The Drama Begins
God created all things, the light, the dark, the day, time. He created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, from the starry hosts to the rain and snow, to the oceans and ground. He created the forests and the deserts, the grass and the crops. He created everything that lives, flies, swims, crawls and walks on this earth and God called it all good.
He created man. In his image and likeness to care for and govern over all he had made on the earth. He made man in the context of a relationship and for relationships, with dignity, purpose and responsibility. God gave Adam work, to care for all he had created as He himself would. And, God also created out of Adam, his mate, to share in all his strength, likeness, work, and purpose, equally bearing the image of God himself.
God knew that the context of a relationship, which the man and woman were created in, demanded that the man and woman trust God’s authority and goodness and so God placed a tree in their midst and commanded them to not eat of its fruit. But when the woman was tempted she ate of the tree and gave it to her husband to eat as well. The relationship of trust was broken. Sin had entered into their life, they were condemned to die and could no longer remain with God in His garden.
The sin of Adam was not for Adam alone, but humanity that would be born after him. Everyone born would now be subject to sin and separated from God and the source of life. However, that did not change the fact that every person, from Adam to the present, were made for relationships with one another and God himself.
And now the drama begins...
I like movies, stories, plays that are dramas. A drama will get you to look at things you not normally otherwise dwell on.
“A good drama can hit a nerve that will move a person that means it can move a nation” It can move a generation. We live the greatest on-going drama of history.
A good drama always begins with the writer, the word – and requires conflict.
God created each of us in Relationship and for relationship but we have made a mess of things by our own choices. The consequences of our sin has hurt others, hurt God and left us in direct conflicts with others and God himself.
Our choices put us in a conflict - Between ourselves and God - Between ourselves and others
We have said we will look out for ourselves and trust in ourselves over God and others.
We seek our own good – and we can’t help it now. Even when we desire to do good, sin is always there to challenge us
The problem is, we can’t avoid the conflict, the sinful nature we are born in always leads us to make the choices
Rom 7:15-19 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.
We live in this ongoing
drama, wanting to do good but screwing it up and God knows this is our
condition.
God has compassion but separates us from his presence
21 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.
The greatest picture of ‘TOUGH LOVE’
God is a good father, and while he is heartbroken, not only of our choices but also the consequences He knows our choices bring. – like the picture of the prodigal son and his father.
We are separated from God and our source of life.
Because God loves us, as his great creation and image bearers, He still longs to be in relationship with us. He also knows that it would not be the best for us. If we are choosing what is best for ourselves, and putting ourselves first, living forever in that state would be disastrous.
Until we are able to go back to the choice of trusting God in relationship again.
A fight for our lives – and we loose everytime Death comes to us all
This problem was not Adam’s alone, but it passed down to subsequent generations.
We have a poignant picture of this in Adams sons, Cain & Able.
Cain, the first born, gets ‘up-staged’ by his younger brother Able and it infuriates Cain, in this curious story of these men.
For some, unspecified reason, both men are compelled to bring a sacrifice to God, Cain brings grain that he grew, Able sacrifices the best of his flock and God is pleased with Able’s sacrifice over his older brother, Cain’s.
Some commentators have tried to build an explanation of why one’s sacrifice was pleasing and the other not, I believe that is missing the simple point.
God provided a situation to test Cain and Cain failed.
We don’t know what caused him to fail, perhaps his pride, or arrogance, perhaps his independent self-justifying nature of wanting to look good before God and better than his brother, regardless what motivated it, he failed.
God warned him that “sin was crouching at his door” that he had better be careful and choose how he would respond wisely, but any residue from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that his parents ate from was gone and he choose poorly.
Cain’s actions cement the sinful nature into human existence and so every man and woman since has dealt with temptation and failed. God is faithful to let us know we are standing at a test, and we step across the line...
As Paul writes...1 Cor 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. NIV
All of us have faced temptation to sin and failed the test
Cain was removed even further from God’s presence and goodness where he is destined to live in uncertainty and fear – do you know anyone like that? Does that describe you?
All good drama while it has conflict in it, it also shows great compassion and this drama is no different.
While our choices removed us from God’s presence He still demonstrates compassion for us
He gave Adam and Eve clothes to protect them and cover their shame.
While he drives them from the garden he does not abandon them,
Cain & Able know him, to make sacrifices to him, for Cain to talk to God
God puts a mark on Cain to spare his life – God’s compassionate response when Cain did not deserve it
The same is true for us, we are not ‘with’ him but we can call out to him and talk to him.
He desires to woo us back into a trusted relationship
Through human history, God has continually reached out to people to reveal himself and the opportunity to relate with him.
With Abraham he give his people his promise, a covenant
With Moses he gives his law, direction in how to live well
With Joshua he gives his people the promised land
With David he establishes a nation
With Solomon a temple, a place for God to dwell with his people
With the prophets a constant voice to return to him
And finally,
Gal 4:4-5 NIV
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Our desperate conflict cries out for hope and God brings hope through prophesy of sending his son Jesus whose birth we celebrate at Advent. From the very beginning God begins showing us we can have hope because he is sending his son, as both God and man to redeem our relationship if we will only trust in Him. God begins assuring us of his redemption even in the curse he lays on the serpent
Gen 3:15 he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
And his prophesies continue throughout scripture...
700 years before Jesus is born,God speaks through his prophet Isaiah...
Isa 42:1-7
42 "Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him
and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
4 he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his law the islands will put their hope."
5 This is what God the Lord says —
he who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it:
6 "I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
7 to open eyes that are blind,
All humanity has lived under the curse of sin, we can’t avoid it, shake it or ignore it, but we can and must respond to God’s final and complete attempt to reveal himself and reconcile us to him.
This advent season we are going to dig into this verse
Gal 4:4-5 NIV
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
And we are going to ask the questions this verse raises about trusting in Jesus to restore a trust relationship with God in my own life. We are going to ask “where in my life am I not trusting God?” where do I need to trust in God’s authority or his goodness in my own life.
Maybe that will be for the first time for some of us, I hope so.
For others it can be a season of allowing Christ to become more and more alive in me.
This morning I encourage you to commit to God to let him do the work He wants to do in your life this Christmas season to woo you into a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the God who made you for Himself.
Lets pray,