Sermon Tone Analysis

I thought the dissidence of that song might help set the tone for our time together this morning.

I played that song on my phone the other day, and Jude looked at me and said… Dad… That song makes me think of Dracula and vampires.

And that was kind of the intent of Bach when he wrote the song.

Not necessarily to remind us of vampires… but to give us the sense that something wasn’t quite right… a sense of the brokenness in the world around us.

We feel the dissidence when we hear that song.

If you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, turn with me to Genesis chapter 3.

There’s a tension in this world.

A tension that is… well, let’s take a hospital for example.

At one end of the hospital, there’s a husband holding his wife’s hand as she gives birth to their 1st child… and unexplainable joy just fills their hearts as they look into their child’s eyes for the 1st time.

Yet, at the other end of the same hospital, a wife holds her husband’s hand as the doctor gives the news… only months to live.

There’s a tension in our world of beauty and dissidence.

You wake up in the morning, the birds are chirping, it’s 72 and sunny.

But on the other side of the world, monsoons, floods, hurricanes are ravaging communities and cities… destroying people’s homes.

We feel the tension.

There is beauty all around us… but there is dissidence as well.

There is good, there is wonder… yet, there is also brokenness.

Last week we began a series called ALIGN.

And the idea behind this series is that we positionally align our ideas and beliefs around the big picture of the Bible.

We began last week by talking about Creation… Genesis chapter 1… How God created absolutely everything… and spent 6 days ordering and organizing and filling that creation for the purpose of having a relationship with His creation.

We were made to have a relationship with God, with each other, and also with creation itself.

And although I mentioned this last week, I tried not to cross over into this sermon too much, today we’re going to be talking about the fall.

The current condition of creation… the current condition of mankind.

And my hope today is to give you the truth… We MUST understand our natural state in order to find and experience hope.

And although next week we’re going to dive head first into that hope, today, I will share a glimmer of that hope with you.

It’s the hope that helps us walk through the muck of the brokenness around us… Amen!

Last week… Creation.

And at the end of creating, ordering, organizing and filling creation… God steps back… looks at what he’s done… and He says… Whew, it’s good.

My creation is very good!

It’s a masterpiece!

It’s a beautiful symphony!

But… Mankind does what we do best… and we try to put our hands on the keyboard, and we end up messing up the beautiful symphony that God created.

We brought the dissidence into the beauty.

Let’s read it together.

Genesis chapter 3. Let’s begin at verse 23…

All of the brokenness that is in the world entered in this moment.

God showed Adam and Eve the door.

You’re not welcome here any longer.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I kind of imagine Adam and Eve walking away from the garden… and maybe they’re no more than a couple hundred feed out when Adam says… I told you not to touch the fruit!

And Eve responds by saying… well who held a gun to your head?!?!

Every war that has been fought… Every illness that mankind has had… Every home that has been broken… Every word that’s ever been spoken in anger… this is where it all began.

The world is full of dissidence… and this is where it started.

But what led to this point?

Let’s back up to verse 1 of chapter 3 and see what happened.

Verse 1…

And everything goes downhill from there.

The curse began… brokenness entered the world.

The 1st thing we have to see here is… the curse… the brokenness in the world… all of it………….. Is our fault.

We blame God a lot for the brokenness in our lives… but it is our fault.

Now, some may so… No it’s not… It’s Adam & Eve’s fault.

I wouldn’t have done that.

*chuckle*… Uh… Yea you would’ve… and there’s plenty of evidence in your life that you would’ve.

Let me prove it to you.

In Genesis chapter 2, verse 17… we learn that this tree is named the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Now you might ask… so what’s the deal with that?

Did they not know the difference between good and evil before?

Many preachers have even said that they were completely innocent in that they didn’t understand what evil was… so even if they would’ve done something bad, they wouldn’t know the difference… therefore, they’re innocent.

No, no, no, no, no.

Allow me to illustrate what this looks like.

*BRING TWO PEOPLE UP* DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWING.

Here’s what I’m saying… this tree wasn’t about having knowledge of good and evil… what it is… having a level of understanding about what’s right and what’s wrong… When they ate the fruit of this tree… they were saying… Now I have the power to decide what’s right and what’s wrong for me.

I am now the lawmaker of my world.

I will set the standard that I live by… I will decide what I should or shouldn’t do instead of you God.

That’s what this tree represents.

So let me ask you.

Hopefully you strive to let the Lord lead you in everything you do… But… Have you always completely followed Him? Or, have you… even once in your life, took that power for yourself… to decide what you should or shouldn’t do?

We all have.

So yea… you would’ve done the same thing as Adam and Eve because you have done the same thing as Adam and Eve.

The fall is our fault… We are lumped in with Adam.

War, Disease, Death… it exists because all people sin.

Now… Let’s move into chapter 4. Look at chapter 4, verse 1 with me…

So even though there is brokenness in the world now… we have some of the beauty of God’s creation still shining through here.

We see the very first family.

A dad… a mom… and two sons… two brothers.

Keep reading…

Most of the time when this story is read, the message would go in the direction of anger… and how anger can lead to hatred… and hatred to murder.

And that’s completely a legitimate message from this passage.

But I want to focus on another aspect that is rarely mentioned.

Can you imagine the grief of Adam and Eve… knowing that their rebellion has trickled down into the lives of their sons.

As they laid Abel in the very first grave, can you feel the lament and the sorrow as they realized that their rebellion has trickled down to their children.

Perhaps those words from God rang in their ears… “for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

You see… not only is the fall our fault… but it is far reaching.

The fall didn’t stop with Adam and Eve… Sin now affects every nook and cranny of our lives… it affects every relationship we have… it reaches into every corner of this world.

The effects of sin are everywhere.

The very people that you should be able to trust completely… and that you should be able to count on the most… your relationship with those people have been stained by sin.

One of the most popular sayings today is… What I do with my life is my business… it doesn’t affect you at all.

Here’s the truth… Sin NEVER hurts just one person.

Most of you are probably familiar with the story found in Joshua chapter 6.

It tells of Israel’s victory of the city of Jericho.

An impossible city to defeat… yet the walls of the city fell, and Israel’s army took the city.

But you may not be familiar with the story in chapter 7.

After Israel’s victory, God said… everything in the city is yours!

EXCEPT for these certain things… Sound familiar?

You can eat from any tree you want… except for this one.

Everything in the city is yours… except for these things… don’t take them… don’t even touch them.

In chapter 7… Joshua leads the army of Israel into a battle against Ai.

Ai was small… certainly not the battle that they just had with Jericho… this should be no big deal.

Yet when Israel’s army went out to fight… that little bitty place… that little bitty army of Ai defeated them.

Why?

Because one man in Israel’s army disobeyed God and took some of the things that God said… don’t touch.

An entire army defeated… by an army that should’ve been a walk in the park… Why?