Sermon Tone Analysis

We are in week 2 of our series, “God’s Story, My Story,” and we are learning to find our place in God’s unfolding story of salvation through Jesus Christ.”

We are in week 2 of our series, “God’s Story, My Story,” and we are learning to find our place in God’s unfolding story of salvation through Jesus Christ.”

1) I mentioned last week that I mean that in two ways: first that we would be able to find our place when we read the Bible…

that we would see the Bible as one big unfolding story and be able to see how each part of the Bible fits together finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ...

2) But I also mean that personally… that we would be able to answer the question, “How has God written ME into HIS story?”

And last week we sort of got our origin story… how did we come into existence…

Think of it like a comic book origin story… I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy a good superhero action movie… don’t judge me… there are some good stories there!

I know I’m not alone in this room… some of you enjoyed Avengers Endgame… or maybe you read comic books growing up… I never did… I just watch the movies...

But superheros always have an origin story.

How did they come to be super?

So Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider and Captain America was an orphan who received super-soldier serum so he could fight in WWII… they always have an origin story.

But not only super-heroes have origin stories, but so do super-villains..

And usually this story gives you some sense of empathy… they suffer some injustice and seek revenge against society.

So the Joker from Batman got caught up with the wrong crowd, turned to a petty crime while trying to feed his starving family, accidentally fell into a vat of industrial chemicals that bleached his skin, turned his hair green, and destroyed his smile… all the while the gang who hired him to do the job killed his family.

Makes you feel bad for the guy and almost justifies him being a super-villan, right?

And I think a lot of times, people like to think of their origin stories like that…

We think that our origin story is that we are generally good… generally powerful… generally smart… we are the superheroes of our story...

And if there is anything wrong in us… any character flaw... it’s because of something that was done TO us… something that was taken from us… some injustice or suffering that we endured that made us this way...

Super-hero and Super-villain origin stories

But as we get into , we see that WE are the source of our own fallenness.

And we see that we are the source of our own fallenness.

And let me be clear from the beginning… there are injustices done to us that shape us in certain ways.

That is part of the tragedy of a fallen world… and I don’t want to minimize that pain for a second.

But until we can come to grips with the fact that we are part of the problem and not merely the victim, we can’t see our way to the Savior.

Last week we saw that every single one of our stories BEGINS with a GOOD God who created everything by his word.

And that can be confusing to us… because when we look around, things don’t always look so good.

There are hurricanes destroying the tropical paradise of the Bahamas...

This week marked the 18th anniversary of 9/11, and it still brought tears to my eyes to see the replays and hear the recordings of the final calls to family and the air traffic control interactions during that tragic day.

Just this week a well-respected pastor, author, and mental health advocate took his own life after battling depression.

And it leaves us asking, “Why does all of this happen???

Is there any hope??? How could God let it get this bad???”

And our only hope in the face of those confusing questions is to allow the bible shape our thinking and understanding of man’s sin and God’s grace.

Our only hope is a Christ-centered, biblical worldview… that sees GOD as the hero of the story, not us.

Today we are going to see our real-life origin stories move beyond the goodness of Eden to the descent of the destruction of sin…

And sin would seek to destroy everything.

It SHOULD destroy everything.

But God’s plan cannot be overcome.

In fact, our sin was no surprise to him, and his plan included salvation from sin from before the foundations of the world.

So as we continue in the story today, I want you to see that…

Big Idea: The fall destroys everything in your story, but God promises to cover and conquer sin for those who turn to him.

Context: God has created man and placed him in a garden...

He has given him every tree of the garden to eat EXCEPT for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Which would seem like a pretty good deal…

Except that you know how it is when you are told you can’t have something… you get fixated on having that one thing.

Read .

Seems pretty insignificant, doesn’t it?

It’s JUST a piece of fruit… it’s JUST a little mistake, right?

We’ll fix it… get over it… it’s all good.

But we are going to see that this is sin.

It’s never small… never insignificant… always devastating.

If we are going to understand our story, we have to understand the devastating nature of sin.

The Essence of the Fall - Sin (v.

1-7)

It’s not just brokenness… it’s not just that we mistakes sometimes… it’s sin: it’s an attempt to be like God… to take his place… to live without his rule... which is, by definition, rebellion against God in both our activity and nature.

And here we see the moment that sin entered the world.

Explain: And this begins in verse 1, when we are introduced to the closest thing to a super-villain… the serpent.

He is described as crafty… the most crafty of all the creatures.

The word actually means “wise… shrewd...” It’s not necessarily a bad characteristic…

but we see that this “wisdom” is applied to doing evil rather than good.

Now, who is this serpent?

When you compare this with other texts in Ezekiel and Revelation, you get the origin story a little more clearly...

Really, in Genesis, that’s all we get about him.

When you compare this with other texts in Ezekiel and Revelation, you get the origin story a little more clearly...

We know he is a created being.

He’s in some way like the other beasts of the field and in some way different.

We don’t know what he looks like… that’s not really where the author wants us to focus...

Apparently he can talk… But we don’t get much more than that here.

But we don’t get much more than that here.

The serpent is identified with the character “Satan” or “The Devil.”

But we do get the sense that he wants to undermine God’s plan…

He is a created being… and was created as an angel… one of superior beauty and power.

But he thought he could be like God… and so God cast him out of heaven.

And ever since, he has been trying to disrupt God’s plan.

The only sense that we get is that he wants to undermine God’s plan…

It’s like a someone in a horror film leading his victim down dark stairs into the basement… you’re watching saying, “Don’t do it… don’t go!!!”

That’s the essence of the temptation that the serpent is about to put in front of Eve.

Now I want you to remember: Adam and Eve are already created to be “like God.”

They are created in the image of God.

They have the ability to think and choose… they have some sense of wisdom already.

So God has not withheld himself from them… he has not withheld wisdom from them… and he has not withheld anything good from them…

But they are tempted to think he has...

And in this first temptation, we see a pattern for every other descent into sin since that moment.

Illustrate: I want us to see a pattern here for “The Descent into Sin”

The first step is “Detachment” (3:1b)

Look at verse 24 and 25 of the previous chapter - “ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

(, ESV)

So there is a togetherness… and an innocence… and a relationship between man, woman and God that is complete and beautiful...

But look at 3:2 - “He [the serpent] said to the woman”...

Now it’s interesting… in verse 6, it says that the man was “WITH her.”

I always pictured Eve as alone and then Adam comes along and she says, “Here eat this… oh by the way, that was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But v. 6 says he was WITH her.

So then why does the serpent talk to HER and not to both of them?

And where is God in this part of the story?

I believe from the curse, and from the way the NT writers reflect on this story… that the serpent is striking at the bond between the man and woman and the order of the relationship between them… that she is his helpmate… he’s detaching them from one another.

There is a sense in which he deceives HER... in particular… to overturn the order God created as good.

Now I’m not saying that the man would have been any stronger against the temptation if he was alone… I’m saying that detachment from others makes us vulnerable.

He is DETACHING them one at a time… coming in between that one flesh union… coming in between the order of the home with man as the leader and the woman as the helpmate.

And the man is complicit in this.

He falls right into the serpent’s trap.

He’s passive and doesn’t take responsibility.