Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] Speaker A: All right. Have you ever heard a great story or have a favorite movie? Okay, Mine is Gladiator. The Elders know this. We went and watched Gladiator while we were on Elder retreat. I, like, didn't know there was an extended edition of Glad, so if you didn't know that either, you're welcome. Like, go. Go and watch it. It's amazing. Okay. The little touches. It does every great story, though, whether your favorite movie is Gladiator or A Notebook or Braveheart or I'm going to list off a bunch of, like, my favorite movies that maybe will be relatable. So we'll stop there. But all of these stories have a few things in common. Okay. Maybe there's some action going on. Like, that's what I like. Like, you go watch Top Gun Maverick and you're like, oh, my gosh, they're pulling so many GS right now. Okay. Where there's a little bit of romance, right? Like, a lot of good stories have romance, but what story has, if it doesn't have those things is some sort of conflict.
Okay? There's something. There's something that has to be solved, right? When I get to a TV show or something when everything's going good, I'm like, all right, yeah, we can. We could pause this. I can pick it up next time. But the points where I'm like, I have to finish this episode, where I have to finish this chapter of the book, is when there's some sort of conflict going on. I just got to know what it is, right? Got to see how it pans out and plays out. That is what our text gives us today in the overarching narrative of what God is going to bring in his story and Bible, right? Genesis text gives us sin, gives us the first sin, gives us the conflict that was brought into God's perfect world. And the rest of the story of the Bible is how all of that unfolds. But we're going to deep and focus on the conflict that is brought to us today.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: I'm going to do a quick flyover because I asked Taylor to shorten down, if you like. Our full text is Genesis 3:1 through 15. It's, like, longer than some books of the Bible. So I asked them to shorten it down. We're going to do a quick flyover of what happens. Okay? God has made the earth. It is perfect. He made Adam and Eve. They're perfect. And then we get this scene where God tells them. He's like, hey, you can do whatever you want. Just don't go touch that tree and don't eat from the fruit. The serpent enters the scene. He tempts Eve, see, says, hey, God really said. In Eve's like, yeah, God really said. And then the servant keeps tempting her. She gives in eventually Adam then gives in, like right away. Like there's like almost no narrative between the time where Eve hands him the fruit. Adam's like, yeah, that's a great idea. We'll go with that. And so then, then God comes looking for them and Adam does this like weird blame shifting game, right? Like, maybe you've been there. Here's what the text says for Adam. God comes looking for him. He's like, adam, what happened? And Adam goes, well, the woman that you gave me that, the woman, she gave me the fruit of Betrayan. Well, and then I ate. I mean, it's a pretty bold move to both blame your wife and God for what you did. At the same time. That was Adam's play. Don't play that one. And then God curses the serpent. Okay. Then in Isaiah, our second text, we get a short but clear condemnation of our own hearts. Okay, that Isaiah text was comparing us to sheep.
Okay. I don't, I don't know if you spend a lot of time around sheep. I've only done a little bit of sheep at like petting Zeus. It's not a favorable comparison. Okay. Isaiah text compares us to sheep. And at the end of these things we get like pretty positive note coming out of all of it. As I was going through the text though, I came up with four questions. All right. That I think are important for us to dig into today. The first one is, what is sin? Like, let's just lay a good foundation for what it is. The second one is, what is the impact of Adam and Eve's sin? Right. Like they said, so what for me? And the third one, I'm going to give a short disclaimer on this one because it's, it's, it's very tricky, is why did God let them sin?
Okay, and then the last one is, where do you fit into that story? All right, let's start off.
What is sin? A good biblical definition of sin comes from 1st John 3, 4. Here's what John says. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is wallacex.
Okay? When God created the heavens and the earth, he created a whole bunch of physical laws. The first and second laws of thermodynamics, laws of gravity holding everything together. And then he created moral laws. And the one that he revealed To Adam and Eve was don't touch that tree and don't eat of the fruit. Okay, so when we talk about this original sin, it is lawlessness and going against the law that God has made for us. It's like, okay, well that's like a fair definition. That's what we do. But let's talk about the heart and attitude of sin as well.
Isaiah 14, 13, 14.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Listen to the attitude in.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Said in your heart. I will ascend in heaven above the stars of God.
I will set my throne on high.
I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.
I will make myself like the most high.
If you look back at our Genesis text, right, when Satan first goes in tense Eve, what he says is, did God actually tell you not to eat of any tree in the garden? Like, did he really say that? Eve comes back and quotes God directly and says, yes, he said don't eat of the fruit and don't touch the tree. But the thing that catches Eve is when the serpent says you won't die. God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will see open. What does he say you will be like knowing good and evil.
Like that's, that's the peace and attitude of the heart of sin that I think really goes and drives the actions, right? Like the action of sin is lawlessness, breaking God's laws. But the heart of sin is I want to be my God. I want to be in charge of my story. I want this thing and therefore I take it even though I'm not supposed to. I, I don't want punishment. I want to get away with this. So I'm going to lie about what I did, right? The attitude of sin is what that puts us in the place of God, on the throne of God.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: And I think like James In James chapter 1 re emphasizes this as well. Here's what James says. Each person is tempted when he was lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has in seed, he gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. So Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent. Sure, now Satan was there. You can't discount his part. The first being that God curses when he finds out, finds out when he goes and addresses the sin that happened in the dark, isn't Adam isn't Eden's serpent. So he curses the serpent first. We can't get away from Adam.
But Adam is Siddim was because of their own designer. I Think we get that too, right? Like you can have somebody walk up to you.
One of my favorite scenes in Star Wars. Okay, this is bad as a Star Wars. Like Obi Wan walks up to the bar, he's looking for the bad guys, and a guy comes up to him, he's like you. Unless destined, Obi Wan didn't want to buy distance. Wasn't a bt, okay, that wasn't tempting for him. All right. Adam and Eve, when they were tempted and saved, do you want to eat the fruit of the garden? Do you want to become like God? Adam and Eve said, yeah, if I do.
Okay, so the heart of sin is one that says, I want to be like God. And the action of sin is lawlessness and rebellion against God's law.
Okay, definition of sin. Put a framework around it. Start with something easy. Let's go on to why does Adam and Eve sin matter so much? Okay, Just so I know we got some seminary folks in the room. They're going to want me to go deeper into this. We got some non seminary folks in the room. We're going to do like, try to find a nice little middle ground there. We're going to talk about what's called original sin, okay? Capital O, original sin. There's entire like novels and books and treatises written on this. We're not going to go there because I know we need to rescue the kids, volunteers for my children. And so we're going to go pretty quickly through it. But Adam and Eve sin is what theologians call the original Sith. Okay, does this mean the Bible teaches us as a result of Adam and Eve's sin, that his sin and his actions are imputed to us? Okay, Imputed is a big word that essentially says that when that happened, all the rest of us from time moving forward became by nature sinners. Okay? Adam and Eve when they were created, were perfect. They were not by nature sinners, but the rest of us. As a result of Adam and Eve, sin became by nature sinners. Romans 5 says this one trespass led to condemnation for all.
And it jumps into that. Just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. Okay? Now when I read that, I'm frankly, even when I was preparing the sermon, like one of the things I had to pause and wrestle with is like the blame shifting that Adam does is like, well, hold up what you're telling me, God, is that my sin is really Adam, Eve's fault and you may down. And so like, why are you holding me accountable for all of this, right? It, like, it took me all more seconds than it should have, but a few seconds took me less. It's like, oh, yeah, we just. We just went over that.
Here's what else the Bible says about our. Okay, Isaiah 53, 6, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. The Bible doesn't say that we turn to Adam leaves Wayne. It said that we turn to our lonely way. Jeremiah 17, 9 emphasizes this a little bit more. It says, the heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately sick.
Who can understand?
Like, Adam and Eve's original sin turned us into, by nature, sinners, but we don't get to take that and place the blame anywhere else because we are also guilty of sin.
Okay? We have chosen to try and become like God in our own lives. Like, every one of us in here is guilty of sin.
I bet the vast majority of us, if not all of us, could look at the past couple days, definitely the last week, and think about a moment where you said, I'm gonna choose what I want to do, even though I know it's wrong. Like, it is an intentional thing that is borne by the brokenness of our own hearts. And therefore we are guilty of rebelling of God and Adam and Eve's original sin imputed it to, right? And if that seems unfair, we have to, like, fast forward to Jesus and, like, how his sacrifice imputes righteousness to us. So let's not get the little tune to, like, unfair blame event, right? Like, God made it fair when Jesus did all of that. It was always fair when God said, hey, I am perfect and you are not. So we have to get out of the fairness piece of this and look at our own hearts and our own actions and not try to put the blame on other people.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: That becomes challenging, though, right? Like. Like, we look at Adam and Eve's original sin and say, sin is imputed to us. We look at our own hearts and how they're broken and say, man, I am incapable of doing righteousness on my own. Everywhere I go, it feels like I'm being wreckage in the wake. And, like, as I was walking through the preparation of this test, one of the things that I. I'll be honest, like, I didn't want to address this question because it's a really hard one, but it was like, well, thank God. What was the point? It.
Why did you make us if you knew that Adam and Eve were going to sin?
Why did you make us if you knew that we were going to sin, that you knew that we weren't going to choose you ever. Like, that doesn't feel like the story that I would want to tell God. So, like, why is that the story that you want to tell?
I'm going to give the short answer. Okay.
God's making a story for his glory.
I'm going to pause and, like, put a huge disclaimer on this of, like, this question is really hard. We're not going to be able to get into all the nuances of it here today. Like, frankly, I don't know that I'm qualified to answer every question that you guys have. That is what, like, we have a church for and a plurality of elders and lots of really educated people who have written entire books on this, like, C.S. lewis. The problem of pain is a good one to go and visit about this.
So, like, if you get to the end of this part of the sermon and you still feel uneasy, I just want to encourage you because that's okay. All right. Like, the point of. The point of coming to church isn't to have all of your questions answered. Like, we got some smart people in the room.
Not so much of it here, but we have some smart people in the room. But God is the one who holds the answer and will reveal it in his time.
The encouragement to you is not to go through those questions alone.
Okay. Don't. Don't let Satan corner you and say, hey, did God really say that? He stood.
Don't let Satan corner you and say that. Well, you could come up with a better story than God could. Like, he will do that. Just. Just don't want you to know. Okay. All right, let's unpack it a bit more. I want to put that disclaimer there.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Let's make sure we pose the question correctly. God didn't make out of it his sin. Right, James? Going back to our text, in James, one says, let no one say, when he's tempted. I'm tempted by God. For God doesn't tempt anyone, but. And he cannot be tempted with evil. Okay, so God didn't make them sin. That's good. Let's put that on the shelf and, like, take that roadblock out of our head. But why did God let them sin? I think CS Lewis probably has one of the best answers that I've heard to this. C.S. lewis says this. If a thing is free to be good, then it's also free to be bad.
And free will is what has made evil possible.
Then when God created us, he did not create a bunch of little robots or toy soldiers that only ever did what he told them to do. Like, he didn't put a pity offense around our morality and make it so that we could only choose good because that's not really given us a choice at all.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Isaiah 53, 53:6, jumping back to dust says, we have turned everyone to his own way. So we have the choice to choose God, and we have the choice to choose sin. And the point of the hardship of that is that we, by being broken, often choose sin.
Like, and the Bible actually teaches that it is impossible for us to choose God without having God help us make that choice, because we are so broken that we only use the free will. Using us to choose sin.
Well, you're like, well then why did God create us with free will? Right? C.S. lewis, go back to them. He says, why then did God give that free will?
Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy for its having. Okay? And like, that may seem a little bit like a cop out answer, but it's like pause and reflect on your own life for a little bit.
When, when your kids choose to obey you because they have no choice, it's like, well, that's not really them. Like, choosing to do that, that was just a whole new option that they had. Or like any like, in a romantic involvement that you have, like Terry and I, Carrie, like, she didn't choose me because I was the only option, okay? She had lots of good options out there and she chose me. Like, that's part of what makes our relationship special. It makes me question her judgment a little bit. But it's what makes our relationship special, right? Is that she had other options, Other people who could have satisfied her needs, could have provided an income, could have treated her the way she needed to be treated. And she picked me, right? Like, she had the free will to go and choose somebody else, but she picked me. And even around marriage, like, we made marriage vows, but she could walk away at any time, when it gets too hard, when I'm being a knucklehead, when I don't follow through on what I promise to do, but she chooses to stay in the relationship.
And that's what makes marriage marriage, right? That's what makes friendship friendship. When you have lots of people you could hang out with in high school or at college or at work, and somebody says, hey, I want to hang out with you, I want to go grab a bite to eat with you, I want to hear about what's going on with you. It's not likely because they don't have anybody else to talk to.
It's because they're interested in you. And that's the kind of people that God made us to be. He made people that he wanted to pimp him. He didn't want people that were forced to pick him. He created us so that there were other options and wants us to choose to love him.
And that's the kind of God that he is too, right? Like, he didn't have to love us. He would have been a perfectly just and good and holy God if when we screwed up, he said, all right, it was a good time and move on and try something else. Like, he didn't do that. He constantly chooses us.
Now, God let Adam and Eve sing because he's telling a story for his words. He gave us free will because he wants a story for his glory.
Look at how God talks in Isaiah 48, 9, 11. This is how he talks when he talks about how he's restraining his anger and why he does it. He says, for my name's sake, I defer my anger.
For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not pat you off. Behold, I have refined you not as silver, but have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, he repeats, for my own sake, I do it.
For how should my name be profane? My glory I will not give to another.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: God's purpose. Since before creation, he wasn't surprised by Adam and Eve's sin, right? And his purpose since before creation was to demonstrate his love, his power, and his justice, not for us, but for him, for his namesake and for his glory. He's creating a story and telling it through creation that ultimately should cause us to sit back and be like, wow, look at him. Like, look at what he has done. Look at how he has loved me. Look at how he sent his son to die on the cross.
And the hard part of this, that I think becomes challenging and was like the last roadblock that I had to address as I was going through this is I was like, but I want the story to be about me. Like, I want. I want this to be about me and about how good I am. Because when I go and watch Gladiator, right? Like, I want to be the guy who's got the sword and he's doing all the cool things and he has cool lines and he's smooth and he's like, good looking. He's like, russell Crowe is hard to beat, okay? It's like, that's who I want to be. But, like, the main character about the Bible isn't me.
It's not you.
The main character is God. Like, if you were to put a villain in the Bible, like, yeah, we can put Satan there because, like, he's a villain, but it's us. Like, we were supposed to be the good guys, right? Like, we're the ones who. You look at the story and it's like, the best friend betrays and you're like, oh, I hate that guy. And it's like, that is us. Like, we are the traitors. We are the ones who are not the main character. We are the villain collectively united against God. And God is the main character is going to come in and he's going to save us and he's going to, you know, keep some of us from getting all the bad things that happen to the villains at the end, right? Like, the story is and always has been about him.
And I think it takes a dose of humility to sit back and think about that. Like, so often when I read the Bible, when I go into a story that's in the Bible, I want to, like, put myself in the story, right? Like, I want to be given. I want to be Jesus. I want to be insert. Probably not Peter, right? He puts his foot in the Bible a lot of times, but that's more often who I actually am. And here's what C.S. lewis says about humility.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Probably all you will think about a humble man is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.
If you dislike him, it will be because you feel a little jealous of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He's not thinking about humility.
He's probably not thinking about himself at all. But that's the attitude I think we have to take when we go into the Bible, right? It's like, take off thinking about ourselves for a second and look at what God has done and look at his glory and look at how he's going to do all of this. And so when we get to the question of why does God let them sin?
I think if we are able to step back for a second and remove ourselves from the center of the story and look at God as the center of the story, it's a little easier to see that perspective of he's doing this for his glory, he's the main character, and he's the one that we are looking to about what he's going to do throughout all of the fight.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Okay. I don't think that answers all the questions. All right? But hopefully it gives you a foundation. Again, like, take your questions, write them down, go and discuss them with your community. Find a pastor, find a believer who you trust to go and do these things and be like, well, Austin didn't answer this and Austin didn't answer that. It's like, yeah, Austin doesn't have a lot of the answers. But, like, go gossip about me with somebody else who you trust, saying, I look to God and come to those answers to you.
All right, Humility. Bible's not about us, but there are pieces of it that are for us. So what does God have in store for us? Okay.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Don'T get caught in the spiral. If God doesn't care about me, don't get caught in the spiral of God doesn't care how my story ends. God doesn't care about the suffering that I'm going through. Like, even though the whole story is about him, we don't have a dispassionate, uninterested, impersonal God who doesn't care about us. All right, look at.
Look at what God says. Or, I'm sorry, what Paul says in 2nd Timothy 1:9 about God says that God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. Ephesians 1:3:6 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he shows us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ wife, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of His Lord's grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. God has had a plan since before the foundation of the earth, Even though He knew we were going to blow it, he had a plan to come in and save us and rescue us. And that's the verses that Taylor read for us this morning. Okay? Genesis 3:15.
God's saying to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
And at the end of our Isaiah text, after God gives us the really favorable comparison to sheep, right, Says God, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Like God has always had a plan to Redeem and adopt people to himself because of the love that he has with us. Right? And that's not, like, a general view, all right? Like. Like, we get to take the humility off for just a second. And, like, God cares about you. Specifically, right? Like, Whit. He cares about you, Sean. He cares about you, Tyler. He cares about you. Like. Like, that is the kind of personal God who, even though we're just a bunch of, like, Joe Schmo side characters sitting in the stands of the arena in Gladiator, right? Like. Like, he pauses and the camera pans and he goes and looks at you, and he loves you and he sent his son to die for you.
And he had a plan through all creation because even though you were the Spartan fluid, even though I was the one you did, he chose to love and save you.
Like, that is God's purpose of his story.
And man, if that doesn't cause him to, like, sit and be like, yeah, God's good. I just felt like, Brad, when I said, yeah, if that doesn't cause you to pause and sit. Sit and think about how good God is, then, like. Like, let's maybe just check our hearts for a second, right? Like the God who created the universe and a trillion planets. I don't know how many there are. Trillion sounds like the right number. Created billions of people, right? Sent his son to die for you.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: That's the kind of God that we get to serve today. That's what Genesis and Isaiah are trying to show us from the text at the beginning of time is that there's a God who loves you.
He sent his son to crush the serpent, demonstrating his justice.
Sent his son to bear your iniquities, demonstrating his love.
He raised his son from the grave after he died, demonstrating his power.
And even though, yes, all of this is for his glory, those aren't the actions of some ambivalent space me the badges of a loving, caring God who brought you here today to know his love for you.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: As we go through this Advent season, I think that's the hope that I have, right? Whether, whether it's your kids making the babysitter do Advent, whether it's you sitting down and doing Advent with your spouse, whether you're doing Advent with a friend, whether you're doing it alone is like, would we take some of that time to pause and think about how good God is, how glorious it is? And, like, would you take some time out of your day to pause and. And not just read the story, but to refle and tell God that you love him, right? Like, that's part of what keeps marriages and friendships and, you know, parent, child relationships and all of that strong is when you take a second out of the day to be like, hey, I just want to let you know I love you.
Like, would you do that for God today?
Would you pause and tell him, like, hey, God, I really love you and you're really good.
You do lots of good things. List some of them out.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Okay, so Thea recap. Four points more than the Southern valleys. Typical three. All right. What is sin? Sin is lawlessness.
What was the result of Adam and Eve's sin? Original sin. We became sinners by nature and we mean she sin. Why did God let them sin? For his word. He did it. He did it so he could tell a good story about himself, what he had in store for us always, since before time is had a story of love, reconciliation, redemption and adultery. Okay?
