The Fall

Genesis 3

The fall

This January we are going through a short sermon series which will give us a quick overview of the whole bible.

The bible has many themes, many heroes…..but as I have repeated again and again, the bible is really all about Jesus, from the first word to the last, it is all about Jesus.

And as we begin a new year, I want to encourage you, as you read through your bible this year, to think how the passage that you read for that day, points towards the work and person of Jesus…….because it all does.

And if you ever read your bible but never get to Jesus, you are missing the whole point.

If you read your bible this year, but never come to know more about your Lord, your saviour, your king, your brother Jesus, then it really is a waste of time.

As Charles Spurgeon once said “From every text in the bible, there is a road to Jesus”

And so as we look at the four themes of the bible over this month- Creation, Fall, Redemption and Restoration, I want you to see that all of these themes have Jesus at the centre.

As you heard last week, James preached on creation.

And there are many things that James taught us about creation, like God created everything, like God was never created, like God created everything good and yet I just want to remind you one glorious fact about creation, which we may often overlook or shy away from teaching in our presbyterian circles and it is this…..

God created you to enjoy life.

God created you to enjoy life.

This is what the first question of the Westminster confession of faith shorter catechism answers.

Look at question one with me:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

God created us to enjoy life and we only find that enjoyment in life when we find enjoyment in God, because God is life. Life is God. And so when we enjoy God, not only do we enjoy life, but we also Glorify God. When we enjoy God we glorify God.

If we are not enjoying God, we don’t glorify Him.

I’m going to put out a very risky call today, but hey I’ll stand by it.

If you don’t enjoy coming to church, if you don’t enjoy gathering with the saints and worshipping God together, don’t come to church. God doesn’t force us to enjoy him, he wants us to enjoy Him.

Friends God created us to enjoy life and life with Him.

As you look through the creation accounts in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 you would have noticed the abundance of life that God wanted us to enjoy with Him.

God made vegetation and plants and fruit and seeds in variety and number.

God made so many stars, we cannot count them. God made a vast variety of birds and fish and all sorts of animals.  

We saw lots of different creatures this week, up close and personal, dolphins, sharks, turtles, stingrays, bull ants, sting rays.

And then what did God command Adam and Eve to do, after he had created all these animals?

God told them to, rule over these animals – enjoy all the variety of animals He made, they were theirs, to rule.

God said eat whatever you like from the fruit and seeds, it is all yours, enjoy the buffet, it is all for you to enjoy.

God not only wanted Adam and Eve to enjoy life, but he wanted all people to enjoy life, with Him, as he commanded them to multiply, to have more humans and fill the earth…humans fill the earth, it is for you to enjoy, enjoy the earth, enjoy one another and enjoy me.

It wasn’t just meant for Adam and Eve to enjoy, but all of us.

Friends, God created us to enjoy life.

God created us to find joy in our husband or wife.

Pets are great, they provide good company, but God wanted us to have more enjoyment and so he made husband and wife.

God, even created us to enjoy our work, He created Adam and Eve to work the ground together. And God provided a wonderful irrigation system which meant the fruit kept producing.

When you read the creation account of Genesis chapters 1 and 2, you cannot help but be amazed that God actually created us to enjoy Him, enjoy one another and enjoy this world that he created.

And yet sadly, we know that this enjoyment in God, this joy in our relationships, this joy in our world, seems a rare thing today.

What happened?

What went wrong?

Well, the fall is what happened, and that is this week’s sermon is going to look at – the fall.

You may have heard of the saying, “pride comes before a fall” – and that probably comes from this story of Genesis chapter 3 which was read to us earlier.

It was the pride of Adam and Eve, particularly Adam, the representative head of the human race, which caused the fall.

It was Adam and Eve’s defiance against God, a defiance which rejected God that caused this fall, it caused God’s creation to be broken.

This defiance against God, known as sin, I think, is better explained as this……

Sin, is trusting that something or something else apart from God can give you eternal satisfaction.

Sin, is trusting that something or someone else apart from God can give you eternal satisfaction.

Often these things are external idols, like buddhas, money, careers, families and yet often they are internal idols, i.e, yourself.

For Adam and Eve, the idol of self was too much of an attraction for them.

They didn’t trust God to be their eternal source of satisfaction, even though he had literally given them the world, and so they thought they would find better satisfaction in themselves, as they thought they could do God’s job, but only better.

Adam and Eve believed in the lie of the devil who told them that they would find greater satisfaction in themselves being gods, rather than joyfully submitting to the one true living God.

Interestingly, we have seen through history, that when mere humans try to be gods, they gain power and wealth and control, it doesn’t end well for them, because they cannot be God, they cannot find satisfaction, peace and enjoyment in being God, they can only find peace, enjoyment and satisfaction in God Himself.

King Nebuchadnezzar, who thought he was God, became crazy before humbling himself before God. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, thought he was God, but in the end had no peace, the Roman emperors who called themselves sons of gods, often lived in war and chaos, Adolf Hitler took his own life.

These people who tried to be gods and thought they gained the whole world, never found peace, joy and satisfaction, because they were looking in the wrong place, satisfaction can only be found in God himself.

Friends, God created us to be like Him, but not to be Him.

He created us male and female made in his image to be like him, to rule, to relate with one another, but he didn’t created us to Be him.

During the fall, this line of being like God and being God became blurry.

Instead of Adam and Eve being content with being like God, they grabbed for “power” and thought that better satisfaction would come from being gods themselves and as a result, the fall occurred, sin entered the world and God followed through on his promise as he always does, and death entered the world.

That is the ultimate consequence of sin- death.

And if anyone ever tries to tell you, that death is a beautiful thing, it is not, it is not how God desired his world to be. He made a world that had no death and one day we will be in a world, where there will be no more death, but that is for the restoration sermon in couple of weeks, but for now, we live in this period after the fall, where death is very much a part of this world.

And death is part of this world because of sin.

We live in a world where many, many people are trying to find eternal satisfaction in something or someone else apart from God, we live in world of sin.

And because we live in a fallen world of sin, we live in a world where we find it hard to enjoy the gifts that God has given us.

Our work is often hard.

The ground is no longer easy to cultivate, but there are thorns and thistles we must deal with.

Don’t get me wrong, we know work can be satisfying, but we also know it doesn’t fully satisfy and all jobs have parts we really don’t enjoy.

Our relationships are often hard.

Don’t get me wrong relationships are often sweet and enjoyable, but they will never eternally satisfy us, and perhaps too often they are a source of pain rather than joy.

The marriage relationship is often hard, as the husband and wife jostle for position of authority,

Now I cannot speak from experience, but, we live in a world where, giving birth is a painful thing.

Yes, we enjoy that new born baby, that wonderful human that God knitted together in the mothers’ womb, and yet that enjoyment of the new born baby, only comes after hours and hours of pain and months of being uncomfortable.

Friends, we live in a world that God created us to enjoy and yet because of our sin, we cannot fully enjoy this world…..but one day we will…….one day, there will be no more sin, no more death, just total enjoyment, we will live in a world as Isaiah prophesied where the cobra will play with the infant, where the lion and the lamb will lie side by side, and yet that only comes through the work and person of Jesus.

A work that Jesus did on the cross- a work that will be fully realised when he returns.

You see, even here in Genesis 3, even here during the fall, God had the plan of Jesus set in place to come and fix the problem, we created.

Look at Genesis 3:15 with me:

This is just before God laid out the consequences for Adam and Eve’s sinful actions, God started by giving them hope.

Look at Genesis 3:15

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring

he shall bruise your head

and you shall bruise his heel

Now, here God was talking to the serpent, the devil, who tricked eve into disobeying God.

God had just told the serpent he would crawl on his belly for the rest of his life, as snakes now do….but then God said to the devil he would put enmity between the devil and Eve’s offspring.

God said this offspring of Eve, would bruise the sakes head, while at the same time, taking a blow on the heel.

Friends, when Jesus died on the cross, he was indeed crushed for our sins, his heel was indeed bruised, but praise God, he didn’t say dead, but rose back to life and as Jesus died and rose again, he really did crush satan’s head, he took the power of death from him as he took the only weapon he has against us-our sins, and nailed them to the tree.

Jesus, at the cross, disarmed the rulers and authorities, put them to shame by triumphing over them.

Friends, the offspring of eve bruised the snakes head, when Jesus died and rose again and defeated the devil.

Yes, God allows satan to roam around this earth for a certain time, in order for God’s purposes to be fulfilled, and satan tries his hardest to keep whispering the same old lies that he whispered to Adam and Eve in the garden, but praise be to God, satan has been defanged.

Satan may bite, but he has lost his sting, because our sin no longer condemns us, Christ has nailed them to the tree.

Praise God, we live in a time when Jesus has already redeemed us, and yet we won’t see the fullness of that redemption until the full restoration comes, but that is for the next two weeks.

Let us pray.