Genesis: Original Sin

Mark your calendar.

First Sunday in November is our official twentieth birthday as

a church. You should have been sent inviting you to

your twentieth birthday party that evening, so make sure sign up.

We need to know how much food we need and things.

But it's going to be a great time as we

celebrate being twenty. We made it twenty years, isn't that crazy?

I also found that amusing that Jim first started coming

to this church when he was a senior in high school.

Wow, I feel old, oh boy, But I was only

like a senior in college when I started the church.

So we're good.

Genesis two, verse sixteen Bible says the Lord God commanded

the man you were free to eat from any tree

in the garden, but you must not eat from the

tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when

you eat.

From it, you will surely die.

I want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close

your eyes, repeat this prayer after me. Everyone, say, Dear Jesus,

speak to my heart, change my life in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Uh.

Have you ever had anyone come up to you and.

Say I have some good news and I have some

bad news, and then they always followed up by saying.

What do you want first? The good news or the

bad news?

I joked in the first service, and I am serious

that the king of this of all my friends, is Sean.

King.

Sean always hass good news and bad news, and he

will always follow it up by saying, well, what do

you want first? Brandon the good news or the bad news.

If you get asked that what do you normally want first?

You always want the bad news first. Let me tell

you why you want the bad news first, because you

can't listen to the good news if you know there's.

Some ominous bad news coming.

So far as we've studied Genesis, I hope you've noticed

that for you and I it's only been good news.

I mean, it's been great news.

First, we discovered that there's a creator, and the reality is,

if there's a creator, there's a purpose for all of

creation that it has value. Then we learned that the

pinnacle of creation is when God created human beings.

That's good news.

Then God determined that it wasn't good for these human

beings to be alone, so he created them male and female,

husband and.

Wife, so that you and I.

Got to live life with companions.

Good news.

Then the news gets even better. God loved us so

much that he gave us free will. Last week I

talked about why did God give you a choice? Well,

God gave you a choice because that's how much he

loves you.

He wanted you.

To be able to choose will you worship him or

will you not? It's been all good news so far,

but now we're looking at Genesis three.

I'm gonna warn.

You Genesis three has some good news and some bad news.

Some of you are thinking, okay, Genesis three, it's the

story of Adam and Eve. But isn't that allegory? This Adam, Eve,

a garden of Eden, a talking and walking snake. Some

of you were thinking only Christian fundamentalists could possibly believe

that there was an actual garden of Eden, an actual Adam,

an actual Eve, an actual talking snake. Well, I want

to sum it up this way. If you are capable

of believing the God of Genesis one that created everything

out of nothing, surely you can believe the God of

Genesis three.

Two. So Genesis three, there's some good news and some

bad news. What do you want me to start with.

Let's start with the bad news, because it's really bad.

Genesis three, verse one. It says, now the serpent was

more crafty than any of the wild animals the 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 the trees in the garden. But God did

say you must not eat from the tree, from the 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 opened, and you will be like God,

knowing good and evil. Here's the bad news. There's a serpent,

there's a snake. There's the devil. Just as there is

a God in heaven who loves you, there is an enemy.

Satan is real. Just as there is a.

God who loves us, there is a devil who hates us.

While God wants you to have life and have it

more abundantly, there is an enemy who wants to destroy

your life. Wants to consume you with depression, rob you

of joy, bind you up in addiction, overwhelm.

You with hopelessness.

And the problem is this enemy does not look like

we think he looks. We have these images of the

devil from a cartoon that he's wearing red tights, he's

got a little pointy ears, pointy tail, and he carries

a pitch fork.

The devil does not look like we think.

The very first message in this series I shared with

you the God attributes. That God is omniscient, omnipotent, that

God is omnipresent, that those are God's attributes. But just

as God has attributes, the enemy has attributes.

Here's the enemy's attributes. Number One.

He masquerades. He does not appear like you think he

would appear.

He disguises himself. In this story, he.

Disguised himself as a serpent.

Paul said this.

Teen He said, Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

So what are his attributes? He hides. He's covert. Second

thing we learn about the enemy is that he deceives.

When we're introduced to him, we're told that he is crafty.

His primary mode, his primary weapon is deception.

He is a deceiver.

He is one who misleads others by false appearance or statements,

especially one who does it habitually? Do you realize that

the enemy's aim is to cast doubt on the things

of God.

He wants you to question God. He wants you to doubt,

and then eventually he wants you to deny.

He asked questions like, did God really say, come on,

did God really say you couldn't eat from a fruit

of any tree in the garden.

First off, God didn't say that.

God said you can eat any of the fruit in

the garden except for the fruit from this one tree.

Then he goes on and he casts doubt, and he says,

if you eat of that fruit, you're not gonna die.

In fact, you'll become.

Like a God.

You see, the devil is a deceiver, and he deceives today.

With really these two questions.

He wants to get you to believe these two things,

and you're gonna twenty years of leading venture. I have

watched people that I love, that passionately serve Jesus for

a season fall into the deception of these two beliefs

that eventually led for this doubt to come in, and

then it led to denying Jesus and walking away from

their faith.

The two things.

The devil tries to get us to believe.

The first one is it's not that bad. It's not

that bad. Come on, eating the fruit from that tree.

It's not that bad, and you're not gonna die.

It's such an exaggeration. It isn't that big a deal.

How many times, right before you had a choice whether

or not you were gonna do something that was right

or wrong, you heard this whisper in your ear that says,

come on, it's not that bad man.

This is just church tradition.

This is just because your parents are super conservative.

It's not that bad.

It's one of the greatest lies of the enemy that

has been perpetuated on this society and this culture.

Is we live in the world if it's not that bad.

Unfortunately, any sins separates us from God. Isaiah fifty nine

to two says, but your iniquities have separated you from God.

Your sins have hidden his face from.

You so that he will not hear.

All sin separates you from God. But the devil's trying

to convince you it ain't that bad. And the devil's

also trying to convince you. Tell me, if you've heard

this one before, this is my truth.

This is what I believe Hey, that's good for you.

But this is my truth. What does that mean?

It means this is what I believe. It's called truth relativism.

Psychologists define it as truth is relative to an individual.

It's the claim is true or false.

By what I believe and by what I feel, rather

than by the way the world actually is.

This is my truth.

You might be a person who drops that line. That

is a deception from the enemy. It is you saying

I know what's right and wrong. I know what's good

and bad. I know what's good and evil. One DoD

the devil, say. The devil says, oh, eat of this fruit.

Your eyes will be open. You'll be able to tell

the difference between good and evil. You'll be like a god.

You see, when you live in this this is my truth.

When you get a determine what is right and wrong,

what is good and evil, what is good and bad

for you, you become like a God. But the Bible

is clear. The tor of the first five books in

the Bible are clear. The God he determines right and wrong,

He determines good and evil, But Satan deceives. His aim

is to get us believing these lies and casting doubt

on God's word and God's character. Isn't this great? Some

of you are like Pbe could be watching football right now.

Leaven depressed. Jesus said this, this is how he described

the enemy. He said, when he lies, he speaks his

native tongue.

For he is a liar, the father of lies. Jesus

is warning us. Satan is a deceiver.

He's not just crafty, he is a liar. Did God

really say you must not eat of any tree in

the garden.

Well, God didn't say that.

God said you can eat any fruit from any tree

in the garden except that one.

Tree in the middle.

So Satan masquerades, he deceives, and finally Satan murders. Jesus

later on said, he's a murderer. From the beginning, you

realize that the enemy's goal is your death. He wants

to bring on your death.

Verse six.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree

was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and

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

She also gave some to her husband, who was with her,

and he ate it.

Then the eyes of both of them were open. They

realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together

and made coverings for themselves.

So Satan deceives cast doubt.

And eventually the man and the woman eat of the

forbidden fruit. This is theologians call the original sin. It

is this moment Sin enters the world for the first

time ever, we are reminded the human being. Things never change.

Human beings are never satisfied with what they have.

They always want more.

You can have all of the fruit from all of

the tree in the garden. Everything is yours except that one.

Well, that's the one I want. Things never change.

But unfortunately, when Sin entered the world, guess what entered

the world too?

Death?

Roman six twenty three is the verse that I'm challenging

you to memorize this week as a next step. But

Romans six point twenty three is the harsh reality that

the wages of sin is death. Adam's sin brought death into.

The world, isn't it that great?

Over ten percent of Americans, so one out of ten

of you has a paralyzing fear of death. It's called thanatophobia.

You lose sleep over death. The reality of death has

set in on you, and you know that you are

not guaranteed it tomorrow. Does the inevitability of death ever

hit you. You don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. You

don't know if you're gonna be like my grandma, She

lived to be.

One hundred and three years old.

My grandma witness World War One, World War II, the

Korean War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm nine to eleven. My

grandma was alive. She lived in Boston when the Red

Sox traded Babe Ruth. Then my grandma lived for ninety

years with the Curse of the Great Bambino. But my

grandma also got a witness ninety years later when the

Red Sox finally won the World Series again. Some of

you you'll live to be one hundred and three. Others

of you, you're not guaranteed a tomorrow. Death is inevitable.

The wages of sin is death. How do I know

people obsessed with death? Dana White, who's the president of

the USC, was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast and

he shared this story. These are his words, not mine.

He said, I'm a friend who's a trillionaire. He said it,

I didn't know there was a trillionaire. And he said,

my trillionaire friend is spending millions of dollars on research

to extend his life that he wants to see if

he can possibly live to be one hundred and fifty.

Well, then only like Dana White and Joe Rogan could.

They kind of bantered about this, and their conclusion was, if.

You're a trillionaire, this is what you.

Spend money on figuring out how you can extend your

life a little bit so you can extend more of

your money.

Man, whether you live to be fifty.

One hundred and three or one hundred and fifty, you die.

It is inevitable.

Why because Adam Sinn brought death into the world.

The wages of sin is death.

Some of you were like, oh, dude, Brandon, come on,

I haven't been at church in four months, and this

is what I'm hearing. 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 among the trees of

the garden. With 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? And the man said, the woman you

put here with me gave me some fruit from the tree,

and I ate it. Then the Lord said to the woman,

what is this you've done? And the woman said, the

serpent deceived.

Me and I ate.

My favorite thing about this is in Genesis three we

get the story of the very first sin, and the

very first sin is followed up with the very first

blame shifting.

Adam blames his wife Eve James the devil.

Famous doctor Adam Twersky said human beings need these four things.

They need air, food, drink, and someone to blame. Flip

Wilson famously coined the.

Phrase the devil made me do it.

The problem is that the enemy can only cast doubt.

God gave you and I the choice we learned that

last week. Can't make us do anything. We choose what

we do. James one thirteen says, when tempted, no one

should say God is tempting me, for God cannot be

tempted by evil, nor does God tempt anyone. But each

person is tempted when they are dragged away by their

own evil desire and enticed.

Adam sin.

His choice to sin, the same choice that you and

I have brought death. Why because the wages of sin

is death. Ski Moving on to Genesis verse fourteen. So

the Lord God said to the serpent. This is referred

to as the curse on the serpent. Because you have

done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above

all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly, and

you will eat dust all the days of your life.

And verse fifteen, 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 heal.

Remember I told you the very first week that context

matters when you read Genesis, that who was Genesis?

Who was the Torah written to? Was written to a

group of Hebrews.

That had recently experienced the Exodus, four hundred years of

slavery in Egypt. So when those first Hebrews heard these words,

it did two things. Number One, it dedeified the serpent,

because in Egypt and many of the foreign nations that

surrounded them, those nations worshiped snakes.

And that God was saying that.

These Egyptians and Hiptites and Samerians and Canaanites that worship snakes.

You were created by God, and that you can crush

the head of a snake.

Number two.

This verse, this promise in God's word, It gave them hope.

You realize that the rest of the entire Bible, the

rest of this documents the consequences of sin, but it

also explains what God, in his grace has done to

rescue us. Theologians called Genesis three point fifteen prote evangelium.

They call it the first Gospel because this is the

first announcement of the coming of a messiah, the coming

of a redeemer, that someone is coming to rescue them. Remember,

I told you that there was bad news, but I

also promised you good news. So here's the good news.

Most people, when they memorize Romans six point twenty three,

they only.

Know the bad part of that verse. The wages of

sin is death.

You've heard it quoted in hundreds of sermons. But the

last half of that verse is the good news.

Adam, sin brought death. But Jesus, the wages of sin

is death.

That's bad, But the gift of God is eternal life.

In Christ.

Jesus, our Lord, you see God's story of redemption. Genesis

I told you is about redemption. It's my redemption, your redemption,

it's our redemption. God's story of redemption Agan. Once the

original sin was committed and it went all the way

to the cross of Jesus. It took four thousand years

for God's story to unravel.

But then Jesus had to die to conquer death.

Why so that in response he could give you an

eye life.

Adam Sinn brought.

Death, but Jesus came to bring us life that we

may have it more abundantly.

It's crazy.

In those four thousand years, the devil knew that the

offspring of the woman was going to crush his head.

He knew his clock was ticking, his time was coming.

And if you look at throughout history the atrocities that

have happened to Hebrew boys, Pharaoh in Egypt decided, let's

kill all the Hebrew boys. Well, one Hebrew mom decided

to save her son, and she built a basket and

put baby Moses in that basket and let him float

down the Nile. Herod ordered all of the children, male

children in Israel to be killed. Well, Mary and Joseph thought,

we have to protect Jesus, and they took him, and

they hit him.

Most scholars believe in Egypt.

But throughout history the devil has been waiting for this

offspring that's coming for him. Adam and e brought death

into the world. Bad but there's good news. Jesus brought life.

Church. The Bible is good news.

I mean Genesis three. You always hear about that is

the first sin. But in the story of the first sin,

there's the first hint Genesis three point fifteen. Jesus is coming,

and he's coming for you. Romans five point seventeen. Oh,

this verse is good, says for if by the trespass

of one man Adam, death reign through that one man Adam,

how much.

More will those who receive.

God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of

righteousness reign in life through the one.

Man Jesus Christ.

One man Adam brought death, but one man Jesus brought life.

Bad news awesome news. Man, aren't you thankful?

We live in the awesome news? Romans five twenty one.

Justice sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign

through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

We leave that verse up. Leave that one up.

Adam sin brought death, but Jesus death brought us life.

You have a choice, death or life. There's another verse

in Romans. It's Romans six point twenty. It says the

God of Peace. It's a reference to Genesis three point fifteen.

The God of Peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet.

The God of Peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet.

When you came in, you were handed communion emblems.

Why don't you go ahead and grab those If you

did not receive your emblems when you came in, and

you would like to receive communion, please wave and the

ushers are going to be super quick. The God of

Peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet.

I was a youth.

Pastor in the nineties, and if you were a remember

the nineties. The nineties was the era of grunge. One

particular summer, I spoke at seven summer camps, so their

weak long Bible camps. And even though it was summertime,

it was the grunge era. So all of these teenagers

in the heat of the summer in rooms with no

air conditioning were wearing flannels. Music would start, and because

Nirvana and Pearl Jam were so popular back then, all

of the worship bands tried to be near Vana. So

this song that was based around Romans sixteen twenty. I

heard it all summer and they would only say the

words to the song over and over again, and the

God of Peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet.

And it would start off and was kind of like

grunge music. It was kind of like dreary, and the

worship leader would.

Say softly, the God.

Of Peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet. Then

the bass player would start playing the bass, and then

it get a little bit louder. The God of Peace

will soon crush Satan underneath your feet.

And then the drummer would start going.

They get louder, the God of Peace would soon crush

Satan underneath your feet.

Finally, the whole band is in.

The students are like freaking out, the God of Peace

will soon crush.

Satan underneath your feet. The students turned the entire service into.

A massive mothpit as they're shouting over and over again

full on near Vona at camp, the God of Peace

will soon crush Satan underneath your feet.

Did you know what? That's what this is about.

Every time you take communion, you were saying the God

of Peace with which this represents, is gonna crush Satan

under my feet. I want you to stand up, grab

your communion emblems. We are going to live out that verse,

not having our worship team do that song because I

don't know if they know it. But you peel off

the top and you expose the cracker, and you peel

off the second and you expose the juice. Everything we've

talked about today is represented in what this means.

Adam brought sin and death, but Jesus brought life. This

is about life. This is about the decision that you

and I can make. Member. We get the choice. It's

up to us.

We're not forced to do anything. We have a choice,

but you have the opportunity. I'm gonna choose death or

I will choose life. But this represents a choice to

serve Jesus. I want you to close your eyes. If

you're here today and you want to say Pastor Brandon

and I prayed prayers before. I'ven't even gone to church before,

but today I want to make the choice I choose life.

I want to make the choice.

To serve Jesus.

For some of you, you've probably prayed this a dozen times,

but this is the time you mean it.

For others of you, you've never prayed before.

But if you're here with no one looking around, and

you're ready to say I want to make the choice

to choose life, I want you to raise your hand

all over the place awestin a putting down. Before we

receive communion, I want you to pray this prayer with me.

Everyone say, Dear Jesus, stand before you today.

And I admit.

I've chosen to sin. But today I ask you to

forgive me. I invite you to come into my life

and to change me. I choose from this day forward

to serve you with my life. Thank you for forgiving

me and for saving me. In Jesus' name. Amen, that

Jesus was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it.

He passed it around each one of his disciples, and

he says, this is my body that is broken for you.

This represents his death. He had to die so that

we could have life.

He said.

Every time you receive of it, remember me. Let's receive

of the bread together.

Then he took a cup.

And he passed it around, and he says, this represents

my new covenant and blood. I quote often that without

the shedding of blood, there'd be no forgiveness of sin.

And I tell you all the time, you know what

this represents. This represents grace. This represents your whole life

is covered by the grace of Jesus, that the God

of Peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet because

of what Jesus did on on the cross and gave

you and I the choice to serve him. Every time

we receive communion, we're gonna make that choice again, and

that is the choice. I'm gonna receive God's grace that

covers all my sin, covers all my shame, God's grace

that brings me life.

Let's receive the cup together.