February 8

Genesis 3:1-8

The Man and Woman Sin

3 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

² “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. ³ “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

⁴ “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. ⁵ “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

⁶ The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. ⁷ At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

⁸ When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man^[a] and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. ⁹ Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Transcription

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.)

Lord, thank you for your words. Thank you that in these moments we may ask you to take everything away from us that would prevent us from allowing your spirit to move in our lives, from not allowing us to hear what you are speaking into our lives. Forgive your servant, Lord, for his sins are many.

And help us to see Jesus, only Jesus. Scott, this thing is making shhhh all the time. I don't know what it is.

Ah, see, I couldn't speak, it's saying shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. I don't know what that is, but it's all good. You're a blessing.

You'll come give me a hard time after the service. I'm going to read from the book of Genesis. Those who don't know where that is, that's the first book of the Bible.

Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 to 9, and I'm reading from the New Living Translation. That's the beauty of having a screen as well, is we can use so many different translations, because sometimes it just reads better in a different translation. You know, they're all different, because when we translate, and I had the privilege of translating, you know, that 13 of the Old Testament books into a modern-day Afrikaans translation when I was still back in South Africa.

The thing they taught us immediately is, remember, the moment you translate, you actually put on your own glasses, and you translate through those glasses when you read the Hebrew or the Aramaic or the Greek. So, there's a little bit of something of the person who translated that in that, and that's why these translations are sometimes a little different, despite the fact that we look at the same word, but we translate it differently, because those, we call them hermeneutic glasses that you put on there, and it just changes a little bit. So, that's why I use different translations every now and then, just those glasses that change.

Genesis 3. Let me talk about glasses. I print the stuff in 22 points, and then I still can't read it. The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made.

One day he asked the woman, did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden? Of course, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, the woman replied. It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, you must not eat it or even touch it.

If you do, you will die. You won't die, the serpent replied to the woman. God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful, and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So, she took some of the fruit and ate it.

And then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it too. Just by the way, did you notice that? Adam was right there. He wasn't hanging around somewhere else.

Dude was standing right there. At that moment, their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So, they sewed fake leaves together to cover themselves.

It was a Tommy Hilfiger that they did. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord walking about in the garden, and so they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to them, where are you? So, the story of Adam and Eve that we know so well, but in a sense, Adam and Eve represents each one of us in this world.

And Adam and Eve's story is our story every day of our lives too. So, God puts them in this amazing garden, and He says, it's all yours. And there He provides for them food to eat, air to breathe, work to do, relationship with one another, relationship with this beautiful creation, and with God walking with them, coming for tea.

Every afternoon, three o'clock, God was there having a cup of tea with Adam and Eve. Provides all of us. God says, it's all yours.

In Hebrew, He actually uses a beautiful word. He uses the word shamar, which means to protect. He says, protect this garden with all that is in you.

He wasn't protecting from enemies because they weren't enemies. Protect this garden in what I have given you for in all of its beauty. Protect yourself.

And then God says, just one little thing. You're not ready for the tree in the middle of the garden yet. You still have to learn a lot before you can eat that.

So, leave that now. If you eat it, it will cause you to die. And boy, did it ever do that.

Don't eat that. Adam and Eve, in their wisdom, decide that they knew better than God, and they didn't acknowledge God for who God was and they knew. Somehow, I think, in a sense, that's the defining pathology of our day as well.

Not allowing God to be God, not acknowledging God for who God is. And just think about it. If you think about the chaos and the messes and the hurt and the heartache and the pain that's going on in the world, how much of that can be brought right back to the fact that we do not acknowledge God for who God is.

We do not allow God to be God in the way that He is God. We do our own thing. And did you notice, I'm not telling you anything that you don't know, that in the moment Adam and Eve decide to play God and not to let God be who God is, in that moment they mess up.

And what's the first thing they do? They hide. And everything is broken. That beautiful relationship with this wonderful garden is going to be broken in the next moment because this garden that gave everything, now God takes them out and puts them outside and it's thorns and thistles and pain and struggle.

There's nothing there. It breaks the relationship between Adam and Eve. All of a sudden they look at each other and it's like, phew, you're not wearing clothes.

It didn't matter until that moment they took over and it's gone. It will get worse because when God talks to them, remember Adam, the first thing he did when he woke up and he saw Eve, what did he do? Sang a love song. Holy smokes, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, come give me a hug, I love you.

What's the first words he says to God? It's that woman that you gave me. See the relationship? That beautiful relationship with God where God would come visit every afternoon and I was joking about a cup of tea but that's kind of what it was. God came to hang out with Adam and Eve every day.

Imagine that. And all of a sudden it's like, we better hide because it's time for God to come around. That's the first thing that happens when you do not acknowledge God.

You start hiding away from God. And then that beautiful moment, God comes to visit, saw all of this, knew all of this. They're hanging out behind a bush as if God did not know behind which bush they were.

Then those words, in Hebrew it's one word, ayeka. Well, it's not a word of judgement. It's not a word of anger.

It's actually an invitation. An invitation to stop and reflect. Where are you? Where are you? A moment to just take a break because here's the problem.

We have this horrible saying. The kids have this thing about six seven which means nothing. But we have the other saying which is even worse than that.

24 seven. We run 24 seven. Everything has to be open 24 seven because if I want a burger two o'clock in the morning, why? I don't know.

It has to be open so I can get one. I have to have fast food, fast cars, fast everything. And it never stops.

We sing a song about the Lord. He never stops. He never stops working.

We never stop. We never stop working. We just go, go, go, go, go.

And we don't know why we're burned out. Why are we depressed? Why we cannot handle things anymore. I'll tell you why.

Because we do not do what God told us to do. We don't take a rest. Remember I said that three weeks ago, God made the rhythm work, work, work, work, work, work, rest.

We just go, go, go, go, go, go, go, rest. And then we wonder why? Why? What's going on? Why am I sick? Who are you? It's an invitation. Stop.

Reflect. And I ask you, where are you in your relationship with God? Do you take time every day to be in the presence of the Lord? Nothing else? Just you and God and His Word? Before you start running? Before you hit the road? Do you make time to be quiet in the presence of your Holy God? Before I can go out there and say, Lord, that's a wild world. Will you go with me? You just be with me.

So pray. And you know part of prayer, and I'm going to do a series for you on prayer two weeks after Easter, starting a series on prayer four weeks. But do you, do you make time in that prayer time just to be quiet? Because I think we get prayer wrong.

Sometimes we want to talk so much. Sometimes prayer is not saying a single word and allowing God to speak into one and ask, where are you? Just be quiet. Where are you in your thoughts? Because that's what got them, right? That's what gets us every time.

The Hebrew, if you read this again, it's so interesting how he plays with the word see and eyes, which sound the same, very much the same in the Hebrew. The seeing and the eyes and the seeing and the eyes and then seeing it's good and wanting to see it's good. Oh, and I see it's good.

And when she sees it's good, she takes it. Because where does it all start? And then it goes there. And then it goes there.

Where are you in your thoughts, in the things that you think, in the things that you think that become the things that you do? Where are you in those relationships that are so important? I just saw you this morning, Gary, when you were getting those little buddy boys there and he's writing their little names and he's putting their little name tags. And I thought, how cool is that? Here's a dad giving his little kitty cats their names as well. Not saying, ah, they don't have to worry about your names.

Yes, they do. We need to know his name is Ben. It's important.

Where are you in those relationships that are so important in your lives? Those loved ones that God gave you, who are yours? Do I make time for them? In my 24-7 life, I've said this a million times in this church, and I'll say it until the day I'm not here anymore. The problem is we fall into a groove, but the only difference between a groove and a grave is the depth. Maybe it's time to get out of the groove and start something new, go down a new path.

Where are you is also an invitation to come out of hiding. What's the first thing they do when they mess up? They go hide. Because isn't that what we do with our hurt and our pain and our struggles and stuff like that? We hide.

But when God says, where are you? It's an invitation to come into that place of openness and honesty and transparency. Because in that moment, when I can be honest about my pain or my struggles or the messes I've made, and I can be transparent that I can stand before God, that's when change can happen. I hide it.

I'm stuck. I carry this burden with me all the time. Boy, are we good at hiding.

So many ways in which we hide. Sometimes we hide in our busyness, because I'll just keep making myself busy. I'm busy with work.

Guys, I have to work so hard because I have to provide for you, and I'm going to be at work. I'm so busy that I'm actually hiding behind that, because I'm not taking that other responsibility that God is putting on me. I can hide behind this other little thing.

Where does that leave me? What does that do for me? We're good at hiding behind our masks. There's a story about this man who came to the dock, and he said, doc, I'm depressed, and I'm just down, and I don't know what to do. And the doc said, you know, there's a guy in town.

He's a comedian. He makes himself up like a clown. His name is Grimaldi.

You go sit there once or twice a week. Just listen to him. He'll make you split your sides.

He's just such an amazing guy. Go there. The guy looked at me and said, well, doc, here's the problem.

I'm Grimaldi. We're good at hiding behind those masks. But walk in and say, how are you doing? Oh, I'm fine.

You're lying through your teeth, because you know you're not fine. Those who know me right now know that I'm not feeling great, and my health is not that great. But when you ask me how I'm doing, I've never said to him, okay.

I've said to you every time, I'm not doing okay. Because why does it help me to lie in behind the mask? But if I say I'm not okay, I know that you're going to pray for me, and I give you an opportunity to pray for me, right? But when we hide, we're lost. That's why God says, where are you? Come out of hiding.

We play happy families, and we're not. Don't do that. Then go ask for help.

It is also an invitation to walk into the seeking heart of God, because that's what God does when he asks this question. When God says, where are you? He says, I want to find you. He knew exactly where they were, and he wanted to find them, and take care of them.

He took those silly old fig leaves, and he gave them proper trouble sleep. That's God's doing. He's still taking care.

He's seeking you and me, and his heart is open, and it's that invitation to walk into that heart. One of the best examples of that is an old guy called Peter the Rock, on which the church would be built. He messed it up so badly.

Denied him three times where Jesus was standing. Peter runs away, and he starts fishing again, and what does Jesus do? He looks him up, that seeking heart of God. Where are you? Where are you? You're not supposed to be fishing anymore, Peter.

You're supposed to be bringing the gospel. You can't hide, but I messed up. That's okay.

He's still loving you. That's how it is. Remember the most beautiful story that Jesus tells? There's a shepherd who has a hundred sheep.

One is lost. Goes looking for it. Widow has ten coins.

One is lost. She goes looking for it. Father has two sons.

They're actually both lost. Father goes looking for it, because that's our Father. Even when we mess up, even when we fail, his question is, where are you? I want to find you.

So, where are you? Amen. Take a few moments of silence. So, Lord, sorry that we often hide.

Thank you that even when we hide, you don't. You come looking, even if we're covered in mud, in messiness. We thank you that we know that you are always looking for us.

Not to condemn or judge or make fun, but to lift us up and to hold us and to protect us, like you protected Adam and Eve from themselves by taking them out of their car. You protect us. Thank you for coming and looking for us.

Thank you. Thank you for asking that question. So, can we answer that question today, Lord? Here I am.

Here I am, Lord. Warts and mud and good things and everything in my life, just here I am. And can I just be that clay, Lord? Can you be the potter? Can you make this clay pot into what you need it to be, please? And then help me to be obedient, to listen, to allow you to be God in my life.

Help me to show your love to those that you have placed in my care, my loved ones, my family, these amazing people that you put in this church. Be obedient to show your love, your grace, your care. Help, Lord, for me to stop and just rest in you.

Can we pray that? Maybe just rest in you, for you are an amazing God. You make a way. You change our lives.

And above all, you love us. Compassionate. Thank you for your words.

Thank you for the invitation. In Jesus' name we pray. And all God's people said, Amen.