November 6, 2022 / Origins / The First Consequences

Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast.

Today John Metter, lead pastor of Cross City Church, brings a message in the Origins series

that helps answer the five most important questions in life.

How you live today depends on how you answer these questions.

Here's John Metter with the teaching on the five questions.

We are so glad that you're with us this morning.

If you have your Bibles, please take them and turn to the book of Genesis today, Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3.

In just a moment we'll open them up and read Genesis chapter 3, the number of verses.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Let me say one thing today before we begin and that is this is, whether you know it or

not, this is the one year anniversary of our grand opening which means that one year ago

today we opened up the facilities that we had been constructing over almost the entire

duration of the pandemic.

Now it may sound crazy to build during the pandemic but that's exactly how the timing

of it would unfold and God was so faithful through that whole process and we ended up

paying it off completely within one month of the construction and I think that's worthy

of celebration.

Would you join me today?

I'm so glad about it.

Amen.

So we've been in these facilities that we just renovated and constructed for over a

year now and today we had a special open house for those that may not have been able to see

it.

There are a number of people that came by and we invite you to continue to be connected

with us and involved with us as we see ministry happening in a great way in those new facilities.

Please stand with me as we read God's word together today.

The title of the message today is the first consequences out of Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

If you've been with us you know that we have been walking through the book of Genesis and

we've gone through chapters 1 and 2 and now we'll get towards the middle end of chapter

3.

So many firsts in the book of Genesis but today the first consequence.

Now I don't know if anybody has been around long enough to know the TV show that happened

a few years ago called Truth or Consequences.

Raise your hand if you've heard of it before.

It was an absolutely awful game show.

It was terrible.

It was a game show where somebody would be asked to play a game along with a celebrity

and they were given a question that was kind of a trivia question, a difficult, hard to

understand, certainly hard to answer question and if they didn't tell the truth about that

question they had to do the consequences and the consequences were typically some zany,

some weird and embarrassing and humiliating stunt that they did with the celebrities.

So if you didn't tell the truth you had to suffer the consequences.

That's the way it unfolded.

It was such a bad joke that they were going to take it off the air and they actually had

a contest awarding money to the town in America that would name itself after Truth or Consequences

and a half-past little town in New Mexico said we'll call ourselves Truth or Consequences

New Mexico for the $100,000 prize and that's why when you drive through Truth or Consequences

New Mexico that's why they have that name and you just wanted to know that didn't you?

But this message today is about the consequences of what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of

Eden.

You know our game show consequences are pretty minimal but the consequences of what happened

that we looked at last week with the first temptation, the first act of sin and rebellion

against God are not so small.

So this passage today that we're going to read is a little bit of a weighty passage

beginning in chapter 3 verse 9 and I pick it up with these words.

Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked

so I hid myself.

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

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

The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you've done?

And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you more than

all the cattle and more than every beast of the field.

On your belly you will go and dust you will eat all the days of your life and I'll put

enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.

To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.

In pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will be for your husband and he

will rule over you.

Then he said to Adam, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from

the tree about which I commanded you saying you shall not eat from it, curse is the ground

because of you and to all you will eat of it all the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it will grow for you and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground because from

it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Now the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all the living.

We'll stop there.

Father in Jesus name today give us insight about this passage about these events.

Father help us to know more than what we read.

Help us to know the big picture of how sin and the curse in the garden actually impacts

people today.

It actually impacts us.

Father help us to know the bad news but help us also to know the good news that comes as

a result of your actions regarding the curse.

Father today speak to each of us.

We ask it in Jesus name and all God's people said amen.

Please be seated if you would.

So that's a really encouraging set of verses isn't it?

I mean not really.

It's probably one of the most discouraging passages of scripture that you'll find certainly

in the first few chapters of Genesis.

This is the bad news.

In fact the bad news just keeps on coming.

When we look at all that Adam and Eve reaped as a result of sin it's all bad news and what's

happened in the previous passage is that Adam and Eve decide to listen to the serpent who

is deceiving them to disobey God.

The classic garden scene that we looked at last week.

In that classic garden scene the first temptation took place and the first sin took place and

now we're looking at the consequences of what happened in the Garden of Eden.

We learned a lot about temptation last week, a lot about sin last week but we didn't spend

much time on the curse or the effects of sin and that's what we're going to deal with today.

So I need you to brace yourself for some really bad news.

You know it was a test or a survey that was done a number of years ago and it asked people

the question, a large group of people were asked, which do you prefer first?

If I'm going to share with you good news and bad news which do you want first?

Anybody ever ask you that question?

Do you want the good news first?

Do you want the bad news first?

78% of people said we want the bad news first.

Since that's true I'm going to give you the bad news first.

The bad news is really bad.

In fact the bad news is so bad you're going to want to, you're going to yearn for the

good news by the time I get through with the bad news.

But that's the way it's supposed to be.

That's really what's unfolding in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

The bad news just keeps happening.

It's chapter after chapter and it's event after event and it's curse after curse.

Where they choose sin and they disobey God and things move from paradise, which we like

to think about in the Garden of Eden, to pain.

Where things move from being connected to God well to being separate from God.

All these things are unfolding as a result of what's going on from the curse of sin.

In fact when we talk about the curse of sin today you're going to be looking at a picture

of life as you know it because the curse extends to today.

The curse continues to happen until today.

Unless something counteracts that curse in our lives we are doomed to exist in that curse.

So I want to walk through this curse with you today and look at five immediate consequences

of sin.

Five immediate things that took place as a result of Adam and Eve's sin against God.

Just hang on for a little while because in just a few minutes we're going to get to the

other side of that which is the good news.

You can't just share bad news and not share good news right?

So you're going to get the good news in just a few moments.

But the good news is made better by an understanding of what the bad news is really all about.

So let's look at the bad news.

Five immediate consequences of sin.

First of all the Bible says here that once Adam and Eve sinned spiritual separation took

place.

Spiritual separation.

In fact we open with verse 9 and 10.

Verse 10 says the Lord God called 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

so I hid myself.

So in this interaction God is speaking to the man who he had great interaction with,

a great communication with before the sin and now man is hiding.

In fact he expresses shame, he expresses guilt, he expresses the desire to not be in that

place at that moment.

And in a moment before that time, before sin he was interacting with God.

He was communicating with God.

They walked together in the garden, Adam and Eve did.

God gave them responsibility.

They had purpose in their lives.

They were able to see the beauty of all of God's creation because they were image bearers.

God created them with so much potential.

But now as a result of disobeying God they're in fear and they're in shame and they're

in hiding.

They continue to be alive for the moment but they are not connected with God anymore relationally

spiritually.

They are no longer innocent.

They are no longer communicating with him.

They are no longer trusting God.

They no longer want to be in the same place as God.

This huge division took place.

That's really hard for us to fathom that.

I mean after all it took place 6,000 years ago at a place called the Garden of Eden.

It seems so much of a fairy tale, so mystical but it's literal what took place in the Garden

of Eden.

It happened this way.

And one reason I know it happened this way is because the curse of sin that was pronounced

after that continues on to this day very obviously and very evidently.

So how can you feel what they were feeling in that moment?

Well let me just ask you to imagine a time in your life when most of us have had one

of those times where someone we loved betrayed us.

Where there was at one point harmony and love and affection.

Where there was trust and confidence and the ability to know we were in perfect harmony

with each other and all of a sudden something entered into that relationship that ripped

it apart.

And from harmony it went to division.

From love there were all kinds of other emotions and feelings that weren't good.

All of a sudden instead of trusting we had no confidence in them at all.

And we were separated.

We were divided not only personally and physically but also emotionally and spiritually and every

other way.

We were ripped apart.

Has that ever happened in your life?

Well most of us it has in some form.

Where something was so good and then all of a sudden it was so, so bad.

Now multiply that by thousands of times and that's what's happened in the Garden of

Eden.

Where God has had such a great connection with Adam and Eve, his first two members of

the human race and yet they rebelled against God and no longer wanted to be part of what

God was doing.

That's what happens sometimes in human relationships but it happened in that spiritual relationship

in the Garden of Eden.

Spiritual separation where there was before that moment spiritual harmony.

That's curse number one.

The second thing that happened is perpetual adversity.

Last week we introduced this character that we know as the serpent and of course we traced

it through the Bible and realized this is nothing other than Satan the adversary, a

fallen angel that's coming and speaking through this serpent.

But look at what it says about this serpent in verses 14 and 15.

The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you.

On your belly you will go and dust you will eat and I will put enmity between you and

the woman and between your seed and her seed.

So God curses the serpent here and the wording suggests that the serpent only went on his

belly after the sin and temptation took place which means it must have been a different

kind of creature before that moment.

Now we don't know specifically what that might have been but we do know that it was Satan

the fallen angel who was speaking through this serpent and from that point on the serpent

or the snake has been seen as an adversary in our life.

Let me just take a little survey.

How many of you see the snake as an adversary in your life?

And I'm just talking about a general snake, just any old snake would you raise your hand?

Okay.

Anybody in the room love snakes?

Do not put your hand up.

I can think of no good use for snakes on this planet.

I'm the guy that says the only good snake is a dead snake, right?

And in all my interactions with snakes only one of two things happen.

I kill them or I get away from them one way or another.

Snakes are cursed creatures but even greater than that the one who spoke through the serpent

is a cursed creature.

That is still very real.

The greatest adversity you and I will have in life is not just ourselves in our own sin

but our great adversary is Satan himself.

And basically what the Bible says about the curse upon the serpent is that he would perpetually

be working against our relationship with God.

He'll always tempt, he'll always deceive, he'll always lie, he'll always cheat in every

way.

And Satan is not a figment of anybody's imagination.

Satan is a literal creature that God has named and clarified is on the planet.

In fact he's acknowledged by Jesus himself.

Do a quick word study of what Jesus says about Satan and you're going to find these words.

He's called the enemy, the evil one, the prince of the world, the liar, the father of lies.

He's a murderer.

He has his own kingdom.

He snatches the word.

He robs.

He steals.

He kills.

He destroys.

Now I've got to tell you this, as a believer in Jesus Christ and someone who's following

Christ you will always, so long as you're on this planet, have an adversary and it is

Satan.

He's going to be a perpetual adversity to what God wants to do in your life.

Curse number one, spiritual separation.

Curse number two, a perpetual adversity.

Curse number three, pain and conflict.

Pain and conflict.

John, in this passage in verse 16 it says to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply

your pain and childbirth, yet your desire will be for your husband and he will rule

over you.

I want you to keep something in mind here.

While Adam and Eve were the first husband and wife in the scripture and in creation

they were also simply the first two human beings.

So the curse was first of all physical pain of childbirth, which we really don't have

anybody arguing about that.

Who knows to have a child, if you are a woman who's conceived and had a child, you know

the pain of childbirth and the difficulty of that.

Man, this is your turn to be quiet and say nothing because you know nothing about pain.

But it's also a reminder that relational conflict in humanity is going to take place.

Now in essence, these verses here are not a curse about marriage.

Sometimes we look at that and we say, okay, what are the details of her desire shall be

for her husband, but he shall rule over you.

And I generalize that and simply say it's about conflict.

It's about conflict when sin comes into our lives.

It's about conflict when selfishness happens in our life, which is what giving into temptation

and sinning really is.

And it's assuredly this pain and conflict kind of environment that we have on the planet.

And as much as we hate human conflicts, as much as we detest that, we're doomed to it

by the nature and by the curse of sin.

That's what happens when people think about themselves first.

It's an inescapable result that happens around us.

We ask questions like who is first, who's the leader, who has power, who controls, who's

the victim?

Those are the kinds of questions we ask when we're operating in our sin nature.

And it's a summary of sinful nature.

And it plays out in arguments and conflicts.

It plays out in strife and hatred and racism and discrimination and division and military

conflict and war.

I mean, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

The curse of sin is pain and conflict across the world.

It's getting darker.

It's getting deeper.

It's getting more difficult, this issue of the curse.

And then fourthly, it is toil and hardship.

In verse 18, God actually curses the ground, curses the ground because of you.

In toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life.

So this curse infects the whole earth itself.

Just try to imagine this perfect garden that God put Adam and Eve in.

Imagine the seas bursting out of the ground with full-grown plants and the abundance of

the fruit that was happening in the Garden of Eden.

Imagine the freedom from predators or bugs or animals and weeds.

You somehow imagine this when we plant the garden.

It doesn't happen so well.

I'm not much of a gardener, but I remember a few years ago, my wife and I decided to

make a very large garden.

The problem is after we planted the garden and after we made sure it was starting well,

we went on a vacation for two weeks.

And when we came back, it was absolutely overgrown with weeds and thorns and thistles.

And it was just worthless after that point.

That was my last garden attempt, by the way.

Because I was discouraged by the weeds and the inevitable demise of a garden if you leave

it alone.

But God says this is what's going to happen to the entire earth.

It'll be nonstop work for Adam and Eve and all those descendants.

It'll be nonstop work.

You'll sweat by your brow.

You'll have thorns and thistles.

It'll become difficult for you.

Instead of that botanical utopia that they had in the garden before sin, now they have

toil and hardship in bringing food out of the ground.

So every time you see a rogue growth of weeds, it reminds you of original sin.

Every time you see some predator tearing up a garden, it is the reminder of the result

and the curse of sin and the weeds in our lives that sin brings.

When work is hard, remember it all began back with the curse.

And then of course, after toil and hardship, there is physical death.

That's what God says to Adam in verse 19.

By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread until you return to the ground.

For you are dust and to dust you shall return.

This is the very thing that God said, if you take up this tree that I've forbidden you,

you'll die.

It's the very thing the serpent said to Adam and Eve, won't happen.

You're not going to die.

Well, they didn't die immediately.

God allowed them to remain long enough to multiply and replenish the earth, long enough

for the effects of the curse to be evident to them as well.

But eventually physical death happened for Adam and Eve.

He will extend their life for a time, but then he will take their life with physical

death and it happens to all of us today.

The mortality rate in human beings is how many percent?

One hundred percent.

Always has been, always will be because of the curse.

The death is a part of our existence.

We just accept it as a result of the curse of sin.

Not God's original design, but what happened as a result of the curse.

Some of us will face it peacefully and some of us will face it brutally, but the reality

is we will all face it.

We fear death and we're cautious about protecting our health because it's such a big deal.

And I've named these five things, but it's not all this part of what life is all about.

I mean, is it not reminiscent of what life is as we know it?

Is it not our consistent experience over thousands of years now, spiritual separation, hard work,

toil, conflict, pain and childbirth, all these things I've named, including death, that's

part of what you see life is.

And it's bad news.

And the reality is God has promised us and has offered us something far better than all

these things.

The apostle Paul was writing about all these things four thousand years after the garden,

two thousand years ago in the book we have, we call the Bible.

In the book of Romans and the book of 1 Corinthians he begins to talk about the first Adam, though

Paul was still talking about the first Adam all those thousands of years later.

And he bemoans the result of the first Adam.

Now listen carefully to what I'm about to say.

Paul said through the sin of the first Adam all of us have sinned.

Through the death and condemnation of the first Adam all of us have died.

And through the condemnation of the one all will be condemned, that's the first Adam.

But Paul wasn't through speaking yet, he wasn't through writing because he went on and said

there is a second Adam and that second Adam is known as Jesus Christ.

Thank God there's not just the first Adam, thank God there is a second Adam and that

Adam is Jesus Christ.

And Jesus Christ has lived in such a way, died in such a way, rose again in such a way

to counteract all the effects of the curse for those who put their faith and trust in

him.

It's really an amazing picture that God is giving us through this first Adam and this

last Adam.

The first Adam brings bad news but the last Adam brings the good news, that's Jesus.

The last Adam is Jesus.

The last Adam reverses the curse.

The last Adam will convert the bad news to the good news of the Gospel.

Now I'm here today because I want you to hear the bad news but I don't want you to check

out too early because you need to hear the good news.

Amen?

And the good news is all that bad news God takes care of and cataracts and reverses through

the person of Jesus Christ and through the work that he did on the cross.

I'm going to show you how it works.

There's one ultimate text in this passage, one ultimate line that gives us the promise

for salvation as in verse 15.

In your Bible look at this verse for a moment.

He shall bruise you on the head, speaking about the seed of the woman as he speaks to

the serpent.

He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.

Now when you study this passage you're going to come to the conclusion that this is the

very first prophecy of Scripture and it is a clear statement about the coming of the

Savior that we know as Jesus Christ.

In other words, as the consequence of sin there is the curse but as a consequence of

the curse there is the cure and that Jesus is going to restore us in every way.

And the promise given here is this, the offspring of the woman will one day bruise the head

of Satan.

What sounds vague and non-defining at first becomes very clear as you read through the

Bible.

As you look at the seed of the woman, as you look at the offspring of the woman and you

see that God will put a Savior on this planet.

Born 2,000 years ago with a virgin, he walked on this earth in a perfect way, died on the

cross, rose three days later from the dead and conquered all those things that kept us

in the curse.

And I want you to see how he counteracts the curse bit by bit.

Let's look at these five things that are counteracting the curse.

First of all, Jesus restores our spiritual separation.

By the way, when I talk about Jesus today I'm not talking about him as a superhero,

nothing so mundane, nothing so trivial as that.

I'm talking about Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one conquering warrior

that we have.

I'm talking about him that has all power, he's all knowing, he's all powerful, he's

everywhere, he's able to do all the things that we're talking about today.

He has no lack of power, no lack of deficiency.

He is able to counteract the effects of the curse.

As he first of all restores our spiritual separation.

One of the first statements made about Jesus when he walked into ministry and on the planet

was in John chapter 1 verse 29.

John 1:29

John the Baptist saw him and Jesus by this time was 30 years of age about to go into

public ministry.

He was going to ask John the Baptist to actually baptize him to fulfill all righteousness sake

as Jesus said.

And John saw Jesus and made this statement.

He said, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

Now do you remember what caused us to have the curse?

Sin.

That's what happened to bring the curse upon mankind.

Sin against God who has given us clear commands in the Garden of Eden.

But Adam and Eve chose to sin and now the Bible says that Jesus is coming to take away the

sin of the world.

It shouldn't surprise you that Jesus wants to come and reverse the curse that took place

in the garden after all the world was created through him.

He was present in the garden.

He grieved.

He determined to restore all that was lost.

But to do that Jesus had to take away the sin of the world.

John's statement had to do with the Old Testament sacrificial system where innocent animals

would be slain so that their blood would atone for the guilty.

And that picture was a part of Old Testament worship.

But more than that he made a bold statement of declaration.

The sin of the world is going to be taken away.

The idea behind the word is a violent ripping away of sin by this one Jesus Christ.

That he's going to die in the place of all the guilty from Adam onward.

So he's going to pay for the sin.

He's going to bear it on his body.

He's going to carry it away with a forcible removal.

The idea behind that forcible removal is like the tearing down of a dividing wall.

Have you ever seen a massive wall that separated one group of people from another and that

wall is blown up or somehow torn down?

There are several historic moments where walls are torn down in history.

The Berlin wall is one that comes to mind and there are others.

But something cataclysmic happens and all of a sudden that wall comes down and all of

a sudden there is no more barrier between the two places that are separated.

Jesus does that with sin.

Jesus removes the sin of the world.

That's so powerfully, so clearly does he remove the sin of the world that he pays the

way to peace with God.

And the same human beings that are separated from God because of Adam's sin and our own

sin now have peace with God through the removal of sin by Jesus Christ himself.

Listen, do you want to know why you can be right with God and at peace with God?

It's not by your performance.

It's because of what he did on the cross.

It's because his blood shed for sin and the wall was torn down.

In the book of Ephesians there is a great line that says for he himself is our peace.

And he broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.

So what Adam lost in sin through temptation and rebellion, God restored through Jesus

Christ's blood that was shed on the cross.

And we now have no longer any spiritual separation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

That's something to say amen about.

That's something to be glad about.

Number two, he overcomes the adversary.

Paul writes in Romans chapter 16, he says the God of peace will soon crush Satan under

Romans 16 · chapter mention

your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus will be with you.

Paul is simply talking about a believer walking side by side with Jesus Christ that's going

to have enough power to overcome the temptation of the enemy and live a life that is true

to Christ.

Now we saw Jesus overcome the tempter all the way through his earthly life.

We see him overcoming temptation that was placed on him by Satan.

There's a famous scene called the wilderness temptation where Jesus was taken out led by

the spirit into the wilderness.

For 40 days and nights he did not eat and yet the tempter came to him at the end of

those days and tempest him in every possible way.

Then so that later on he could say, and we could say we don't have a high priest who's

not tempted in all ways as we are yet without sin, but we have one that has been tested

and yet proven righteous before God.

But secondly, we have that temptation to remind us that God through Jesus withstood all of

the temptations that Satan could possibly throw at him.

He also overcame the tax of the enemy through people who hated and reviled him.

Jesus overcame death which held every other person in bondage.

In Romans Paul simply summarizes Jesus will soon finally and completely crush Satan.

Now you may know because you've read the Bible and if you've gone to the very last

book of the Bible, the book of Revelation tells us that he will cast Satan into the

bottomless pit.

The one who was so traumatizing in the Garden of Eden will be removed completely.

The one who opposes us and tempts us in every way will be put away by Jesus finally and

permanently because he's no match for our Savior Jesus Christ.

So friends, here's what Jesus has done.

He has removed that barrier.

He has overcome the adversary and will ultimately overcome him completely.

Thirdly, he reconciles our pain and conflict.

In the book of Colossians there's a great statement about how he has reconciled all

of that unrecognizable thing that's in our lives.

It was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him

to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross

through him.

I say whether things are on earth or things on heaven.

Whereas mankind has been marked since the Garden with conflict from day one, and you

know we've all experienced this conflict in our personal relationships.

Some of us are self-conflicted inside our own lives, but Jesus brings reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a phenomenal word.

It brings to bring the two together, to remove all the barriers and make us right with each

other and ultimately right with God.

And that comes through Christ.

It comes through the Gospel.

And since Christ has come and given us forgiveness and given us the ability to be reconciled

to each other, you have these phenomenal relationships that take place on a very convoluted planet

where people can be towards each other in a loving way, where they can interact with

each other.

They don't have to agree with each other.

They can be family in the kingdom of God because of the reconciling power of Jesus Christ.

Look around this room today.

We are different people, different backgrounds.

We have different interests, but we have one common denominator and that is Jesus Christ

and that makes us the family of God.

It really does.

And in some cases, we're closer to the family of God than we are our biological family because

of the reconciling power of Jesus Christ.

And even more than that, because of Christ, we are given the ministry of reconciliation.

We can actually help others come to be reconciled because of the power of Christ.

Overcoming all that was in the curse and the garden, we are reconciled with Christ.

Such a powerful thing that Jesus has done and is doing.

But even beyond all that, that conflict, that pain, is going to go away permanently.

Again, the book of Revelation brings incredible hope and encouragement.

Chapter 21 verse 4 is one of my favorite sections.

Here's what it says about heaven, the ultimate moment where God brings us to heaven and He

will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Don't you just love that?

And there will no longer be any death.

There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain for the first things that passed away.

Who can promise this except the creator of heaven and earth and the creator of the new

heaven and earth, only Jesus.

He completely, completely restores.

Then number four, Jesus gives grace and hardship.

What about till then?

What about till Christ comes back?

How do we handle the hard stuff in life?

And I've got one word for you, the word grace.

The word grace.

You know, we have a verse that we quote quite often, that we're to come to God in prayer

boldly before the throne of grace, that we can find mercy and grace to help in time of

need.

How many of you have ever experienced the grace of God to help you in time of need?

Would you raise your hand?

Well you did not think you could possibly make it through what was ahead of you.

Didn't think you could possibly make the pain, the hardship, the difficulty go away.

But somehow in those moments, God enabled you with His grace to get through it.

And here's what we have.

No grace in the garden wants Adam's sin.

They couldn't find a way, but there's grace now in Christ for every person that puts their

faith and trust in Christ.

The Apostle Paul gives one of the greatest statements he's made.

It says this in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

He has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.

Most gladly therefore, Paul said, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power

of Christ may dwell in me.

I love this because it's his testimony.

If you read chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, you're going to find out that Paul was in prison.

He was physically beaten.

He was lashed five times with a whip, nearly to death.

He was beaten with rods.

He was stoned.

He was shipwrecked.

He was nearly drowned.

He was in what he calls river danger, robber danger, people danger, wilderness danger, sea

danger.

Through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirsting, through cold and exposure,

he faced it all.

And yet after he says that in chapter 11, he said, but the grace of God met me in the

middle of all of it, and no matter how weak I was, God's grace was powerful enough to

get me through.

That's what Jesus brings.

The grace of God in hardship.

And the grace of God is simply just Jesus Christ living inside of us and living through

us.

It's also the promise of a greater world one day and the restoration of a perfect kingdom.

You have immediate grace, but you're going to have ultimate grace one day when it comes

back, future grace that every one of you will have in Christ.

And then finally, finally, he overcomes death.

Jesus resurrects from death.

Do you remember that great story in John chapter 10 and 11 where they call for Jesus because

John 10 · chapter mention

Lazarus, who is the brother of Mary and Martha, has died.

And they say, summon Jesus.

Lazarus is dying.

And Jesus waits about four days before he shows up.

And by the time Jesus shows up, Lazarus has died.

In fact, the sisters say to him, if only you had come, you could have helped him.

But he didn't come in time, and he's dead.

In fact, he's so dead that his body is decaying.

The body stinks by now.

Those are the statements made in John chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

So Jesus looks at these sisters and he says this statement to them, I am the resurrection

and the life, he who believes in me will live even if he dies.

And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

And then he pointedly asked them, do you believe this?

This is a big moment.

I mean, after all, this is the big deal.

The death that we all fear, the death we're all concerned about, the death that was pronounced

by the curse in the Garden of Eden.

That's happened to everyone since that time.

This is a big deal.

And Jesus made this statement just before raising Lazarus who'd been buried for four

days.

And when Jesus spoke to him, he came out of the grave and he lived for years afterwards.

In fact, the Jews wanted to put Lazarus to death because of his testimony.

We've got to shut this guy up.

He was dead for four days and now he's walking around alive and we have to shut him up because

he's pointing to Jesus.

I mean, it's a crazy, crazy story.

But not only did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus himself, in one of the most

documented facts in human history, died on the cross, was buried, rose the third day

from the dead and hundreds, likely thousands saw him three days after this very public

and undeniable, indeniable death.

And he's alive because he's overcome and conquered death and sin and he promises to do the same

thing for us.

See, this is the big picture.

Jesus cataracts all the effects of the curse so that we can now walk in harmony with God,

so we can have grace in time of conflict, so we can be able to interact with each other,

reconciled fully with God and with each other to have all the strength we need to do the

things we need to do and that once we face death, have a brand new death that we call

and a new life that we call eternal life and we will never die again because we're with

him forever and ever and ever.

He resurrects the dead through Jesus Christ.

Man, I'm grateful for all this, but the question he asked Martha and Mary is the question you

need to be asked today, all of us need to be asked, do you believe this?

Do you know who Jesus promises all these things to?

Not every citizen on the planet, but everyone who puts their faith and trust in him.

Everyone who puts their faith and trust in him.

You say, well, what about me?

You too, if you'll put your faith and trust in him.

That's why we make it our mission to tell the good news of the gospel to the whole world.

That's why you should have as your mission to tell the good news of the gospel to all

in your sphere of influence, but even more, that's why you should make it your mission

to know where you stand in terms of belief in Christ.

And if you've never placed your faith and trust in this one who counteracts all the

curse of the world that the world is experiencing today, you have a picture of trust in him.

Today's the day to do that.

We have decision stations at the back of our room and as you leave today, you'll be able

to see those.

We light them up with lights.

We have people behind tables just ready to converse with you, just ready to talk to you.

And my prayer is this.

My prayer is that you will pause as you go through a very difficult life, which life

is difficult for all of us because of sin and the curse.

And think about your need to have all that reversed in Jesus Christ.

To have all sin forgiven.

To have all the effects of the curse done away with so that you can have the grace of

Christ, the forgiveness of Christ, the eternal life of Jesus Christ by putting your faith

and trust in him.

And we can talk to you about that.

We can lead you in a moment of putting your faith in him.

I want to ask you today to consider stopping by our decision stations.

It may be today that you want to go to the guest reception room.

I would love to meet you today if you're a guest today.

Love to visit with you.

Make that spiritual decision first.

But then quickly if you will, get to our guest reception room.

It's outside the center exit doors and behind the glass room and you'll see it.

I'd love to have you stop by for a few moments.

I want to tell you why we believe God is doing something special here at our church.

And thirdly, as you leave today, I want to encourage you to pick up an origins card and

invite somebody back next week as we talk about more good news on the other side of

the bad news.

It will be important for people to hear this.

Would you stand with me as a closing word of prayer?

Father, I am so thankful for this day and every person in this room.

For this past hour we've worshiped you.

We've remembered your death through the Lord's Supper.

We've opened your word and we are grateful for you.

Lord, I am so grateful that you counteract the curse that took place through Adam and

Eve's sin and that's upon all of mankind.

Thank you so much for the promise of eternal life you offer to every person here today,

to every person who will respond to you and your offer.

And I ask you today to allow us to make decisions that are life changing, each of us.

I ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.