The Fall

- Don't you guys love Michael Frazier?

Thank you, Michael.

We have such jewels in this house,

such gifts and treasure that the Lord has given us,

and man, I never want to take it for granted

how the Lord has blessed us.

Are you guys good this morning?

Well, praise the Lord.

I'm excited about today.

We are continuing our series,

The Greatest Stories Ever Told,

but before we do, we're not gonna have

vision casting tonight, as we announced,

if you've gotten our announcement.

We're not gonna do our vision casting

because the snow's melting and we figured

you want to watch the Packers beat the Eagles tonight.

And so, we're gonna do that on January 26th, okay?

We're gonna do that at the last Sunday of the month instead,

and that was a call made due to the weather,

and so still, if you'd like to be a part

of the Chili Cook-Off, you can still register.

That'll be at 5.30.

6.30 will be vision casting.

Guys, we want you to come and be a part of that.

We have a lot to share.

Make plans, mark your calendars for that very special event.

And then I've been asked to announce

that our 50-plus group is going to have a conference here.

It's the Legacy Seniors Conference

for Individuals and Couples of 50-plus years age.

Cost is $15 for individuals, $25 for couples.

The event will be the weekend of Friday,

February 28th through March 1st.

It'll be held in the fellowship hall,

dinner on Friday evening, lunch on Saturday.

There'll be worship before the sessions,

and t-shirts will be available.

Deadline to register is February 9th,

and I'm assuming they can register on the app.

Is that correct?

All right, so, I want you to register for this.

This is gonna be really, really great, okay?

So, make plans for that if you fit that demographic, okay?

So, the greatest stories ever told.

Look at your neighbor and say,

you are a part of the greatest story ever told.

(congregation murmurs)

But it ain't all about you.

(congregation laughs)

Will you stand with me this morning?

We are gonna read the entire

Genesis 3 chapter this morning.

(congregation laughs)

And you're gonna read it like I just gave you

the best news on the planet, all right?

Here we go.

Now the serpent was more crafty

than any other wild animals of Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, did God really say,

you must not eat from any tree in the garden?

The woman said to the serpent,

we may eat from fruit 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.

You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman,

for God knows that when you eat from it,

your eyes will be open and you will be like God,

knowing good and evil.

When the woman 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 sow 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.

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 serpent 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.

To the woman he said, I will make your pains

and 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 from the tree which I commanded you,

you must not eat from it, cursed is the ground

because of you, through painful toil you will eat food

from all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you

and 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.

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 a cherubim and a flashing sword,

flashing back and forth to guard the way

to the tree of life.

Father, I thank you for your word.

I thank you that it brings life

and I pray, Lord, that you would minister to us today

through it, in Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated.

Good job reading that whole chapter.

I know that was difficult for some of you, including me,

but we made it through.

I hope you're following the Bible reading plan

that the team gave out for you

and I just want to encourage you,

if you haven't started the plan

or maybe you started and you stopped,

I want to tell you it's not too late,

ever too late to get in God's word.

It's never too late to start again.

God is a God of start again.

And so start today, start today, get into the word.

Pick up where we are in the plan.

I believe today's Genesis 11.

So get into the word.

If you need a copy of the plan,

you can see Pastor Justin.

He'll make sure you get one, okay?

You are part of the greatest story ever told.

But the greatest stories are only great

if every significant part of the story is present.

And our stories, and our story begins

with one of the most tragic moments in human history,

the separation of God from his creation.

To admit the fall and not talk about sin

when it comes to our story is like watching a movie

and starting 15 minutes in

after the problem has been illuminated.

Has anybody ever seen the movie Finding Nemo?

If you wait 15 minutes into Finding Nemo

and you see Nemo's gone

and some dad fish is trying to find him,

you won't really understand what happened.

You have to watch the part where he goes off

and tries to touch the boat, right?

He tries to touch the boat.

And you see this up here.

Bruce, you gotta know all of the parts of the story

in order to fully understand or bring meaning

to the resolve at the end.

And so we cannot dismiss the part of our story

that we are part of a broken world

and we are sinners fallen from God's grace,

fallen from God's glory.

And we need God's grace in order to be in relationship

and be in connection with him.

Now sin is not a fun topic to talk about.

It's not something that we enjoy talking,

it's something we enjoy doing,

but it's not something we enjoy talking about,

especially when it comes to the conviction

that the Holy Spirit uses to change our lives.

Why would we wanna change our lives?

Why would he want to change our lives?

Well, he wants to change our lives

so that we can be more like him

because sin always leads to destruction.

Sin always leads to destruction.

The story of Adam and Eve is the foundation

of humanity's brokenness.

One act of disobedience didn't just affect Adam and Eve,

it fractured three vital relationships,

a relationship with God, a relationship with others

and a relationship with ourself.

And today we're gonna go through those things.

But even if their failure, God's response

was not to abandon Adam and Eve,

it was to initiate a redemptive plan, hallelujah.

Sin, Romans 3, 23 says, "For all have sinned

"and fallen short of the glory of God."

Would you say everybody?

Everybody has fallen short of the glory of God,

that includes you and me.

Sin did not just usher in bad actions.

We see a list of some of these actions

in the book of Galatians.

But it also caused us to question the purity

of everything and everyone around us.

Every relationship is tainted by sin

because all of us are tainted by sin.

And because of a tainted relationship,

we need the Holy Spirit to dispel from us,

to extract from us, to eradicate from our being

our sinful desires, our sinful ways

so that we can operate in perfect unity

and harmony and intimacy with first the Lord

and then one another.

It's only when Jesus is the center of your relationships

that he exposes and eradicates sin and restores intimacy.

I was on the West Coast just a little while ago

with my friend John and we were out in the desert

and I was wearing these boots.

And these boots were one of my nicer pair of boots

and they were brown.

They were really good solid color brown.

Well, when we left the desert,

they were a solid color white because of all the dust.

And we were going to go to this nice restaurant

and I said, "Hey, we're gonna have to swing by the hotel

"and change these boots because I can't just wear

"these dusty boots into this nice restaurant."

Can I tell you guys that sometimes we are walking

into places with dusty boots and we don't even realize it?

Do you know that whenever if I had worn those dusty boots,

I would have left a trail and everybody else

would have known about it?

Do you know that when we have sin in our lives,

the residue of our sin is apparent sometimes

to everybody else when it's not apparent to us?

I needed to change the boots.

I needed to change the boots because the boots were dirty.

Can I submit to you guys that we live in a fallen,

broken world that's saturated with sin?

See, I was out in the desert.

I wasn't trying to get my boots dirty.

The environment around me caused my boots

to turn a different color.

What I'm saying to you is we are saturated

in a world of sin, so it stands to reason

that the dust particles of sin will be on us

at the end of each day.

That's why every day we're supposed to acknowledge the Lord.

Every day we're supposed to pick up our cross

and follow Him because if we don't,

if we don't acknowledge, if we don't examine ourselves

every day, then we will eventually wake up

and we will have dusty boots and have no idea

that we're wearing them.

Sin is like a film that we walk through,

but we have an agent of grace, Jesus Christ,

that allows us to eliminate that film,

that nastiness, that dust away from our lives.

Sin is deceiving, but the deception isn't

will you choose the Lord or will you choose Satan?

The deception is will you choose the Lord

or will you choose yourself?

Will you choose the Lord or will you choose yourself?

See, we don't have to be excited about the fall

and that it happened.

We don't need to be excited.

We don't have to be excited, but let me tell you something.

In it, we get to see an extraordinary beauty

and witness the love of a powerful God in a way

that we never would have seen had the fall not happened.

So let's look at three things that sin does.

The first thing is this.

Sin fractures our relationship with God.

The Word tells us 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 then they hid from the Lord God

among the trees of the garden.

How many of you are hiding this morning?

How many of you are hiding from your creator,

the one who loves you, the one who pursues you,

the one who provided Jesus to die on the cross,

the one who has a plan and a purpose?

How many of you are hiding from the Lord God this morning?

Adam and Eve were created for intimate fellowship with God.

I want you to imagine walking side by side with your creator

knowing him fully and being fully known,

but sin changes everything.

And instead of walking toward God,

they hid from him in shame and in fear.

The Word tells us that perfect love drives out all fear

and you have a God who is perfect love.

It doesn't say that your perfect obedience drives out fear.

It says his perfect love drives out fear.

Sin separates us from God.

It convinces us that we're unworthy of his presence

and tempts us to run from the very one who can heal us.

But I want you to notice God's response

in Genesis chapter three, verse nine.

He says this, "Where are you?"

That's a poignant, profound question that God asks.

"Where are you?"

Do you realize that this is not a question of geography?

That God Almighty knew exactly

where Adam and Eve were geographically?

God already knows where they are physically.

The question, "Where are you?"

is an invitation to self-reflection and honesty.

It is as if God is saying,

"Do you see where your sin has taken you?

"Do you see the distance between us?

"Will you come back to me?"

This shows God's heart that even in their rebellion,

he initiates the conversation seeking to restore them.

Where are you?

This question is the beginning of God's redemptive plan.

He doesn't wait for Adam and Eve to come to him.

He comes to them and it reflects the gospel itself.

While we were yet sinners, God pursued us through Jesus

in Romans chapter five, verse eight.

I want us to understand, church,

that God's first response to sin wasn't punishment,

it was pursuit.

God's first response to sin wasn't punishment,

it was pursuit.

And can I tell you, any time you sin and you run

and you hide from God, God's initial response is not,

"How can I punish you?

"What is the consequence?"

It is that he misses you and wants to be with you.

But your sin separates.

Your sin separates and your God wants to be with you.

So he asks the question of all of us, "Where are you?"

God is not up in heaven with a magnifying glass

looking down to smite you at the first stench of sin.

Our sin is present.

God wants to illuminate it so that we can be with him.

He does not want to be separate from us.

Sin fractures our relationship with God.

Sin also fractures our relationship with one another.

It fractures our relationship with one another.

The man said, "The woman you put here with me,

"she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it."

Adam and Eve's relationship, if we examine it,

was designed to reflect unity and partnership.

But sin introduced blame and division.

Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent,

and humanity's relationships have ever been marked

by selfishness, pride, and conflict ever since.

Motivations and intentions are all called into question

when we try to love and build deep connections

with others because of sin.

Because of the tainting of the world

when you try to move in pure love toward one another,

it's about, "What's that motive there?

"What are they trying to do?

"What's going on here?"

Purity is question because we live

in this tainted, broken world.

The Word says in the book of Psalm,

"Search me, God, and know my heart.

"Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

"See if there's any offensive way in me

"and lead me into the way everlasting."

When was the last time you asked God to search your heart?

See, here's the thing.

We can probably come to mind real fast those obvious sins,

those sins that are kind of the big ones.

But guys, there's probably some low-level things

that the people who love you most

are gonna see before you see.

God, search my heart.

Lord, would you illuminate, would you give God permission

to illuminate areas in your life that you need to change?

That's a hard prayer because it means

that you've gotta do something with the information.

When God illuminates something, you've gotta choose

whether or not you're going to change.

Here's the thing, we like to get up here.

I talked last week about exotic sin.

I talked about, I named a few.

You know the exotic sins.

But what about selfishness?

What about pride?

What about unkindness?

There's a whole slew of little sneaky booger sins

that stick to our life quite figuratively and literally.

(congregation laughing)

And they taint our relationships.

Yet we walk around and smile and say,

"I'm not getting drunk.

"I'm not doing X, Y, and Z, so I'm good."

Yeah, well, your righteousness is like filthy rags.

You need Jesus every day.

Everyone needs Jesus.

And there will always be layers for you to address.

There will always be layers for you to address in your life.

Because we're on a journey to become like Him,

to look like Him.

Sin damages our ability to love and to serve one another.

It turns unity into competition and harmony into hostility.

But God's redemptive work transforms

our relationships with others.

Romans 12, 10 calls us to a different way.

It says, "Be devoted to one another in love."

That's not, "Oh, I love you, let me hug your neck.

"Oh, yeah, you're so good."

No, be devoted to one another in love.

That means, "Hey, you're headed to be hit by a Mack truck

"and I'm gonna push you out of the way.

"Your sin is destroying you

"and I'm gonna call that out in your life.

"I'm gonna be devoted to you in love."

Then it says, "Honor one another above yourselves."

What does that honor word mean?

It means I find out that Zach is moving in sin.

I don't go to Doug and James and Robert and say,

"Let me tell you what Zach's doing."

(audience laughing)

Let me share with you what's going on.

Ooh, look what he's doing.

No, I honor that person.

And I'm devoted to them in love.

And when I call them out for their sin,

I should be doing it with tears,

because my heart is breaking.

Because when you love someone

and you see them in destructive patterns,

it should break your heart.

Remember the prayer, God, give us tears for the loss.

Give us a broken heart for what breaks yours.

And we need people in our lives calling each other out.

We need intimate relationships.

We need people in our life who will say,

"Hey, listen, let me encourage you in this.

"This may be an area where X, Y, and Z."

I shared the story about the sugar smack on my face

for three hours.

Nobody tells me there's a piece of cereal on my face

at school until I reach up and got a midday snack

and I ate it.

(audience laughing)

That's not love.

Tell me I got sugar smack on my face.

The Lord has blessed me with some really incredible friends.

One of them is this guy.

And we were having a conversation,

I asked him earlier if I could share the story.

We were having a conversation, I don't know,

probably a year ago or something like that.

I don't remember when it was.

And we were on the phone.

And I don't remember what I did to frustrate James.

And I probably frustrate him daily.

But at this particular moment,

I frustrated him about something, he got agitated.

And out of his anger, we were on the phone,

he yelled at me and we hung up.

And it didn't end well.

And I never experienced that kind of response

from James before.

And I'm shocked.

And literally 15 seconds later, he calls right back.

And he says, "Kevin, I don't wanna ever yell at you

"like that again.

"Would you forgive me?"

I responded out of anger.

I responded out of frustration.

Now the reason I share that story is to say

that in your relationships, I'm gonna tell you something.

If you've got real connection, real deep relationship,

there's gonna be conflict, first of all.

There's gonna be conflict.

But as you grow closer to people,

you're going to see people at their best and at their worst.

And can I tell you something?

And maybe James remembers,

I have no idea what that conversation was about,

but what was impactful was that the Holy Spirit

brought immediate restoration.

Because James walked in humility

and he called me right back and said,

"Wait a second, this is not how I'm to respond

"to situations like this."

And can I tell you, I told James this morning,

and I believe that.

Listen, he knows a lot of my flaws and a lot of my best,

and I know a lot of his flaws and a lot of his best.

This man exudes Jesus Christ.

And the people closest to you are the ones

who can actually say he is the real deal

and this guy's the real deal.

You need people in your life who love you enough

that will call you out, that will call you up,

that will say to you, "Hey, this is not how we handle this.

"This is not what this looks like.

"Let me help you become more like Christ,

"and you help me."

There's an invitation, it's a two-way street

that's being devoted to one another in love.

The Word says this, "Examine yourselves

"to see whether you are in the faith.

"Test yourselves.

"Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you

"unless of course you fail the test?"

Listen, I don't wanna be a selfish person,

but I'm living in a world saturated by selfishness,

so it stands to reason that if I'm not reflecting

and examining my life, I will operate in a selfless posture.

I don't wanna be a prideful person,

but I'm living in a world saturated with pride.

So if I'm not paying attention

and I'm not examining my heart

and following the Holy Spirit

and allowing him to move in my life,

I probably will start to operate in pride.

I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be a liar,

but if I'm saturated in a world of lies and deceit,

so if I don't constantly examine myself

and I don't get before the Lord Jesus Christ

and allow him to do a work in my life,

then I may become a liar.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

You become like what you're saturated around

and who you're with, right?

And guys, we're saturated in a culture of sin.

But we have this Jesus.

We have the gift of the Holy Spirit who will help us.

Can I tell you, if you ever get caught up in a sin pattern,

there is always a way out.

There is always a way out.

Now, it might pass through like a kidney stone,

but there's a way out.

(congregation laughing)

There's a way out.

Let's look at God's response here.

First of all, he goes and he says, "What have you done?"

He says to Adam, "What have you done?"

Why does he go to Adam first?

Goes to Adam as the leader and he says,

"Hey, what have you done?"

And what does he say?

She did it.

All right, he goes to Eve.

"What have you done?"

He made me do it, the serpent.

And he goes to the serpent.

Here's something interesting I want you to notice here.

God is always about getting to the root of the issue.

He's always about getting to,

see, we like to address symptoms and move on.

Adam blamed Eve.

He said, "All right, let's get to Eve."

Eve blamed the serpent.

Okay, let's get to the serpent.

The serpent was the root, but he didn't stop there.

He addresses the serpent and then he goes back to Eve.

Then he addresses Eve and he goes back to Adam.

Can I tell you right now that God wants to get

at the root of the sin in your life?

He's not, the symptoms, sometimes those vices

and those things we go to and we pray,

"Lord, I wanna stop doing X, Y, and Z."

Those are just vices and God says,

"I want to get to the root

because if I can uproot what's going on, then it will die.

It will die."

I don't know how many times I've gone out

into my flower bed or garden and pulled out things

and weeded and weeded and weeded and guess what?

Weeds come back unless I get it at the root.

The weeds come back and guys, your sin,

have you ever noticed whenever you pull something out

and you don't get at the roots,

at least my experience has been it actually comes back

bigger, it actually comes back worse?

'Cause the root has had an opportunity to get stronger,

to get stronger.

God wants to uproot some things in your life.

You must get to the root in order to be healed.

We love to address the symptoms, we love to numb the pain

and use excuses to get by for a little bit longer,

but God wants to eradicate the sin in your life.

Lastly, sin fractures our relationship with ourselves.

Do you know you have a relationship with yourself?

Some of you need to realize

you got a relationship with yourself.

You got a relationship with yourself.

It says then the eyes of both of them were open

and they realized they were naked

so they sewed fig leaves together

and made coverings for themselves.

Before the fall, Adam and Eve were secure in their identity

as God's creation, but sin distorted their self-perception,

replacing peace with shame.

They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves

in an inadequate attempt to hide their brokenness.

And listen guys, sin does the same thing to us.

It distorts how we see ourselves.

When was the last time you looked at,

I'm being very like serious here.

When's the last time you looked in the mirror

and you said, man, I am the beauty.

I'm so beautiful, I'm the essence of the king.

Most of us look in the mirror and we say,

man, I got a pimple here, crevice here, right?

You look in the mirror and you don't like what you see.

Some of you look in the reflective mirror of your inside

in your in-being and you don't like what you see.

Do you know that you were wonderfully and created,

you were wonderfully and fearfully made by your creator?

He created your inmost being, he knows exactly who you are.

Do you know that it is okay for you to look at yourself

and say, I'm a son, I'm a child of the most high God.

I'm a son and a daughter of a king.

Guys, when you can walk in the freedom of knowing

that he's got you and that you belong to him,

there's nothing that will stop you here on earth.

It's incredible the extraordinary things

that your king will do in you and for you.

God does not leave us in our shame.

Romans 12, two offers hope, it says this,

do not conform to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Do you know what that tells me?

It means the renewing of my mind can actually happen.

It means that it actually can happen.

You know that thought that you continue to have,

you know that thing that's in your brain that you're like,

I just can't get, I can't stop thinking about this,

I can't stop going back to this.

Listen, the serpent planted a thought.

The serpent didn't grab, he didn't have,

I don't know, maybe an arms, I don't know,

he was slither after, he didn't grab the apple

and shove it in Eve's mouth.

He planted a thought, and this is what the enemy does to you

this is why the ultimate deceit isn't choosing the Lord

or Satan, it is choosing the Lord or yourself

because guess what, you're in the driver's seat.

And the serpent, the enemy, will plant this idea in your,

if I just do this, it will numb this for a little while.

I'm just gonna tell this little white lie,

I don't, it doesn't matter.

I'm just gonna be a little bit,

I'm just gonna have a little bit untruth

because I don't need to explain the whole thing

so I'm just gonna tell a little bit of a white lie

in this explanation.

It's a thought.

And then you give birth, it gives birth to action

and you choose to move.

But if we renew our mind,

we can't renew our minds on our own,

but if we allow the Holy Spirit to renew our mind,

then we begin to operate in the truth and with the truth.

Renewing is possible and it's a daily task.

Sin is the genesis and the heartbeat of pain and isolation.

Through Jesus, God invites us out of the hiding

and into his presence.

Listen, hiding from God deepens the pain.

Stepping toward God begins the healing.

Hiding from God deepens the pain.

And guys, can I tell you,

there are people sitting under the sound of my voice

that you have been in severe pain for a very long time.

Guys, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?

God has healing for you.

The whole point of let there be light

is so that Jesus can enter your story

and be a part of your story

and that you can experience God

in a way that you've never experienced him before.

Can I ask you, do you need healing today?

I don't mean do you need something

to temporarily override the symptom.

I'm talking about everlasting healing.

You see, in the garden there was this tree.

It's called the tree of life.

And some of us would think, man,

it's kind of mean of God

to kick Adam and Eve out of the garden.

Has anybody ever thought that?

Man, that's kind of like mean of God

to just say get out of my presence.

In fact, you know, Kevin, you keep saying

he wants to be with us,

yet he was the one that chose to banish them from the garden.

Do you understand why he chose to do that?

You see, in the garden there was a yes, a yes, a yes,

a yes, a yes, a yes, a yes, do this, do this, do this,

name this, you can do this, you can do this,

you can do this, don't do that.

And we focus on the one dope.

Can I tell you there's so many more yeses

in the kingdom than there are nos?

So many more yeses than there are nos.

But there was this no in the garden

and they broke that rule

and there was this other tree called the tree of life

and when they broke the rule, they became broken.

Adam and Eve were broken and here's the thing,

had they gone and been able to stay in the garden,

had they eaten from that tree,

then they would remain in their broken state for eternity.

And so God banishes them from the garden

to protect them from themselves.

I want you to understand this,

God's responses are always fueled by perfect love.

We don't always understand because it doesn't feel good

when God responds to our choices.

Sometimes there are consequences that are necessary

because of what we've done that we have to feel

and we have to walk through.

But it's all birthed and fueled out of perfect love.

And when we trust him with that, when we can trust him,

we understand there is a redemptive plan right off of Eve.

God is always one step ahead.

And so for Adam and Eve, God had a redemptive plan

and that redemptive plan has moved all throughout history

to 2025 here in January for Springhouse Church.

He has a redemptive plan for your life.

God's responses are always fueled by perfect love

and preparing for this message,

I wrote this poem that I'd like to share with you.

In Eden's glow where life began,

God walked with man hand in hand,

but whispers came a serpent's ploy

to steal their trust, their peace, their joy.

Did God really say the tempter lied?

And with that doubt, their faith untied,

the fruit was taken, the line was crossed,

and all creation felt the cost.

They hid in shame, their hearts laid bare,

a chasm formed, no bridge was there.

The blame was cast, the cure was sown,

and sin's deep roots were fully grown.

The tree alive now kept from sight,

its gates were barred by flaming light,

a mercy wrapped in judgment's guise

to spare the world from endless cries.

Yet God in love would not let go,

a seed of hope began to grow.

Through toil and pain, through thorn and strife

would come the one who would bring new life.

For in the garden, truth was clear,

the fall brought death, but grace drew near.

A promise spoke of Satan's fall,

of Christ who crushed the curse for all.

And on a hill, the tree would stand,

a rugged cross by sovereign hand.

The weight of sin, the shame, the loss,

redeemed and healed upon that cross.

The veil was torn, the way made new,

eternal life came into view.

The tree alive now ours to see,

through Christ who died to set us free.

So come, O sinner, lift your gaze,

no longer lost in Eden's haze.

For where sin grew, his grace abounds,

and in his love, new life is found.

There is another tree.

There is another tree, and in the book of Revelation,

the word tells us because of the blood of Jesus Christ,

there's gonna come a day that we are gonna partake

of that tree of life and live forever.

But we are not gonna live forever in our broken state.

We're gonna live forever perfect, just like him.

And we're going to worship Jesus Christ

around the throne for all eternity.

Are you ready to go there?

Are you ready to be there?

Sin has been washed away.

The curse of sin has been put to death.

The curse of sin no longer has a hold on you.

Saints, lean in to the Lord.

Eradicate the sin in your life.

Know that you are not alone in what you walk in.

And if you wanna be proactive,

which I encourage you to do, come on out worship team,

I encourage you to get with people in your life

who you love and say, help me examine my heart.

What can I do to change?

And if you find somebody who's willing to actually go there

and have those conversations with you, you have found gold.

You have found something that the Lord supernaturally,

someone supernaturally God has put in your life.

That is what community is really about,

getting a relationship.

This is my daughter Lucia.

I've told this story before, but it fits today.

We lived in Nolensville a long time ago,

and there was an evening where I had gone downstairs,

and I'd like to check on the girls every night

just to make sure they're okay and they're tucked in bed.

And I went to Hadassah and I'd gone to Ruby.

At that time, Nora wasn't born,

and I'd gone to Lucia's room, and Lucia wasn't there.

She wasn't in her bed.

And so I figured, okay, she went to the bathroom

or something like that.

And so went into the bathroom and she wasn't there.

And so I went downstairs, and when I got downstairs,

I saw that the back door was open.

And Dad's heart starts to go whoa.

So I go, Lucia, Lucia, where are you?

Nowhere to be found.

So I run from that door all the way to the front door,

and I open it up, and we've got dogs.

And listen, Lucia loves our animals,

and she takes care of them.

And I'm thinking maybe she's taking them out.

I mean, it's close to midnight.

Geez.

Open the door, and I'm trying to be quiet in the house,

but there comes a point where you don't care

how quiet you've been if it's your kid.

Is that true?

- Yeah. - Right?

Lucia!

Lucia!

Sherry comes running down the stairs.

Why are you screaming?

What's going on?

I can't find Lucia.

Well, she's probably in the back.

No, I checked the back.

Well, she's probably, no, I checked there.

And so in a flurry, I go and I get my coat and my shoes

'cause I'm like, she's outside.

The door was open, and I'm freaking.

And so as I'm sitting down quickly putting on my shoes,

I hear this sound coming from our front entrance bathroom.

And I stopped for a second,

and I thought maybe I heard something.

So I go in there and I look, and she's not in there.

And I turn around and I go,

and I go to go outside the door,

and I hear something again, and I get real still.

And I back up, and I turn back around,

and I go into the bathroom.

And I stand there.

The light was on.

It didn't dawn on me.

The light was on until this moment.

And so I bend down, and I open the vanity doors.

And inside the vanity sits Lucia

with chocolate all over her mouth.

And as we say, sin leaves residue.

And she just busted out of tears.

But can I tell you, her daddy busted out in tears as well.

Because in that moment for me,

it didn't matter what she had done.

My daughter was lost, and now she was found.

And can I tell you, friends,

some of you are running around and hiding

with chocolate on your face with the residue of sin.

And your father, your heavenly father, is opening the door.

And you're so scared,

because you don't know what's gonna happen.

And all he's saying is, I found you.

Come out of hiding.

I have found you.

There's an invitation today to come out of hiding.

And it's a bold step.

Would you raise your hand this morning

if you've ever had to come out of hiding

in some shape, form, or fashion?

Raise your hand.

Keep it up.

Everybody look around the room.

Why am I doing this?

Because the enemy's saying to you, you're the only one.

You're the only one.

That is a lie from the enemy.

And you know what the enemy says?

I don't want you to be free when you leave today.

But God wants to liberate you.

God wants to do something in you

that you've never seen him do before.

He wants to set you free

in the most supernatural, extraordinary way.

And the people who are about to come up here

and pray for you, they're not perfect.

These people are the most jacked up,

messed up people we have on leadership.

Come on, join our leadership team.

But they know this God.

They know this Jesus.

They know who to point you to.

And they'll walk with you.

And they'll say, hey, get you a James in your life.

Get you somebody in your life that you can go,

hey, I need to look more like Christ.

So I've done my level best,

hopefully with the Holy Spirit's help,

to convey to you that sin separates you from God.

It is your choice to continue in your sin.

It is also your choice to be liberated.

And this morning, the invitation is here.

Would you stand with me?

Some of you may be here and be like,

man, Lord, I just need to,

I've not asked you to examine my heart.

Maybe that's the prayer this morning.

God, would you examine my heart this morning?

Because everyone in this room, that is a command.

That is what we all should be doing,

is examining our heart.

And truth be told, if Jesus Christ was standing right here,

every one of us would be down on our knees and face.

If you were gonna minister to people,

would you come forward?

And with those of you,

don't let the enemy talk you out of it.

If you need to come and you need to confess,

you need to pray, you need to,

maybe it's just I wanna agree with somebody

to examine my heart.

I wanna be free.

Come this morning, come right now.

Don't hesitate, don't wait.

These people love you.

Come, spend time in the altar space.

Let's worship.

(gentle music)