the exact same

kind of relationship that not only Adam and Eve had to the

creator, their God, the one that they were in communion with,

we do it too. And we need that relationship. We need that

grace because given to ourselves we will hide all things always.

We'll lie. We'll bend the truth. White lies, red lies,

whatever lies. We'll do all of those things because in us we

can't stand and say this is who I am. Good, bad, and ugly.

Friends, we see what the good, the bad, and the ugly is right

in Genesis chapter 3. And it starts with the ugly. It starts

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

with deception. It starts with kind of lying. It starts with

bitterness. It starts with passing the buck. We see that in

the relationship. I'm not going to go down there because that's

the easy sermon too. The blaming and the throwing under the bus,

that happens when dad, the creator, is asking for an account

of the information. Any of you that have kids know what is one

of the greatest things your kid can say? They did it. Right?

They don't take, I mean, I would love a day for Joey or Teddy or

Jack to come up and say, Dad, I messed up. I did this and I'm

sorry. But we have to learn that. And if we're really honest with

ourselves, we almost have to get burned by that first in order to

learn it. But that shouldn't be how it is. But that's the mess

that we've made ourselves. That's the mess that sin makes.

That's why the promise of something better is coming. But

for now, for this Sunday, we sit in it. We sit in the mess. We

sit in not only the promise to come, but we sit in the

consequence of what we've done. One of the probably more

frustrating conversations that believers can have is I

apologize. I said I was sorry. Why do bad things or why do the

consequences have to happen? Because you broke a rule. You did

something. Right? That idea of Christian liberty, of I'm a

believer. I can do whatever I want is not a thing. Is everything

permissible? Sure. Is everything beneficial? Not by a long shot.

What would it have looked like? This thought's just coming to me

now. What would it look like if instead of Adam blaming Eve, Eve

blaming the snake, what if all three of them would have just

turned, bowed, and said, I'm sorry? They had the chance. They

had the chance. And they blew it. What does Adam do? This woman

you gave me. Right? So not only does he not take responsibility,

he actually is blaming God. Right? It's like having the middle

kid say we didn't need a third. Right? All of those things. It's

understanding that there's the passing of the buck, the

passivity, the passive aggressiveness, the lying, the

deceit, the deception. All of that happens right here. And it's

in our blood forever. At least forever on this earth. Then God

looks at Eve, what is this you have done? Right? It was a snake.

It was the snake's fault. The serpent deceived me and I ate. Now

what if Jesus would then sit on a rock, explain to them what

they've done, and say all is forgiven? It would be a very

different book. You'd be a very different person. We probably

wouldn't need church. But it didn't happen that way. Because

there needs to be accountability. There needs to be

correction. There needs to be something to learn from. Because

as I started, whatever the euphoric, and I like that, Bev,

we're going to use that word, the euphoria that was chapter one

and two, now there's a contrast in chapter three and on. That

whatever this was is no longer attainable now. It is no longer

attainable on earth. It is no longer attainable, buildable,

receivable, whateverable by you and me. That something had to be

done. And those were the consequences. Starting with verse

14. The Lord said to the serpent, because you have done

this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts

of the field. On your belly you shall go. The dust you shall

eat all the days of your life. It's a bad day. It's not the

reason why I hate snakes. Me and Indiana Jones, right here,

that's, that's, that's, I mean if you're the snake, you're like

that's going to be rough. No one wants to eat dust. Now, there

have been depictions on what this serpent looked like and all

of that, that, you know, that on your belly you shall go. What

actually, what, I don't, it's not Selvitic, don't worry about

it. But at the end of the day, here's, here's where the promise

comes. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your

offspring and her offspring. What is God telling us in this

curse to the serpent? It's not going to be mano a mano, right?

It's not going to be God v. Satan. Nothing v.s. God, right?

There's nothing that high that can ever be the opposite of God.

No, it's going to be sin's offspring. It is going to be the

hurt and the pain of generations. That is the curse. I will put

enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and

her offspring. He shall bruise your head, you shall bruise his

heel. The key word in there, he. Who? Not Adam. No, Adam made a

mess of it. Adam had his shot and he blew it. The he is the

promise. And I love that he is given before, because I am not

resonating with the snake. I don't crawl around on my belly. I

try not to eat dust. We don't resonate with that. We'll

resonate in about 30 seconds. But don't you love it that the

promise of Jesus came before the curse to the man and to the

woman, before the curse for you and me? The promise of Jesus was

there. Not only was it established, it was now foretelling.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

Wouldn't we just love it if we just stopped there? And he shall

bruise your heel. Amen. We don't need to go on. But we do. To

the woman he said, I shall surely multiply your pain and

child bearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your

desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule

over you. Women in the room, how are you feeling right now? I

hate to say it. Pregnant women in the room, how are you

feeling right now? Sorry, that wasn't fair. Sorry, Mandy. But

understanding, this is where there needs to be consequences.

Understand, life was euphoric before this. Generations are

going to come. Why? Because the curse said it would. Offspring.

It's the first mention of it in the curse to Satan. But it's

also for our generation as well, the generations to come. And

not only is it the child bearing side, which again, as a male

pastor, you have to be very careful how you preach this,

right? Or you preach it and then take a vacation. Understanding

that there is not, the pain in the child bearing is that part

of the curse? Absolutely it is. But it's also the exhaustion. It

is also the complications. It's also the infertility. It's also

the stillbirths. It's also all of these things that come along

with the greatest aspect of life for a lot of people is the

birthing of children. That in that moment, something washes

over you that you don't really get any other time. I don't care

if you get the greatest gift ever. It's not the same as the

day that you have a child born. And I think I'll go to the map

for that. That's not a slap on the wrist. That's not go to your

room. This is going to be all consuming consequence. But a lot

of times we just keep it to the childbirth. Now, I don't know

if before this, because we don't have any record of it, if like

the babies just fell out and that was it. I have no idea. And

I'm not going to keep going there because even for that

comment I know I'm going to get emails. Sorry elders. But

understand that I think the curse is hitting us what we

value most, our children and our spouses. That's the curse.

That's the all encompassing curse. And that's the big one.

Your desire shall be contrary to your husband. What in the

world does that mean? Why does that have to be in there? Right?

If I'm a female, I'm going to be careful, isn't the first one

enough? The first one has a whole bunch of junk in it. Why

do I? Then the only thing that I would want to cling to,

hopefully then, is my husband. When everything in childbearing

and childmaking and all of those things is going to be awry and

is going to hurt, I at least can find comfort in my husband.

Nope. That's going to be tough. You're going to have to work

at it. It's one of the reasons why they say marriage takes

work. It's not 50-50. It's 100-100. It's choosing every

day if you are married to turn back to your spouse in the

commitment you have made. But even saying that, I know the

hurt and the pain in this room. There's pain of adultery.

There's pain of a divorce. There is pain of all different

kinds. Why does it have to be so painful? Because that's what

sin is. Sin is painful. Sin is a life without God. We are bent.

It's our depravity. It's in our nature.

Alright. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the

voice of your wife and have eaten the tree of which I

commanded you, you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground

because of you. There's a lot to unpack there. This isn't, and

a lot of people say, well, this is why women should be quiet.

No. That's chauvinistic and dumb. This is an understanding of

you did not protect your marriage. The person that you

coveted to love the most, period ever, period, you did not

secure that. You did not protect that. Because what if, what if

Adam would have done his job, right, got in front of her and

the snake, it's a talking snake, Adam, come on, and said no,

killed the snake, frolicked away. Everything would have been

great. But you didn't do your job. And now the temptation

every day is that men aren't going to do their jobs. This

doesn't mean occupation, even though it does, right, that's

all built into this, right. Some people look at this very foolishly

and go, well, I'm not a farmer so it doesn't matter. No, that's

not it. Yeah, does Jesse Smedberg probably relate to this a

little bit differently than I do? Absolutely he does. For those

who don't know, he's a farmer. And understanding that

everything you're going to try to do to provide for your family,

to provide and do the job that God has willed you to do is

going to be hard. Even if you're good at your job, it will be

hard. Even if you make a lot of money, it will never be enough.

Even if you're just scraping by, you'll have to continue to do

it. Because you didn't do your job, you didn't protect the

house, so to speak. This is why you're going to be cursed. This

is why sin is going to be ever at your door, which we see a

couple chapters from then with Cain and Abel. Right there is a

huge stop sign. Don't do it. Cain, don't murder your brother.

Sin is crouching at your door. And he succumbs to it. If this

isn't messy, I don't know what is. If you're looking at this

and go, that's not a big deal, then you're a fool. This is

massive. Cursed is the ground because of you. Continue. In

pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and

thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the

plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat

bread. Clearly we're called to eat, okay, but it's all going to

be cursed and might not all taste good. Till you return to

the ground from out of it you were taken. For you are dust and

dust you shall return. Hey, men in the room, how are you

feeling? Probably pretty accurate. Probably not a whole

lot to say. But here's another aspect that I've never thought

about. For the men in the room, you had to hear the curse of

your wife. God didn't forgive Eve. He didn't forgive Adam. But

they had to be there for each other's curses. That in the

good times and the bad they had to take it together. That was

uncovering that and praise to the Holy Spirit for doing that.

That it was, the only thing I can liken it to, and you can talk

to Care about this, is she made me go skydiving on our

honeymoon. And I mean it that way. She had no problem with it.

I was scared to death. I asked why is the door open as we took

off. And the guy reminded me that's what we're jumping out of.

I was like, oh, that's right. She said the scariest moment for

her was I jumped out first. And in the video that we have, you

see me jump out. She said that was the only time I was scared.

Now, we jumped at 13,000 feet. And that's when she was scared

because it had to do with me. So, yeah, she loves me. That's

excellent. Right? It's our honeymoon. We just went through a

nice wedding. So, we're good. Now I say it out loud and go, we

were married like three days and then we jumped out of an

airplane. I don't know about that. But she said that was the

scariest point for her. That when something is happening to

your spouse, to the people we love in our life, it affects us.

Some of you, like me, are the sensy type, right? We're sensies.

We're sensitive. There's something about justice in us.

I see it in my middle son, Teddy. When Joey or Jack is being

reprimanded, are being reprimanded, when they're in

trouble, Teddy feels it. Now, when Teddy's getting in trouble,

Joey and Jack laugh. So, it's a very different relationship. But

Teddy feels it. And you might be like that. That when bad things

are happening in the world, it drains you. You feel it. It's

like a weight on you. How do I know we have people in that?

Because you took spiritual gifts inventories and we talked about

it. That that's a gift. Some of you are empathetic in amazing

ways. Some of you are empathetic in super annoying ways. But that

is all the result of sin. If we didn't have sin in the world, we

wouldn't have to empathize with anything. Because it would all

be euphoric. Everything would be great. We wouldn't get in

arguments. There wouldn't be passive aggressiveness. There

wouldn't be pain. There wouldn't be death. I think we all can

agree. It's a giant mess. That there is an understanding here

that we, it's an uphill battle. And you're right, it is. But

here's the kicker. God doesn't leave us there. But God's going

to send someone to help make sense of the mess. Does he clean

it? In a way, yeah. The result of ultimate sin is death. We have

new life in Christ. But for the time being, Christ helps us make

sense of the mess and hopefully convicts us enough to not

continue to make it messier. Because we're really good at

that. We're super good at making a mess worse. We see this going

on and instead of fixing it or stepping in and helping it, we

see this fire and we just throw a can of gas on it. Because

that's our sin nature. And it's part of the curse that we're

under. It's part of that nature for us to make it worse. But

that's why God offers us things like peace and comfort and

direction. First Peter, or Second Peter talks about it. First

Peter 2 talks about it in this way. For this you have been

called because Christ also suffered, leaving you an example

so that you might follow in his steps. Everything that Adam and

Eve and the snake felt, Jesus felt. He went through it. Other

world religions, their savior, their whatever, doesn't do that.

They're up here and you have to notch your belt or get enough

check marks or whatever to reach it. Christ says, no, I'm going

to come down and I'm going to show you how to not make it

messier. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his

mouth, shot at Adam and Eve. Thanks Peter. But it's true. When

he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he was

being mocked and jeered and spit on and lied about and beaten,

he could have easily just snap of his fingers, sent legions of

angels to dominate, but he didn't. He did not threaten but

continued in trusting himself to him who judges justly. He

himself bore our sins on or in his body on the tree that we

might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you

have been healed for you were straying like sheep but now

return to the shepherd, the overseer of your souls. So if you

find yourself in a mess today, and I know that some of you are,

if you find yourself in hostility, if you find yourself in

non-marital bliss, if you find yourself in a job that you

absolutely hate, if you find yourself on a street where your

neighbors drive you absolutely crazy, if you're in families

where there's hurt and pain and Thanksgiving wasn't fun, it was

the opposite. Understand that Jesus gets it. And he does it, he

could, just all good. But he gives you perspective. It's not

by his excellence, it's not by his holiness, it's not by his

perfection, it's not by his na-na-na-na-na-na, I've never sinned

because that wouldn't be relatable. By his wounds we have

been healed. By his wounds we are called back. By his wounds we

can say, come, desires of nations, come, fix in us thy humble

home, rise the woman's conquering seed, bruise in us the

serpent's head. Adam's likeness now a face, stamp thy image in

its place. Second Adam from above, reinstate us in thy love.

Hark the herald, us angels sing, glory to.