Sermon Central
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Grass Burrs In The Carpet
Contributed by Kent Lenard on Jan 31, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: Thorns have been a symbol of the consequences of sin since the beginning of time. This sermon shows that Jesus carried our thorns to the Cross where they died.
Grass Burrs in the Carpet
Gen 3:17 -18, Num 33:53-55, Prov 22:2-5, Mat 7:15-16, Job 36:26 , Psa 139:7-10, Mat 27:46
January 27, 2003
I. Long ago in the throne room of heaven a plan was originated. It was a plan that came from the thought processes of God.
A. God who was love wanted to have someone to love so he laid out a plan where a world would be created, and in that world he was going to create humans.
B. Those humans were going to be the objects of God’s love, and they were going to be created to those whom God could have a love relationship with.
C. God wanted someone to love and he wanted someone to love him because that is what relationships are about.
D. The bible says that were we created in God’s image, and that means a lot of things, and one of the things it sheds some light on is the reason that one of the greatest desires in human beings is to have someone to love, and someone to love them.
E. That is the way that God is. God wanted someone to love, and he wanted a love relationship. One of the greatest desires in every human being is the need to love and be loved and that is because we were created in the image of God, and that is the way God is.
F. So God created a man and a woman, and he put them in a perfect place. He put them in a garden, but it was not a garden like we know them today. It was a garden that had no weeds. It was a garden that had no thorns.
G. More importantly to those of us who live in Texas it was a garden in which there were GRASS BURRS!
H. It was perfect! And everyday that I have to go out and try to make a living I am a little aggravated at Adam, because when man was first created his only job was to tend a garden that had no weeds and make babies.
I. But Adam blew it, and mankind has struggled to provide ever since.
J. Adam, Eve, and the earth were cursed, which validates something that I have thought since I moved to Texas, which is Grass Burrs are from satan.
II. A part of the result of sin was thorns. Since Adam thorns have represented sin. Thorns have represented the fall of man. Thorns have represented the division in the relationship between man and God.
(Gen 3:17 - 18 NIV) To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ’You must not eat of it,’ "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the
A. What God had created perfect, man’s rebellion tainted, and man had to live with the thorns in life that sin created.
B. In the beginning God didn’t create thorns. Thorns were the result of sin. If Adam and Eve had just trusted God there would have been no grass burrs!
C. I know that in heaven there will be no sin, but if it were not that way I am sure that I would have to give Adam a dirty look if he was there.
D. Since earth is not a place of no sin, I have had some bad thoughts toward Adam when I have stepped on a grass burr in the carpet at three in the morning when I got up to go to the bathroom. Which is further evidence that thorns represent sin, because I have had some sinful thoughts toward Adam at three in the morning, because of grass burrs.
E. But thorns in a way don’t really represent sin, they represent the consequences of sin. The thorns that grew up out of the ground represent that consequences of mans rebellion against God.
F. They represent the pain that comes from sin and they represent the problem that sin creates in our relationship with God.
G. Disobedience results in difficulty. The presence of sin always creates problems. When the Israelites were going in to take the land that God had promised to Abraham God made it clear that the presence of sin among them would cause problems and he used thorns to makes his point.
(Num 33:53 - 55 NIV) Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess. Distribute the land by lot, according to your clans. To a larger group give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group a smaller one. Whatever falls to them by lot will be theirs. Distribute it according to your ancestral tribes. "’But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live.
