Bridge Church Vancouver

We are made with a will – the ability to choose – freely.   To create, reason, think.  With the amazing ability to feel love for a thing, a place and a person and to know the difference. 

We are made with the ability to exercise authority and to make good decisions.

We were made with responsibility, and God wastes no time in putting  Adam to work. 

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

He didn’t command him to go to work, he didn’t suggest that he might get a job,  God TOOK him, Adam was with God

John 5:17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

John 5:20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.

Even in his work, God was in relationship with the man. 

And while they are in the garden, God tells him...

 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

And at the same time God shows the man that he is aware of the needs of his life, that He can trust God to meet every need he may have.  

18 The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

God’s commands always come with His blessings! 

One thing we know about God to this point of the story is God is all about GOOD.  Now he declares something to not be good. 

Notice, God doesn’t stop what he is doing right then and there and this new problem, Adam doesn’t have all that he needs.  Instead they keep working... He has Adam name all the animals. 

God brings all the animals that he created to Adam for him to name them.  Naming to the Israelites was much more than identifying them like a young girl might identify all her dolls.  To the Israelites, the act of naming was the act of establishing authority and dominion over the things named.  Adam was not establishing a relationship with the animals but he was establishing authority over all creation.  And God was there with him and therefore Adam was to rule over the creation with authority and bearing the image of God, as God himself would rule over the creation, with goodness, so the creation could flourish.

In the midst of his work, Adam recognizes his own need, he had no mate.  God had already recognized that need, but now Adam also recognized it, and after his work was complete Adam sleeps, God causes a deep sleep and God brings the ‘woman of his dreams’ to life. 

She comes from the man and God brings her to him.  God provided exactly what Adam needed. 

Adam declares:  "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."    

                Bone = strength               Flesh = kind, likeness, and extension of

She was an extension of himself – His strength and kind.  She was not seen as weak or a second place, but an equal of the same, all that was in him was her – the image of God, was upon her as well

Then a most interesting thing happens in our story, the narrator steps in, like a commercial that breaks into a television drama, Moses shows up with an infomercial with a bit of added teaching for the Israelite audience. 

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

This doesn’t fit with the story, there had been no father or mother character in our story so far, but Moses wanted them to get something very important here.  “for this reason” – the first bit of explanation of the entire creation story shows up here, the only thing that gets explained or spelled out is this about the man and woman. 

The man is to leave his family and be united to his wife and they become this most mysterious thing – “ONE FLESH”

The two become one again.  God separated them and by their choice, and cost, they come back together and make one flesh again. 

We have said – this whole story of origins is about REVELATION AND RELATIONSHIP

They are two that become ONE – God makes them both complete in their relationship.  Just like the trinity is complete in their oneness,

They were naked – but no shame, they were exposed, vulnerable but secure because of the relationship. 

The Crisis. 

Remember God told Adam while they were working in the garden...

"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Now the serpent shows up, one of the wild animals that God created, he created and allowed this whole situation to occur. 

He starts out QUESTIONING GOD’S AUTHORITY  “did God really say...”  and he changed what God said “you must not eat from any tree in the garden”  -  where God gave freedom, the enemy brought restriction.  He changed what God said to fit his own agenda.

The woman reworded God’s command and added to it “you must not touch it” – God didn’t say that.

God gave his command to Adam not to eat and entrusted the responsibility to him to make sure the woman also knew it, there is no evidence God told the woman.  “must not touch” was possibly her own addition to the prohibition or from Adam, but certainly that is how she saw THAT fruit, every time she looked at that tree and saw that fruit she saw “off limits, don’t even touch it, you can’t have it to eat”

Not only did she change the command from God but she also changed the effect of the command.  She minimized the effect of sin

“...for when you eat of it you will surely die."  But she said  “...or you will die”.  She maintains the threat of the command but drops the teeth out of this command.  So often we minimize the effects of sin, but Satan picks up on it – “you will not surely die”  that’s ridiculous, that doesn’t make any sense, surely a good and loving God wouldn’t cause you to die if you made a little mistake. 

He begins to position the woman against God – questioning God’s goodness, not only that but God is not really providing everything you need, because you see, when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 

Your eyes are closed now, your not really all you can be but you can be like God, like he made you to be but you aren’t yet, but you can be.

She thinks “why would God hold this from me?”  if everything he made was good, why would he keep this from me?

NOW the woman looked at the fruit entirely differently...now she sees that the fruit is good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom...

She builds a case for sin –  the same case we build every time...

1 – good for food – it begins to make sense to eat it, it is reasonable, logical

I am not getting what I need, this makes sense.  We get angry and sin because we aren’t getting what we think we need or deserve – we start determining what is good for me and it is always to my benefit – at expense of others, so we Lie to someone (it just makes sense to tell them this...).  The first step in breaking a relationship is determining something else, someone else is better for me. – it is good for food.

2 – pleasing to the eye – attractive, feel good emotionally about it, makes me feel better about myself

we buy things we don’t need that are pleasing to the eye,  adultery, sexual immorality, begins by pleasing the eye.  We say “I am not getting what I need, this, or this person, is going to make me feel good about myself.  So we engage in the sin of Greed, Materialism, Stealing, Coveting what someone else has because it is pleasing to our eye.

3 – desirable for gaining wisdom  - make me a better person and puts me in control, I will not have to rely on God or anyone else

(who is not giving me everything I need and I am not feeling too good about me because of it) “I can’t really trust anybody but myself” – I have to gain knowledge, education is the answer to all my problems.  Then I can forsee the future, my destiny is in my hands, I am the master of my life. – Hatred – I need to get this person out of my life and so we kill them, physically or emotionally.  It makes me a better person to get them out of my life, they are making my life difficult, they need to be removed, I will be a better person after a divorce...

The Choice

She makes a conscious decision, based on her business case, she looked for and found some ‘loopholes’, exceptions for her case, her intellect and emotions over powered God’s command and she ate it.

How often we can justify our sin – in our own minds – and therefore it doesn’t have the consequence it might otherwise have – for someone else.  God will understand in my situation, I have an extenuating circumstance.  Then she gives some to her husband (first time this term is used).   He eats it  -

Their choice was disobedience.  THEN their eyes are opened.  Not only did they choose to do something, but they DISOBEYED GOD.  They didn’t trust God was worthy to follow – he had no authority in their lives in that moment.  They also didn’t trust that God was good, that he would care for them.  They regarded what He had said as unimportant and irrelevant to their life. 

Choice of control & acquiescence 

The Consequence

They see each other differently then, they are TWO individuals – vulnerable, exposed, naked and they run and hide

The unity is broken,  relationship is broken, between themselves and God.  That is what sin does – it breaks our relationship with God and one another. And we don’ t think it really matters., but it kills us.

When God calls Adam to account – what does he say...

I heard you in the garden, I was afraid because I was naked so I hid  -  no unity, no looking out for his wife, besides it was her fault anyway,

We pass the blame – we show we have no responsibility for our choices and actions.

What does God say??? 

"What is this you have done?"

He knew exactly what had happened – He wasn’t seeking information.  This was a cry from his heart.  His heart was broken for the man and the woman,

Their sinful choices had broken the relationship they were made to live in and enjoy. 

Their choices removed them from the tree of life, they were banished outside of God’s presence. 

From this point forward and through all of history, men and women encounter God when God comes to them, and they will always have to choose to respond to him.

This morning – do you see your life in a new light. 

You were made in relationship, with purpose and dignity and responsibility – and for relationship,

BUT each one of us, you and I, have made choices to do it on our own, to live life independently.  We have made choices that made perfect sense to us, they were going to make me feel better about myself, satisfy these needs I have and make be a better me. 

The problem is those choices came at an expense – I hurt people, some of them I hurt really bad.  Not only that, I hurt God.  I told him He was not all I needed – he wasn’t going ot do it for me

But those choices have left me all alone, vulnerable, exposed and really not satisfied at all.

When I realize what I have done, it makes me feel bad – about me.  We are all in the same situation, Romans 3:

Rom 3:10-25

"There is no one righteous, not even one;

  11 there is no one who understands,

no one who seeks God.

12 All have turned away,

they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good,

not even one."

13 "Their throats are open graves;

their tongues practice deceit."

"The poison of vipers is on their lips."

14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."

15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16 ruin and misery mark their ways,

17 and the way of peace they do not know."

18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

NIV

This morning – I want you to think about your own life – I don’t want you to think about the fact that you have sinned, because you have.  I want you to think about – recall what you have done, the choices you have made that have hurt others and separated you from God.  Let the teeth of what God has said sink in.

Jesus came to offer forgiveness and restore our relationship with God, and others.  The great hope of life.

NEXT STEP for you this morning...

Acts 2:38-39

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call."

NIV

Repent – change your life direction, who / what you place your trust in, Trust God – he is good

Receive the Holy Spirit – let Jesus restore your relationship with God this morning.