The Curses
Notes
Transcript
Welcome, please open your Bibles to Genesis 3.
Next few weeks- “The Prayer of Jesus”
So far- Temptation and sin. Now we move to the consequences.
Read Genesis 3:8-24
Pray.
Recap:
Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit.
They have experienced shame and thus tried to cover themselves.
They hide because of their shame and guilt.
God begins asking questions.
Where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree? What is this that you have done?
Both shift blame. Consider the reality. Woman listened to the serpent, man listened to the woman, no one listened to God.
God then cursed the serpent and the ground and gave consequences for both man and woman as a result of their sin.
Provided better clothing for them.
Cast them out of the garden.
Goal for today- Look just a bit differently at our texts.
Often we see the consequences for ourselves in relation to one another and in relation to the world.
This is fine, but incomplete.
Most important consequence of sin is what it does to our relationship with God.
1. Consider your location in relation to God.
1. Consider your location in relation to God.
Seeing the change in the text.
Man and woman hear God- in some way they know that God is coming.
Bad report cards- change my location in the house when I hear the car pulling in.
Man and woman hide. Rather than enjoy community with God, they tuck themselves away, afraid of God.
We find a spectrum of sorts.
One end- those who enjoy community with God, who seek it out, who delight in the very presence of the Father.
Other end- those who hide, in various ways. No desire for relationship, either out of fear or apathy or annoyance.
We all fall somewhere on this spectrum, so where would you put yourself?
What does your spirital life reveal of you?
Are you a follower of Jesus? Are you newborn in Christ, are you growing and maturing, are you a Father or Mother, so to speak?
Are you the prodigal child, wandering off from the Father? Are you the older brother, arrogant and proud of your own morality?
Or are you hiding?
You hear of God and find the nearest hiding spot. No desire for fellowship.
All of this begins with being honest.
God asks Adam, where are you? He asks the same of you this morning
Matthew Henry- “Those who by sin go astray from God, should seriously consider where they are; they are afar off from all good, in the midst of their enemies, in bondage to Satan, and in the high road to utter ruin…If sinners will but consider where they are, they will not rest till they return to God.”
2. The grace of God’s consequences.
2. The grace of God’s consequences.
We can often think that everything we read here is all negative.
Grace shown throughout.
Seeking out Adam and Eve.
Questions asked of Adam and Eve.
Gives opportunity for recognition and confession- this is what God desires and still does.
When I most regret my parenting is when I respond to trouble with statements rather than questions.
Question offer engagement, statements shut engagement down.
Brokenness of the marriage.
Genesis 2:23- Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Genesis 3:12- The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
Genesis 3:16- Desire will be to rule over the husband and yet the husband will rule over the wife.
Struggle that is still very real today. Everyone wants to be the head honcho and get their way as often as possible.
Even when we give in, we do it with complaint in order that we can project our feelings loudly.
Marva Dawn- “That the husband might become ruthless in ruling her is not the creation model; instead, if a husband is trying to follow God’s design he would not choose to order his wife around or to bully or demean her. It is not God’s will that she should be dominated by her partner.”
Brokenness of parenthood.
Eve’s curse in v. 16- in pain you shall bring forth children.
Not only child birth, but bringing up children in pain.
Brokenness of work.
V. 17- In pain you shall eat of the ground.
Consider where it is in our society that so many find their value and purpose and meaning.
For many women, it lies in the various tasks of family life, marriage and children and relationship.
Men’s ministry vs. Women’s ministry.
For men, it is work. Our relationship to work has been broken.
Difficult to find balance. Either we are workaholics or we are lazy.
So where is the grace? It is in the giving of the punishments.
Family and relationship would not fulfill for women what they’d like for it to fulfill.
Work and leisure would not fulfill for men what they’d like for it to fulfill.
Everything is broken, everything falls short.
We are not meant to find ultimate fulfillment, satisfaction and completion in work or family. Instead they are pointing us to something greater.
Ultimately, this fulfillment, satisfaction and completion could only be found in what Adam and Eve had ironically just lost- fellowship and intimacy with God.
C.S. Lewis- “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it…probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
Where does this leave us? How do we respond to such longing?
3. Look to Jesus.
3. Look to Jesus.
Look to the crusher of the serpents head.
How has Jesus destroyed the work of Satan?
John 3:14-16- And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Numbers 21.
Retell.
In the wilderness, the serpent was a perfect illustration of the people’s sin.
The serpent who had tempted Eve.
The serpents were the consequence for sin.
When they looked up, they saw their sin before them.
Numbers 21:8- And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”
Consider the implications of such a statement- Everyone could be saved from their sickness and death.
The degree of the bite didn’t matter, the number of bites, how sick they were. None of it mattered.
The only thing that mattered was their faith.
Now, consider Christ on the cross.
If sin was represented in the serpent, it was also represented in Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:21- For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
If the serpents were the curse, or penalty, for the people’s sin, then when we look to Christ on the cross, we see the curse, or penalty for our own sin.
Galatians 3:13- Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.”
What was lifted was not an actual serpent, but the likeness of a serpent.
Romans 8:3- For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh...
Don’t miss the significance here- As the people looked upon the serpent, they were saved from certain death.
In the same way, our gaze is meant to fall upon Christ on a cross and Christ resurrected. Remember the spectrum of relationship? Whether near to God or far from Him, we all have the same good news. Degree of death matters nothing at all.
John 3:16 is a promise. God loved the world and gave his Son up for us. Whoever believes in the crucified and resurrected Son of God will have eternal life.
Will your faith be put in Jesus Christ this morning?