So hey there, good to see you and to have you with us. If you are a new friend here for the first time this weekend (or an online friend tuning in right now) as always we want to give a special shout out to you and let you know that you are always safe and welcome here regardless of how your story reads or what you believe. We really are a tribe of people who are just like you chasing after a better way to live and we believe that Jesus offers that. Having said that, here’s our challenge. We will never be able to find this life we’re chasing without an understanding of the story that we all find ourselves living in.
In its day Route 66 was a major route that stretched from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California that people traveled as they migrated west in search of a better life. We are calling this series Route 66 because we believe a journey through the story of the 66 books of the Bible will lead every single one of us to a better life too. Unfortunately, the larger story of the Bible is a story that can be easy to struggle with, misunderstand, or miss. Don’t feel bad, that was me for the first 40 years of my life. It creates problems for us. John Carroll says it this way “The waning of Christianity as practiced in the West is easy to explain. The Christian churches have comprehensively failed in this one central task: to retell their foundational story in a way that might speak to the times.” Here’s my theory. I think that the main reason that we don’t tell it is our struggle to understand it. We are setting out to change that in this series.
ILLUST> So Thursday is my major writing day after a full day of reading, note taking, and study on Wednesday. This past Thursday, in the early morning before writing time as I was sitting in my chair, drinking coffee, and trying to get centered I decided to read the Ransomed Heart daily email. You ought to subscribe to it if you don’t. The email Thursday was titled Living in Narrative. It said this. “Story is the language of the heart. Our souls speak not in the naked facts of mathematics or the abstract propositions of systematic theology; they speak the images and emotions of story. Contrast your enthusiasm for studying a textbook with the offer to go to a movie. If we’re going to find the answer to the riddle of the earth—and of our own existence—we’ll find it in story. Our heart is made to live in a Larger Story; having lost that we do the best we can by developing our own smaller dramas.”
It’s true, and those smaller stories never lead any of us to the life we are looking for. This past week I read some of the takeaways from 1st to 3rd graders from the Bible stories they were learning in church. I want to put a few of the ones that they wrote down up on the screen for you. Here you go. So, if the short stories are confusing to us it just makes sense that the larger story that they come together to tell will be too. Last week we talked about Genesis chapter 1 and how incomprehensible, indescribable, and mind blowing God’s creation really is. Let’s take the next step into that today with this. If the artwork is that incredible can you imagine what it would be like to get to know the artist. Actually, that is what the rest of the story is all about. So, let’s jump back into this and chase after that.
If you brought a Bible today we are going to be in Genesis chapter 3 today. If you don’t have a Bible they are back on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on you can always grab one on your way out. As always you can hit our app or the YouVersion app too. Or you can ignore all of that and read along with me on the screens. So before we dive into this, yes, we are still in the first 3 chapters of the very first book of the 66 books. Here’s the thing. The time period covered in the first 11 chapters of Genesis alone is the same as the rest of the story, the rest of the Bible combined. From a time perspective after we finish today we will be half way through the story. The time we are spending here is necessary. This stuff is foundational. We must understand some key things in the beginning of the story for the rest of the story to make sense to us. So here we go, Genesis chapter 3 verse 1…
Now the snake 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”?’ 2 The woman said to the snake, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”’ 4 ‘You will not certainly die,’ the snake said to the woman. 5 ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’
Okay. So sometimes we like to call this part of the story the fall, which is okay, but I like to call it the rebellion. A fall is usually something that happens accidentally and this is clearly going to be a choice. Eve’s response to the snake’s question about what God said about the tree is “God said don’t eat from it, don’t touch it, or you will die”. Two things about that. First, God talked talked to Adam not Eve about the tree. Second, what he actually said to Adam in chapter 2 was eat it and die. Either Adam or Eve added the touch it part. So right here in the beginning of the story we get the very first example of legalism by church people. Isn’t it great? Does this feel familiar? How about this? God says we can’t drink, shouldn’t even touch alcohol when in reality he says don’t get drunk and don’t be a stumbling block. This legalism thing has been around for a long time. That’s clearly a different sermon for a different day but if you know me you knew I couldn’t leave it alone. The first question I have for us as we read the story today is this...
DO WE REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST? Here’s where this breaks down for a lot of us? We’ve already missed a part of the story. See something happened before the “in the beginning” in Genesis 1:1 that we read last week that we have to understand before we even get to the conversation between Eve and the snake here. In other words the beginning of the creation story is not the beginning of the story. Let’s talk about that because this is where the Bible tends to get confusing. We find what happens before “in the beginning” by piecing together information from several different books of the Bible written way after Genesis was written. We don’t have time to turn and read all of the verses, you can go read them this week but the big chapters are Revelation 12, Isaiah 14, and Ezekiel 28. When we study the whole story here’s what we learn. This snake is Satan. In Isaiah he is called the Star of the Morning which translates Lucifer. In Ezekiel he is described as once being the seal of perfection, perfect in beauty, and angel who most reflected the glory of God, who was there at Eden, the garden of God. Revelation tells us that he was the angel that led ? of the other angels in a rebellion against God and was defeated and cast down to earth. He is the enemy throughout the entire story and our enemy today too. There is so much more to this than a talking snake trying to get a lady to snack on an apple here.
In other places in the story this snake is also described as a roaring lion seeking to devour, a thief who wants to steal, kill, and destroy, an accuser, a dragon, a destroyer, the god and prince of this world, the father of lies whose main message and agenda is much the same as we see with Eve here...you can’t trust God. Eve, did God really say, really? And he loves you? Really, or is he holding out on you? Is he for you or is he keeping you from what life could really be for you? His strategy is brilliant here. We are told in Psalm 8 that we humans were created just a little lower than the angels. One of the main differences is this. Angels can see God. Their relationship is built on sight. Ours is by faith not by sight. Our relationship with God requires trust. The enemy knows that and he comes after that. It all starts in Genesis chapter 3.
ILLUST> As I was thinking through my own life this past week what I realized with this. God has done a lot of great work in my life and story over the past 15 years. I don’t struggle with some of the things that I used to struggle with like I used to. Can I tell you what I continue to struggle with the most? When it is all broken down and you get to the bottom what it really boils down to is this. It’s the very thing that Eve is struggling with here. At some level I still struggle to trust God. Aren’t there things in your life as you sit here today that you are struggling to trust God with? Your health, your job, your income, your marriage, your other relationships, retirement, fertility, your future? What does it look like for you? Do you ever find yourself in that space? In light of the circumstances of my life right now can I really trust God, how he sees me, how much he loves me, and what he says is true?
If we really think about it the story that we are living in started thousands of years ago and yet here we are and when you really take a hard look at it not much has really changed. We get an accurate picture of all that we are up against from the very beginning of the story. Let’s keep reading…
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ 10 He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’ 11 And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?’ 12 The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’ 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The snake deceived me, and I ate.’
So sin enters the story. Adam and Eve do the very thing, the one thing, the only thing that God has told them not to do. When we read this story we understand that Adam and Eve chose to disobey. We understand our need to guard against temptation and the importance of obeying God in our own lives too. That’s all really good stuff but here’s my question...
DO WE REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MOMENT DID TO US? I guess another way to ask that question is this. We see the disobedience here, do we really see the destruction. This moment in history set some things into motion in Adam and Eve’s lives. This moment in history set some things in motion that continue to be destructive in all of our lives and stories too. As we continue reading God lays out the consequences Adam and Eve. Pain in childbirth is one of them. Now, let me say this. I’m not trying to minimize pain in childbirth, I’ve watched it 4 times with my daughters and ladies you are heroes...it’s beastmode...I agree. It’s horrible, I can’t imagine. So, I’m not minimizing that or anything else that happened to Adam and Eve here. I’m simply saying this. We see the part of the problem that comes from the story that we are born with - our sin nature. We don’t pay a lot of attention to the problems here that continue to surface in our lives on a daily basis. It took me 40 years to get this. We will never find the life we are looking for until we begin to get this.
ILLUST> We don’t really have time to take a deep dive here so you should study it and think about it some more this week. Lot’s of things happened in the course of just a few minutes here in the story. Man chose passivity over protection. Adam went passive. God gave the commandment to him. He was standing right next to Eve during this whole conversation. He could have stepped up, stepped in, intervened, protected, instead he chose silence. Every man in this room will tell you it’s true. We have had a tendency to check out, disengage, disappear, and be passive ever since. Adam ultimately chose Eve over God. We have also been doing that ever since. The assault here was on Eve...on beauty. Why? It was not only because she was less informed and not there when Adam received the commandment directly from God. That’s a part of it but the other part is this. The enemy was the most beautiful of all of God’s creation until Eve was created. The assault on beauty continues on every woman young and old in this room to this very day. Ladies, we see it, we see your beauty, it is incredible, you’re stunning. Let’s be honest. It is also something that most of you struggle to look in the mirror every single day and really see yourself. There is an assault on identity here for both Adam and Eve. Adam will no longer have and find worth based on being a beloved son of God. His identity will be found in his work. Not only sin, but something that can even be more of a problem enters this story here. It’s called shame. At the end of chapter 2 Adam and Eve are naked and there is no shame. Now, shame is all over them. The need to hide enters the story. This idea that there are certain things about me, certain things in my life and story that I must hide that I cannot allow anyone to know or see. Blame enters the story too. Adam blames Eve and makes it clear that if it’s not her fault it’s God’s because he is the one that created her and put her with Adam in the first place. So much more than sin entered this story in the course of just a few minutes. This moment unleashed Hell on earth. So, where do you see this stuff at play in your own life and story? Are you ever passive? You ever look in the mirror unsatisfied with what you see? Do you ever find yourself blaming others or maybe even God for where you find yourself in life? Do you ever struggle with shame? So much of what we see around us in the world today, so much of what we ourselves struggle with and what causes us to lose heart gets unleashed in Genesis chapter 3.
One last thing before we leave this. Thinking that we have the right and ability to define good and evil ourselves or taking that right for ourselves is where this gets destructive. It is not what God intended. He wants us to be in his image in how we love people but not try to be like him in how we judge people. In 1 Corinthians 4 Paul asks us what business do we have judging people outside the church. The answer is none but sometimes we act like it is our job. What if instead we did this. If someone has not invited us into their life to help them we are only allowed one opinion of them. They were worth Jesus Christ dying for and therefore have incredible worth. Regardless of what we think, we see, we dislike, we are appalled by or grossed out by, our job as followers of Jesus to set it all aside and agree with God that they have incredible worth. We have to be careful with how Adam and Eve eating of this tree plays out in our lives today. Our job is to love not judge. Sometimes what happened in Genesis chapter 3 makes that a challenge for us. The consequences of this moment extend far beyond Adam and Eve in the story. Let’s finish this...
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
So, God kicks them out of the garden but did you notice what He did before he put them out? He could have shown them the door in their fig leaves but instead he made garments of animal skin and clothed them. What’s up with that? God is showing us his heart here. Before He banishes them from the garden, he first addresses not only their sin, but how they now see themselves as a result of their sin. God demonstrates from the beginning of the story that He cares about that too. The Bible makes it clear that blood must be shed for sin to be forgiven so God initiates substitutionary atonement. He allows an animal to die in their place until the ultimate and final atonement will one day take place when God takes care of the sin issue once and for all, not just for Adam and Eve, but for all of us too. Which points to a verse in the story that we skipped over, something in the story that is easy to miss. Not only will the snake eat dust and crawl on his belly, listen to the rest of what God says verse 15...
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
It is a prediction of things to come in the story that will actually not come for at least a few thousand years. You, Satan, the enemy will continue to nip at and strike the heel of man. But one day there will be one born of woman who will violently stomp your head and crush it once and for all. It paints a picture of what Jesus will one day do in this story.
In the next 8 chapters of Genesis things continue to go from bad to worse. Adam and Eve have two sons, the first murder takes place when one kills the other. Apparently, some other angelic beings decide to violate God’s command and come to earth and have intimate relationships with women and children by them called Nephilim in Genesis chapter 6. God sees that and how wicked man has become is grieved and decides to wipe them all out with a flood and start over with Noah and his family. Not too long after coming off the ark Noah gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent. Finally, the nations come together, decide that they can build their own kingdom apart from God, and start building a tower to reach to heaven. God gives them different languages and scatters them instead. This is the beginning of the story, it is the beginning of our story. As we finish this up today, we’ve now seen it, read it, and talked about it, but my hope is that we walk away today with this...
OUR STORY HAS ALWAYS BEEN A RESCUE STORY. One last quote, not from a Christian but from a Hindu scholar. “I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as another book of religion. It is not a book of religion. I find your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole creation and the history of the human race. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside of it.” It’s a rescue story that needs to be told.
God has been on a mission to redeem and restore creation since the moment the story took its first turn for the worse. Why, because just like we said last week we matter that much to him. Relationship with us is what the story is all about. It’s what its always been about. What happened in Genesis 3 unleashed evil, pain, and suffering in this world. Satan, the prince of this world and lord of death is on a mission to destroy the world. God is on a rescue mission to redeem it. The story that we are living in is the greatest rescue story that the world has ever seen or will ever see. Sometimes it is hard when we look at our circumstances to believe that. We need to be careful to assign to God only what is consistent with the heart and character of God. I want you to listen to what Paul writes about this story, our story, Colossians chapter 2...
13 When you were dead in your sins and flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having cancelled our legal debt, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
Don’t lose that. We were once dead, not any more. As questions arise about God, his character, his heart, the answer will always be found in the person of Jesus Christ and him crucified. Look to the cross. The answer is found in his self-sacrificing love of Jesus, his never ending, enemy embracing, self sacrificing love. The whole Old Testament must be interpreted through Jesus and his death on that cross. When Jesus breathed his last breath when he died, our lives truly began. It was the greatest moment of rescue in the greatest rescue story that has ever been told. You can call it what you want but this story, our story, has always been a rescue story. Let me pray for us.
