Exalting Jesus Pt.2 | October 4, 2026 | Will Rutt

Good morning.

Always great to be here with you.

My name is Will Rutserve as lead pastor here, and I'm glad to be here with you.

If you weren't here last week, then uh you didn't get to be part of Plyler's send-off.

It was his last week with us last week, and it was a great send-off being able to, with one last kind of chance together, be able to sing how great thou art.

This is a beautiful time.

And so that means we're in a transition time with our worship leader.

We're looking to hire a new full-time worship leader.

And what we've done in the meantime is we've taken that role and divided it up between three part-time roles.

And um, so we have somebody over communications, that's Michaela.

We have somebody over tech, that's Chanel back there, and then we have somebody over our worship leading, and that's Luke over here.

And so I want to say thank you to them, and I want to implore us to um to take to heart something that we prayed as elders a couple weeks ago.

Um, when we were praying, Hal actually prayed this.

He's he prayed that as a church that we would put our scorecards away and just worship.

And that's something about that prayer that really resonated with me as we were praying with the elders that as a church, we will always be um growing in maturity, a kind of maturity that goes, I'm not here trying to critique or kind of check boxes or I don't know, I'm putting the scorecard away, and I'm here to worship Jesus.

So I think every week is an opportunity to have that sanctification happen in us.

Put the scorecards away.

We're here to worship, to make loud, thoughtful offerings of praise to God.

Are you with me?

All right, so that's that's what we're doing.

Um last week we started a new series, The Story of God, okay?

Exalting Jesus in the story of God.

And we're going through the whole book, like the whole book, book, Genesis to Revelation in 14 weeks.

It's it's a class that if you were at CIU, it's called Progress of Redemption.

And if you would have graduated from CIU, you probably would have said, that class, favorite one.

Because it shows and helps us see that the Bible is not just a collection of stories, it's one story, it's the sort of the story of God glorifying himself primarily through the through the redemption of man.

And you'd be able to walk through that chart to articulate the story of God.

It is my hope, my expectation that come January that all of us would be able to walk through the story of the Bible, each one of us using that chart.

So each week we have uh we've got charts in the back that you'll be able to pick up.

Along with it is a Bible reading plan that's also on the homepage of the website because we don't want to just kind of hear the story of God, we want to experience it ourselves.

It's 10 chapters a week, 14 weeks, and I'm just super excited about doing it.

Um what we saw last week is God in six days make everything out of nothing by the word of his mouth.

He speaks things into existence and he evaluated each thing up to day five, and his evaluation was what?

It was good.

But then good gets an upgrade in day six.

Remember?

And and when when God evaluates day six, it goes from good to what?

Very good.

Very good.

What made it very good on day six?

And the answer is this that God does something different on day six.

He doesn't just speak things into existence, he forms man out of the dust, breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and forms man and woman in his image.

So good gets an upgrade.

It becomes very good when God's nature is clearly seen and tangibly expressed.

That is very good.

And I'm gonna use that language a lot, and I hope we'll kind of get it.

That we'd be able to say, man, we'd be able to recognize that was that was very good.

Like when we hear music, and music goes, man, that's good music.

There's something about that that goes, yeah, that's good.

But what would make what would make worship very good is when his people are expressing and praising God for his worth, for how awesome he is.

That's very good.

When his nature is clearly seen and tangibly expressed, maybe what would make your uh your worship service here go from good to very good is maybe uh you would take time during the during the worship time during the closing and go back and have one of our elders and wives pray for you.

You you might actually in that moment experience very good, like God's nature, tangibly expressed, and good would get an upgrade in your worship here.

This is this is the way God created people, and we didn't have this image last week, but we're gonna use it this week.

That God created people very good in his image.

To be able to see people in his image would be able to see what God is like through his people in a way that you couldn't see from the rest of creation.

It was good, it was very good through people.

You could see kindness, you could see compassion, you could see grace, mercy, you could see these things and people that you couldn't see, and dolphins and whales and elephants.

This was very good.

People created in God's image.

That's what this shirt represents.

People in his image.

This is very good.

When this when God's nature is clearly seen and tangibly expressed.

This morning, um, good and very good is about to go from good to not so good.

Have you ever had those moments where um everything's good?

And then uh my my dad's family is from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and sometimes we would take you know the family trip up there, and we finally arrived.

I don't know, it was maybe like a 13, 14-hour drive, and finally when you get there, one, it's beautiful.

Two, when you arrive after a long trip like that, and everybody is like, there's I have six siblings, we're squished in uh a Honda Pilot, and just like squished, fights, and you know, when we get there, we arrive, it's like, ah, it is good.

It's good.

And then uh everything started to change.

Um we uh we start to unload the van, and my mom, as she as we're unloading, she closes the door.

Wham! Right on her finger, and it latches, boom, and I just hear my mom scream, ah! It hurts.

Good got not so good.

And then as we looked in, it's locked.

Good got worse, or very very bad got very worse.

And as we're looking for the keys, we see the keys inside the car, and my mom is just um not in a great way as we're like trying to pry open the door.

Good got not so good.

And I have a bunch of stories about how good not got not so good.

Um, I just actually thought about I saw Robin here.

Um quick story.

I I don't have time for stories.

Well, I Robin's daughter Delaney, I don't know if she if she's in here, but I stabbed her one time with a pitchfork into her leg.

Floop!

You're talking about like good, we're on a mission like opportunity, and we're all like fired up, we're excited to go, we're at the King's Academy, and I take a pitchfork because we're about to spread some mulch, and I go floop! Like it ricocheted off the mulch and went into her leg.

Good got not so good.

We have we have these things, and this is what we're gonna see in the passage.

And what if you did the reading this week?

You saw very good get contaminated.

That's what we saw.

Very good gets contaminated.

And what we're gonna see this morning is we're gonna see Satan's tactics behind the fall of man, and then we're gonna see the per the pursuit of God on behalf of people who utterly ruin the very good creation he made.

So let's pray.

Um, Father, we come before you and we ask your spirit to wield the sword of the Spirit in our hearts, to conform us into the image of Jesus, to set us free from slavery to sin, to bring us out of hiding, to help us taste grace fresh, new.

Lord, we want to be people who are new creations in you through Jesus, equipped by your spirit to bring very good where very good is very absent.

I ask you to do this work in us, specifically in Genesis 3 through 11 this morning.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

Alright, as we go through the story of the Bible, uh, it's gonna be flying over from 30,000 feet, but occasionally we're gonna jump out of the airplane, we're gonna parachute down, and we're gonna get a little lay of the land.

All right, we're starting in the parachute, we're gonna float down into Genesis 3, and that's where we're gonna see, kind of get the lay of the land, and then we'll hop back up in the plane after that.

Genesis 3, verse 1 says, Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made.

Genesis 3:1

And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?

The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.

Verse four The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die.

For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Pause there.

So we have this interaction now and this very good world that God has created, where God has given them commands so they have a choice to love him, and then his nature even gets more clearly seen, tangibly expressed.

And then this serpent, who Genesis uh Revelation chapter 20, verse 2 tells us is the devil, Satan, the accuser, this fallen angel who comes to tempt Adam and Eve.

Revelation 20:2

And his tactics are pretty clear here.

What's the first thing that he attacks and his temptation?

Well, if I have a little handout sheets if you'd like to follow along, the first thing he attacks is their view of God's word.

Has God really said?

He attacks their view of God's word.

Did God really say that?

But then he doesn't just attack their view of God's word, he attacks their view of God's nature.

See, the only reason, according to the serpent, according to Satan, the devil, the accuser, the liar, the only reason that God would give that command is because he's holding out on you.

Uh he knows that if you actually ate, your eyes would be opened and you'd experienced real life.

He's not loving, he's selfish.

This is what Satan's doing.

He's attacking God's word, he's attacking God's nature.

He is doing what every good fisherman does.

To put something around a hook that looks tasty so that when the bite happens, he can set the hook.

Satan's tactic is always to deny God's word, twist God's nature, and make sin look sweet.

And this is what's happening.

Deny God's word, twist God's nature and make sin look sweet.

We're gonna see this throughout the story of the Bible.

But um what we're about to read is the predictable pattern of those who bite the hook, of those who who hear God's word, maybe God's nature, mm-hmm, that look and sin actually looks sweet.

And here's what happens: this is the predictable pattern, verse 6.

When the woman saw, somebody say, see, see, that the tree was good for food, that it was delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise.

She took from its fruit and ate.

She gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

See, here's the progression.

See, want, take, hide.

It's in your notes if you write in notes.

See, want, take, hide.

This is the progression of sin.

Sin promised a bite of life and delivered a hook of death.

And they knew it immediately, and so they try to cover it up.

We're the fig leaves.

We don't know what's wrong with us right now, but something happened just now where we went from naked and unashamed early in chapter two to now we feel the need to cover up and to hide.

This is what sin does.

And why do they why do they sense this need to cover?

Because they are experiencing for the first time something that did not exist in the very good world, and it's shame.

And shame always makes us want to hide.

Why do they feel shame?

Because something happened that God said would happen when they took the fruit.

He said, In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

So when I was telling the story of Genesis 3 through 11 with my girls, because I'm trying to tell the story as I'm reading, doing the reading plan with us, Corey asked my my uh six-year-old daughter, six, she she said, Dad, why didn't they die?

So, what's the answer?

They did.

In what way?

Yeah.

Um, see, what we're expecting is that's what we're expecting.

But when we understand what real death is, it is separation.

And they when they took the fruit, it wasn't just well, they ate some fruit, they rebelled against their king.

They decided, hey, we don't want you as our king, we want to be gods ourselves.

It was rebellion against him, and they were separated from the God who is life, and they died in the same way that you cut a branch off of a tree and it possesses the qualities of life, but is certainly dead and dying.

That is what happened to them in that moment.

Separated from the God of life, and they began.

Well, and they died.

This is the consequence of their sin.

A total separation from God.

And so this is where we were last week, very good, and very good became this.

And what we just read.

Separated from God.

This is what sin is, rebellion and what sin does, it separates.

And so what we see now in Genesis 4 through 11 is the effects of sin throughout, just begin to contaminate all of humanity.

Let's just look at what we see.

We're gonna hop up in the plane here and cruise through Genesis half of three and then through 11.

Go with me to verse eight.

We're looking at the effects of sin.

Verse eight says, They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

They're hiding.

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

Pause there.

We're gonna look at the significance of what God just said there.

But we see in the effects of sin, we see this conflict, and the conflict here is with himself.

I heard you and I hid because I was afraid.

We have shame, we have fear.

This is always what we want to do in our shame.

Hide and cover up.

This is what we do.

And we have conflict in ourselves.

I heard you, I was afraid, so I hid.

But it's not just conflict in ourselves.

Go to verse 12.

Or verse 11.

And he said, No, verse 10.

I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.

And God 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 you gave to be with me, she gave me the tree, and I ate it.

See, now what what started is just like conflict and self-shame, I need to cover, turns into conflict in the marriage.

Adam, what did you do?

Me.

Her and by extension, you, because you gave her to me.

Conflict in the marriage, and that actually, the the the consequences of the effects of sin are in the marriage, and we'll continue on to see that.

Verse 13 says, The Lord God said to the woman, What is this you've done?

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

There's blame again.

Go to verse 16.

This is God now speaking directly to Eve.

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

In pain you will bring forth children.

Yet your desire shall be for your husband.

This is a consequence of sin, that her desire shall be for her husband.

Not that she's gonna be like, ooh, baby, like you are desirable right now, but that her desire is going to be for her husband's role.

Her desire is going to be for the role of head of the home.

And there's going to be conflict in the marriage.

Conflict with self, conflict in the marriage.

There's going to be conflict with nature.

That's the next blank.

Go to verse 17.

Then to Adam, God said, 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.

Here's what God says: Cursed is the ground because of you, and toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

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

Conflict with nature.

Yes, even nature is under the curse and the effects of sin.

There's conflict with self.

There's conflict in the marriage.

There's conflict with nature.

And then there's more conflict.

Go to chapter 4.

We're doing a flyby here.

Chapter 4, verse 1.

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.

And she said, I have gotten a man child with the help of the Lord.

Again.

She gave birth to his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

Abel, on his part, also brought of the first firstlings of the flock and of their fat portions.

Pause there.

When I was telling my girls this story, they reminded me how they were taught to remember.

Cain brought carrots.

He had the fruit of the ground.

Abel brought animals.

Okay, so my kids tell me that.

Okay.

And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering.

Verse 5, but for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard.

So Cain became very angry.

Now we've got anger in the very good.

And his countenance fell.

Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

And why are why has your countenance fallen?

If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?

And if you do not do well, i.e.

repent, sin is crouching at your door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it.

Cain told Abel his brother, and it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, his brother, and killed him.

The effects of sin.

From self to marriage, it's nature, but to now the family.

Well, there's more kids than Adam and Eve have, and their kids have kids who have kids who have kids who have kids, which brings us to Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

And just this heartbreaking verse in Genesis chapter.

Chapter 6, verse 5.

It says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

What?

We should read that verse again.

Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

The Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart.

The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things into birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them.

Talking about conflict with God.

Tells Noah to build an ark because God's gonna flood the entire planet.

He's gonna execute his judgment on sin.

And only those who are in the ark are gonna be spared.

And he does.

Floods the entire earth.

And only those, the people and animals on the ark are spared.

Conflict with God and the executing of his justice on people who are always and only evil continually.

And then when God starts over with Noah, we see the effects of sin.

Continue.

Noah screws up immediately.

And his kids who have have kids, who have kids, who have kids, and that brings us to Genesis chapter 11.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

Not just self, not just marriage, nature, family, God, but we're about to see conflict with something else.

Chapter 11, verse 1 says, Now the whole earth used the same language in the same words.

It came about as they journeyed east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

They said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.

And they used brick for stone and they used tar for mortar.

They said, Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name.

Pause there.

So that we can make a name for ourselves.

People were created in God's image, very good, so that people could see his nature clearly seen, tangibly expressed, and go, God's awesome.

And in Genesis 11, they're like, let's do something that shows we are awesome.

And look at else what else they do.

Verse 4.

They said, Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name.

Otherwise, we will be scattered abroad over the face of the earth.

What was the first God the first command that God gave them in the good garden?

Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.

And as you fill the earth, made in my image, God's nature is gonna be clearly seen, tangibly expressed, wow, all over the earth.

And they're going, hey, now that we've kind of started over, you know, Noah, we got it all these years, here's what we'll do.

Instead of making a what we'll show how great God is, let's show how great we are.

And instead of filling the earth, let's make sure we don't do that.

Literally, the purpose for which they were made, they they give God a middle finger.

Nope.

And so we see a conflict with purpose.

If you're filling in your blanks, that's it.

That's your blank.

Conflict with their purpose for which God made them.

There's conflict everywhere.

Why is there all this conflict?

So here's what we just saw.

We saw Cain killed Abel.

If you're artistic and want to draw the pictures, that's why I left it blank for you.

Cain killed Abel, we saw God flood the earth.

People were always only evil, continually.

We saw the Tower of Babel, where when they find themselves in conflict with God's purpose, he confuses their language, and we have the beginning of nations.

Why so much, why so much of this conflict?

Conflict with self, conflict in marriage, conflict with nature, conflict in family, conflict with God, conflict with purpose.

Why so much of that?

Because the conflict has something underneath it.

And that when when people chose to sin and chose to make ourselves God, to make ourselves master, to live for our own purpose, the image of God started to be tainted.

And in CIU, he would say the image of God defaced but not erased.

And and we don't just have self-identity problems.

Look, we have sin problems.

What is behind marriage problems?

Almost always.

Sin problems.

What's behind conflict in family?

You know what's usually behind that?

Sin problems.

We'll just have family problems.

We don't just have conflict with God.

We have sin problems.

Conflict we have sin problems.

This is what's happening in Genesis 3 through 11.

We are seeing the contamination of the very good with people living for themselves.

They've got sin problems.

And sin is a filthy virus that contaminates every aspect of very good.

Like whatever problems you'd have in your life you could look at.

I got a sin problem.

Sin's a filthy virus, and it contaminates every aspect of the very good.

So what's God do in all this?

How does God deal with the sin problem in these chapters?

Well, we skipped over it in Genesis 3, so we kind of flew through 411.

We're going to swing back around.

We're going to parachute back into Genesis 3 because we're going to see the pursuit of God.

Yes, he comes to the man first.

Adam, where are you?

And he pursues them with this question.

And then we go to verse 15.

Genesis 3, 15.

Go to verse 15 with me.

And God speaks directly to Satan.

And I just kind of feel this moment of tension when God shows up and people have chosen their own way.

They've turned their back on God.

God shows up and it's like, okay, what's he going to do?

Is he going to execute judgment right there?

Is there going to be discipline?

What is there going to be?

What is God going to do here?

And Genesis 3.15 answers that.

He speaks to Satan.

And Genesis 3.15 says this, and I will put enmity, or like strife, conflict, I'll put enmity between you, Satan, 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.

See what God does in response to this, this filthy sin virus, is he comes and he steps in, he pursues them, and he pursues them first with promise.

And the promise is actually given straight to Satan.

And here's the promise Satan, someone's gonna come from the seat of a woman.

And you're gonna bruise his heel, but he's going to crush your head.

This is how God pursues people.

First with promise.

Satan wants you to know someone's gonna come from the seat of a woman.

What woman?

We'll find out later in the story.

Someone's gonna come from the seat of a woman, and you're gonna bruise his heel.

He's gonna crush your head.

A Satan crusher is coming.

This is how God pursues his people with promise, but not just with promise.

He pursues them with something else.

Go to verse 20 in chapter 3.

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

The Lord God, look at this, made garments of what?

Skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

God steps in to this filthy mess of sin first with a promise of a Satan crusher, and second, he steps in by shedding innocent blood to cover the shame of the guilty.

See when they when they sin and they go, This is not how I'm supposed to be, I need to hide.

God sheds innocent blood to cover the shame of the guilty.

The first physical death we just read.

The animal that didn't deserve it.

Now, if you're tracking with me in the story of God, we're starting to see things connect.

That this is what's happening in the story, but then God pursues them with that.

And that represents promise.

And if you're following along in your notes, it says God pursued them with promise, God pursued them with blood.

And then the third bullet point is God pursued them with promise and blood that foreshadowed someone who would come later, someone who would be born of the seed of a woman, someone who would be born of a virgin.

Someone who, as was, he was born of a virgin, did not inherit this sin nature.

He was a second Adam, if you will.

He grows up and like the first Adam, he is also tempted directly by who?

Satan.

And instead of seeing, wanting, taking, and hiding, he sees, he quotes some Bible verses, and he says, No.

He stands firm.

And he never sins.

So he's not just a second Adam, he's a better Adam.

And that seed of the woman is condemned to death by a bunch of people who are under the filthy virus of sin.

And this leads us to Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 5 says this it's going to make a comparison to what is true because of for those for all humanity because of the first Adam who looks like this, and what is true, because of the second Adam, who looked like this.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

And I need to keep this one clean, because I asked permission from my wife to ruin one shirt, not two.

Romans chapter 5 says this, therefore, just as through one man, sin entered the world.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Who's he talking about there?

We're about to talk about Jesus.

Just as through one man, sin entered the world.

Who are we talking about?

Adam, thank you, the first Adam.

And so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

Yep, we're all like this.

For until the law, for until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law.

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him to come.

In other words, Adam is going to be like somebody else who's going to come later, who he's about to talk about, verse 15.

But the free gift is not like the transgression.

For if by the transgression of the one, many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one, man Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

For on the one hand, judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation.

This is what people who appear before God like this, this is what we get.

This is what we deserve, condemnation.

This is what we've asked for, condemnation.

But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions, resulting in justification.

For if by the transgression of the one, that's Adam, death reigned through the one, much more.

Here's a key verse here, much more.

Those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in the life.

Reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

We'll keep going because he's going to keep saying the same thing, but I don't want us to miss it.

So then, as through one transgression, that's Adam, there resulted condemnation to all men.

Even so, through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification.

That means to be declared righteous of life to all men.

For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

Even so, through the obedience, the obedience of the one, that's Jesus, the many will be made righteous.

See, this is such good news for us.

That in Genesis 3, we see a foreshadow of what's to come, what we just read, that someone's gonna come and his name is Jesus.

God comes, he pursues them with promise, he pursues them with blood.

Someone who would come, the city of the woman, crush Satan's head, and make an offer to us of an exchange.

Where Jesus lived like this and died a death that he didn't deserve, so that he could take this from us and give us his righteousness.

This is helpful to me.

Um just to think, okay, if if all of us know, I got a sin problem.

And I know that if I dig down deep enough, whatever surface level problems there appear to be in my life, I know, I see sin problems.

So how do I get like this?

How do we get like this?

And the answer for mo for we have something hardwired into us.

Like, how do I get like this?

Go to church, clean myself up, try to wash, make sure that if I can, my good outweighs my bad, and at least I'm not as dirty as you.

And this this is this is what religion teaches.

You got a sin problem.

Good, do this.

And then the Bible just drops a bomb on that, and God pursues people not with a um invitation to try harder to live better.

He pursues people with a promise of a Satan crusher and the blood of the un the blood of the innocent to cover the shame of the guilty, so that there could be an exchange that gets made.

Not by trying harder, but that this would happen through faith in Jesus, where he would take that on himself, and I would be able to, as he said in Romans 5, to stand in the righteousness of Christ.

This is the good news of the gospel.

And when we start to feel, when we start to internalize and sense this good news, then the ripple effect of, it's like that there's a ripple effect of sin that we saw in all this conflict, but then there's gonna start to be a ripple effect of imputed righteousness.

That there's gonna be a ripple effect here as well.

That if we would see that we're dressed in the righteousness of Christ, things will begin to change.

And by I need to make sure I'm really clear here, that we can be dressed in the righteousness of Christ only through faith in Jesus.

I don't, I'm not, I'm not paying for it.

I can't pay for it.

It's only offered as a gift that I receive by grace through faith in him, saying, God, would you make the exchange for me that I can't make for me?

That's how it happens.

And when I start to see that um that I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ through faith in Jesus, this is what this is what makes a Christian a Christian, then I start to um I'm able to engage God and people differently.

I really am.

Okay?

Um because when you're not dressed right, it makes a difference, and when you are dressed right, it makes a difference.

So we went to um uh last week, a pastor's little dinner thing.

And I don't know why, but when I thought pastor's dinner thing, I was thinking like little Caesar's Pizza, and you know, I don't know, I don't know what I was I was kind of expecting like something like that.

But we show up and it looks kind of like that, and I was like, oh boy, because I looked a little bit like that.

I was like, oh, do not and and when I wasn't dressed right, do you know what it made me want to do?

Hide.

Leave.

Blame somebody.

Why didn't somebody tell?

Hide, leave, blame when I'm not dressed right.

But when I am dressed right, I don't need to hide.

And you don't either.

You don't need to hide before God as if God wants you to kind of keep your distance because you know you've you don't have to hide from God if you are dressed in the righteousness of Christ.

I've just tried to imagine if God were to ask each of us the same question he asked Adam in the garden.

Adam, where are you?

Will, where are you?

Was there any sense of me that would go, I'm hiding?

I'm hiding.

Is there any sense of you that we'd go that you'd go, I'm hiding?

Hiding the shame and the shame of secret sin.

Hiding the shame of broken promises, because there's no one who's broken more promises to you than you've made to you.

Maybe, maybe.

If you're honest, you wouldn't say, well, I'm not so much hiding from God.

Because I know I can't do that, you know, Jonah.

I can't hide.

I'm just I'm just distancing myself.

And maybe for a lot of us, we would sense like if he said, you know, I called your name, where are you?

And you'd say, I'm distancing myself.

Because here's why.

That gospel stuff, that may be true for others.

It's not true for me.

And God doesn't want anything to do with my false promises anymore.

Do you I want to say that again?

And I want you to just listen to what that sounds like or who that sounds like.

That gospel stuff, it may be true for others.

That's not true for me.

And God doesn't want anything to do with me and my broken promises anymore.

Who did I just sound like?

Well, I'll tell you what I just did.

I just denied God's word and twisted his nature.

So you tell me, who did I just sound like?

Satan.

Man, we've got Satan's script on lock in our hearts.

That gospel stuff may be true for some people.

It's not true for me.

That sounds like Satan.

That's denying his word.

That's denying his word that says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

It's denying his word.

God doesn't want anything to do with me and my fault, my broken promises anywhere.

That's twisting his nature.

No, we have a like a chapter in the Bible called Luke 15 for this, the heart of God for repentant sinners.

It sounds like Satan.

And this image, I think, is such a good gift to go, no, God wants me.

God delights in me as his child.

I was talking to a friend, I don't know if he's up there, um, who's talking about the differences like when I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and this changes who I am.

I'm I'm dressed in his righteousness, I'm adopted as his child, and this changes.

Like if if you are you and you um are an enemy of the president, or you're just you and you run at the president, you know what's gonna happen?

You're gonna get shot.

Uh but if you're his son, because the work of Jesus, uh well, we're mixing metaphors here.

If you're his son, then you get to run up to the president and you don't get shot.

You know what you get?

A hug.

You get an embrace.

And if you are dressed, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, then you are his child.

And his desire is not for you to keep your distance.

That is satanic by nature.

He wants you as you are.

Humility and repentance before the Lord.

Not distancing yourself.

When we distance ourselves from God, we're distancing ourselves from life, from love, from joy.

He doesn't want your distance.

That's what I'm trying to say.

I want you to take his word.

Rest in him.

So when I start to see that my, that the filthy virus of sin that's contaminated every part of the very good is overcome by the righteousness of Christ attributed to me by grace through faith in Jesus, then I can come out of hiding and stop trying to keep my distance from God as if that's what God wants.

That's what I'm trying to say.

Come out of hiding.

I think that there's a lot of us in here and we're hiding.

Just like Adam and Eve trying to cover up.

And I want to invite you, I want to plead with you to come out of hiding.

How do I do that?

It's repentance.

Um maybe this will help.

I had a friend recently send me a text, and I was just really grateful for it.

Uh asked to get together, said he was wrestling with some stuff, and so we got together, and like all of us, wrestling with some sin, some sin problems.

And here's what we did.

And here this is what I'm trying to do is help us, I'm trying to help shepherd us to come out of hiding.

What we did is we came, we came in here, we got these boxes out, and we started by just calling the problems what they are, and with uh awkward specificity, the ugliness and the filth of sin.

We called out the problems.

And then we went to how he needs to try, how harder, just kidding, we didn't do that.

Um, we went to gospel truths.

Like about well, about who Jesus is and what he's done.

To change who he is.

And here's what we did.

After we we we said these problems, we said out loud who Jesus is and who he is because of Jesus.

And here's what we said because that's true, we went back to the problems, we said, that's not me anymore.

Because I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that's not me anymore.

Because I have his spirit, that's not me anymore.

And then we went to actions.

And we said, because this is true, I'm strengthened by God's spirit to love and obey God.

Okay, I would love to give more specificity specificity to this, but I hope that this gives some sort of shepherding for us to know, okay, if I'm gonna come out of hiding, what would that actually be like?

It would be like doing that before the Lord and potentially doing that with some somebody that you love and trust in your core group.

If if if honesty about where we're at in terms of the things that we prefer to hide, which all of us have things that we prefer to hide, if that can't happen in your core group, we're in trouble.

But if in your core group we can be honest to come out of hiding, then very listen, very good is gonna start to happen.

Very good.

God's nature is gonna be clearly seen, it's gonna be more tangibly expressed.

And the gospel of grace is so likely to impact you more personally when you get other people involved in it.

So I'm asking you to come out of hiding.

That the sin that you um that you'd love to bury, that you'd love to convince yourself that it's not that big a deal, or blame someone else to come out of hiding before the Lord and confess it to him with gospel truth and to bring someone else into it.

Everything in you is gonna say no, uh, that would be embarrassing because nobody thinks that I struggle with that sort of filth.

And um you might be right, but you're probably wrong.

And regardless, that will be an opportunity to experience very good.

To come out of hiding.

Um I'm clothed in this righteousness, that is a ripple effect.

I can come out of hiding.

Um, second, uh clothed like this, get I I will get off the sin path.

Look, what we said it already.

See, want, take, hide.

This is the sin path.

See, want, take, hide.

And the path off of that path is in look, is there anything wrong or sinful about seeing something?

No.

Is there anything wrong or sinful about wanting something?

What becomes sin is what I do with what I want.

What I do with that desire is where it becomes sinful.

And the battle is lost or won in the milliseconds after the want.

And if we would speak out loud from scripture, out loud with scripture, from memory, like Jesus does, in response to the want to get off the sin path, this is what it can be.

It can be exactly like what we just said, to feel the desire for sin and go, that's not who I am.

That's not me.

I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

That's not who I am anymore.

It can be as simple as that.

I have everything I need by God's Spirit, for life and for godliness, to speak out loud from memory with scripture, until you're out of it.

So I'm saying, come out of hiding.

And I'm also saying, get off the path.

Get off the path.

Sin is a filthy virus and it contaminates, and we know it.

To come out of hiding and get off the path.

And third, um, pass on his righteousness.

Pass on his righteousness.

Like when I when I say when I'm clothed like this, um, I get to share this.

So um, I'll close with this story.

Um, where Luke, you can go ahead and come up.

Um I had a moment recently that was just, it made my heart happy.

Um, somebody came into the church recently and said, Will, I feel so bad, and I need to confess to you.

I lied to you.

I smiled.

I was I had such happiness in my heart.

Say, what?

I did.

I'll tell you why.

Because um, like 13 years ago when I first came on staff here, I had to say those words to my boss named Jim Shorter.

Many of you remember Jim.

And I had told a lie in staff meeting because I didn't want to look bad.

And and I went to him and I said, Jim, I'm preparing to teach, and I'm and I'm like, I don't want to confess, I do not want to come out of hiding here.

Um, but I felt like that was what I needed to do.

So I went to Jim, I said, Jim, I lied.

And I'm sorry.

And here's what Jim said He said, You're forgiven, and we never need to speak of it again.

Hey, very good, tangibly expressed.

So since that day, I've been kind of waiting on the day when somebody's gonna get to say to me, hey Will, I lied to you.

Honestly, because I know exact I knew exactly what I was gonna say.

Like I was predetermined, it was a hard wired end to me.

I said, thank you so much for telling me.

You're forgiven.

And we never need to bring it up again, except when I ask permission to share the story today.

I brought it up that time.

Listen, freely I received.

Freely I give.

Clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

And get out of hiding.

Hope these boxes help.

Get off the path, pass on his righteousness.

Freely we receive, freely we give.

Um it all starts with who am I because of Jesus?

And the story of God that exalts Jesus.

So if you'll stand with me, we're gonna we're gonna sing about the true and better Adam, about the mystery of the gospel.

And um want to remind you that we have our elders and wives in the back always available to pray.

But whether it's to a person or not, let's use this time to come out of hiding.

God does not want your distance.

Let's sing together.