I’m going to invite you to turn to Genesis 3. This is exactly the middle part of our series together in “Believe”. In the days ahead, we’ll be talking about God’s restoration for all of creation, we’ll be talking about the Trinity, and then we’ll be answering the question, “So what? What do we do with the information we’ve been given?” That’s how were going to conclude in this series together. Today we’re talking about the second part of a section that we began last week on the redemption that is created for us in Genesis 3 so we can understand God’s grand scheme of scripture. This is am important passage, and in the end, as we go through this story together, we’ll see in the first 3 chapters of Genesis the story of God’s creation and redemption for mankind unfold for us. It answers the big questions of life. Why do I exist? Where did I come from? Where am I going? This is what God laid out for the foundation, for Israel to understand their direction and purpose in God calling them out of Egypt, and just as it related to them, it still relates to us today. As we’ve unfolded this message together, what we looked at in the first part is the holiness of God, Almighty God, how sacred He is and how sacred the Jews even considered his name, Yahweh. How they would refuse to even utter the name of God in fear of blaspheming His glorious and holy name. In seeing that holy God, we’ve looked at how He’s created us in His image, meaning different than any other creature. God has created us in such a way that we can relate to Him as creature to creator, for intimate relationship that is to be enjoyed in Him and throughout all of eternity. We saw last week, we started in Genesis 3, man’s response to that. Man partakes the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. When the Bible talks about the knowledge of good and evil, it means more than just simply understanding right and wrong, but rather declaring to God what is right and what is wrong by making themselves God. The lie that the serpent told to Adam and Eve was that you will become like gods. So the sin that Satan followed in Isaiah 14, trying to set himself up into the position of God that caused him to be cast from heaven, is the same lie that Adam and Eve bought into in declaring to God what was right and what was wrong, making themselves to be god. Therefore, in that, sin was born. We saw that in this first act of sin in human history, that sin will take you further than you want to go. It will cost you more than you want to pay, and it even appears to be good with the absence of godliness. We looked at the Hebrew word for Satan, or the serpent, in scripture. It also relates to the same word for brass and for enchanter, showing us in that text that Satan possessed the attitude of a serpent, enchanting Adam and Eve with the appearance of shiny goodness before them, and they bought into the lie. Adam and Eve’s response was to take fig leaves, sew them together, hide themselves from the presence of God. What we noted in the passage of scripture was Adam and Eve, in their actions, brought forth the first manmade religion in this world. The idea of sewing fig leaves, as we studied that in the Hebrew, gives the appearance of a soldier putting on battle garments to prepare for battle. So they’re not only hiding from God, they’re saying to God, “God, we can handle this on our own.” They’re going out to make war against the sin they brought upon themselves by denying God and positioning themselves to the place of God. When that didn’t work for them, they began to blame others. As God approached them, Adam says, “God, it’s your fault, and it’s the woman’s fault.” The woman says it’s the serpent’s fault. They’re blaming everything in this world that they can around them. What we recognize in Adam and Eve’s position together is that they are helpless. In Genesis 3, that’s where we pick up together. In Adam and Eve’s rebellion, the response of God is one of mercy and grace. Remember this is written poetically, but as it unfolds, what we find in Genesis 3:8, it says, “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from presence of the Lord God among the tress in the garden.” Verse 9, “Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” In verse 13, it goes on further, “The Lord God said to the woman, “What is it that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.” In these passages of scripture, God is propositioning these questions to Adam and Eve. From the position of God, these would be more perceived as rhetorical because by the nature of God, we understand that God is omniscient, so by Him asking the question, God already knows the answer. But what He’s bringing Adam an Eve to is a state of recognizing their own position before God.
