The Story: Chapter 1 A cycle of sin and grace September 7, 2014

The Story: Chapter 1 A cycle of sin and grace September 7, 2014 Welcome to The Story We are so glad you are here. This is going to be quite a journey. How many of you guys did your homework? I ll get you guys some time out of purgatory just kidding. But if you read a chapter a week, you ll get more out of what we do here every Sunday. And better than that, you ll be spending some quality time with God. And if you are reading with your kids, you ll be doing some seriously good parenting. Now we are going to start this morning at the very beginning of the Story. And these first few chapters of Genesis answer some very basic questions: How did we get here? Why are we here? This world is pretty messed up; people are pretty messed up. Is this what God meant? Or what happened to make us the way we are? Now most people go to the first chapters of the Bible to argue about how God created the heavens and the earth. And even earnest Christians have serious disagreements. I m not going there this morning. We re going to deal with questions way bigger than that. Now I did hear about one family where the little girl went to her mother and asked: Mommy, where do we come from? Mommy said, Well, in the beginning God created Adam and Eve and they had kids, and they had kids, and they had kids and pretty soon we were here. The little girl said, That s cool. And then she went to her Dad and asked the same question. And Dad said, Well, there used to be monkeys, lots of monkeys. And one day some of the monkeys began to change, and finally those monkeys became human beings. And they had kids, who had kids, who had kids and here we are. The little girl went back to her mom and said, I m confused. You said we came from Adam and Eve and Daddy said we came from monkeys. Which is right? Mom said, Well, I told you about my side of the family Now we re not going to get into the wars about creation and evolution this morning. Instead I want to show you a cycle that starts in the opening chapters of Genesis, and that has repeated itself in the life of every single person who has ever lived except one. This cycle explains a whole lot about why you are the way you are. It goes like this: God graces, then man messes, and invariably someone suffers. Then it starts all over again: God graces, we mess up again, and someone suffers. And God comes back again with grace over, and over, and over again. It s my story, and it s yours. Let s see how it all got started. Page 1, first line: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Isn t that a great first line? That s one people remember. There are some really great first lines: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (A Tale of Two Cities); or, It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13 (George Orwell, 1984); or, Call me Ishmael (Moby Dick) -- great first lines that grab you, and stick with you. But this In the 1

beginning God is the granddaddy of first lines, opening the most important and the best selling story of all time. In fact just the first 4 words are huge. If you can accept the first four words of this story, the rest of the Bible isn t that hard to accept. If you don t accept the first four words, you re not going to buy any of it. But listen: In the beginning God makes a whole lot more sense than In the beginning there was no God and somehow all creation popped into existence anyway. It takes way more faith to be an atheist than to believe in God. So, in the beginning of our Story the main character -- God -- created well, everything else. There is God, and everything else is creation. There is no explanation how God got here, he just always is. And the way God creates is different than how we create. We start with stuff, with raw materials, and then we shape it, and form it. God starts with nothing. God just speaks, and heavens happen. He just speaks and earth happens There s an old joke that is actually rather thought provoking. This group of scientists challenge God to a man making contest. They figured, they had cloned a sheep, they could make a man, too. God said, All right, but let s do it like the old days; like I did with Adam. Well, these scientists were pretty cocky so they agreed, and one of the scientist bent down to grab a handful of dirt. And God says, Uh uh, get your own dirt You see, that s how God did it. God spoke, and dirt happened. Scholars call it creation ex nihilo creation out of nothing. And we can t do that, we can t create anything out of nothing. Well God keeps speaking, and creation keeps happening. Light and darkness, land and seas, plants and animals. And it was all good The light is good. The dry ground and the seas are good. The plants and trees are good. The fish and the birds are good. The animals are good. Over and over, God says, That s good, that s good, that s good. Until you get to the bottom of page two in our Story, when God says, Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. Why would he do that, make us in his image? This is big guys, because our Creator is telling us why he created us; our Creator is telling us why we re here. Listen, God didn t create us because he was lonely. He didn t create us because he needed anything from us. God was already in community: Father, Son, and Spirit -- He wasn t lonely. And God didn t need people to do for him. He wanted to make children, like we do. He wanted to make special creatures, in his image creatures, that he could love, and who could love him back. He wanted someone to be generous with, someone to dazzle. In his amazing grace, God wanted to invite us to share in something spectacular, to share life with him. That s why we are here, guys, to do life with God, to experience life with God. 2

So he says, Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth You are different, you are special, you are not just another animal Of all the creatures on earth, you bear the image of God. You bear His image so you can do life with Him, so you can love him back. In the Latin it s called imago dei. I heard about one guy who had imago dei tattooed on the inside of his wrist so that every time he looked down he remembered I bear God s image. And every time he shook hands with someone he would remember: this man, this woman, bears God s image. Pretty cool So you are not an accident. And your life is not meaningless. You were created for a reason; you are here for a reason. You bear God s image so you can do life with God. You were created to be loved by God and to love God back. And that ought to blow your mind. So God creates Adam first. I ve often been curious what Adam, looked like. I m pretty sure now he was about 6 tall, 230 lbs, about 60 years old, bald, with a short beard. Have you ever wondered why God made the man first? Well, female scholars will tell you that after God made Adam he said, I can do better than this. Male scholars argue that God had to create woman last, because otherwise she would be telling God how to do it all through the creation story. In any case, The Story says God creates Adam first, and Eve second. And according to Adam she looked well, perfect. Of course, the fact that she was naked probably helped. If you ask most guys what Eve probably looked like, their answers would probably be inappropriate for church. But I thought this description was funny. One guy said, Adam probably looked like Chuck Norris, and Eve probably looked like Chuck Norris without a beard Perfect. In any case, when Adam sees Eve his heart is pounding, and his eyes are bugging out, and he s thinking, Thank God I won t have to hang out with the Orangutans any more. And this time, after he creates both Adam and Eve, he says, Now it is very good, very good We are not an accident. Now the Story tells us that God placed Adam and Eve in this amazing garden. And at some point, God gave Adam these instructions. He says, You can eat from any of the trees except one. Hundreds of choices, thousands maybe, just one tree is off limits: this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God says, If you eat from that one, you die. So they had thousands of ways to obey God, and just one way to mess up. Now, which tree do you think they fixated on? Come on, you would too You tell a kid, You can play with any toy except the red truck. Which one does he fixate on? We re the same. Tell us what we can t do, and that s what we obsess over. And sometimes people always wonder, Why did God put that tree there anyway, if they couldn t touch it? And the answer is, I think, pretty simple. It s about free will; this is the tree of free choice. God always gives us the freedom to tell him yes, or no. If we can t 3

disobey him, then our obedience doesn t mean much. If God forces you to love him back, then your love isn t worth much, is it? We have to choose to do life with God, God s way. Which means, we have to be able to tell God, No, if our Yes is going to mean anything at all. Now some of you may be a little hard on Adam and Eve. You are thinking, They only had one rule to follow, and they still messed up. It s not like there were 10 commandments, or a big rulebook. There was just one rule to break, and they had to mess it up for everyone by breaking that rule. Really? But let s be honest: You would have too. Me too. There are a lot of things God has asked me not to do, and I have done them anyway. You too I d have done the same thing they did; and I you would have too. The Bible says, All have sinned except one. And then there was this serpent. In every great story there is a hero that s God, and a villain that s Satan, and a bunch of people caught in between that s us. And this serpent is one big reason our world is so messed up today. It s not because creation was not good, it s because he gave us the freedom to mess it up, and it s because there is a villain who does everything he can to make it so. Now this serpent represents Satan. And we find out later that Satan was once a prince of angels. And before God ever created the world, Satan led a rebellion against God. Apparently God gave the angels free will too. And now, since Satan isn t strong enough to defeat God, he does whatever he can to hurt what God loves. In fact Jesus kind of describes Satan s life purpose as to steal, and kill, and destroy. (John 10.10). He s not powerful enough to hurt God, but he can hurt what God loves including you. If you are following along in your Bible, this is Genesis 3.1; in the Story it s the top of page 5. It says, Now the serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden? Dave Stone, who is the pastor of that Capital City wannabe church in Louisville, says that this is one of three tactics that Satan uses on all of us to get us turn our backs on God. He questions to plant a seed of doubt. Did God really say that? Are you serious? Are you sure? And then he denies You don t buy that, do you? You are not going to die And then he reverses, he contradicts Not only will you not die, in fact your eyes will finally be opened In fact, that s when you ll really live And guys, that s what Satan does, over and over again, with all of us. He starts by planting a little doubt: Do you really think that s what God said? Do you really think that s what he meant? And then he denies: That s messed up; God s holding you back; God doesn t want your best. And then he reverses it: If you ll do it my way, if you ll do it your own way, instead of God s way, you life will be better. I ll bet every one of you have walked down this path once, or twice, or a few thousand times. 4

Because Satan is the father of lies and Eve buys it. Down to Genesis 3.6, right in the middle of page 5: When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it -- she d know everything -- she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate. Let me tell you what I think this is all about. A lot of folks think that Adam and Eve didn t know it was wrong until they ate of the fruit that tree of knowledge of good and evil. Well, they knew it was wrong. Adam knew it was wrong when God gave him their instructions. I think they were trying to do what a lot of us still do. I ll make my own rules. I ll decide what s right for me, I ll decide what s wrong for me. God has his standards, but they are kind of quaint, and they are holding me back. I ll choose what s best for me. I don t need God; I ll be my own... god. And guys, whenever we follow that path, which we all do, a lot we make a mess, and someone gets hurt. Well, when the two of them eat the forbidden fruit it says, verse 7, At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. It is amazing how fast things go downhill. Now they felt shame. They d never felt that before. But you know what it feels like; me too. Before everything was good, they were completely uninhibited in God s presence, and with each other. Not they feel this guilt, and they hide from God, and they feel this urge to cover things up. Because that s what happens when we sin. There is guilt, and shame. There is this need to hide, to cover-up. There is embarrassment that messes up our life with God. We begin to make our excuses. We begin to blame him, or blame her. It s all in this Story. God graces, man messes, and someone always gets hurt. And we read this story and maybe try to tell ourselves, I d have been different; I d have done better. But we know, deep down inside, we d have sinned to. Do you know how I know? Because we ve all done it, a thousand times. This isn t just the story of Adam and Eve, it s my story, and your story. And it explains why we are the way we are, and it explains why our world is not as it should be, why our world is not what God meant it to be. Now there s one more piece to their story that is huge. You see, God doesn t quit on them. He could have. If I were God I might have. He kicks them out of the garden too much danger there. He tells them how they will suffer because of their sin: there will be pain, and struggle, and death. God graces, man messes, and someone always suffers. But then God starts the cycle all over again. He makes them clothes, out of animal skins, to replace the fig leaves they were using, which probably weren t wearing too well. You see, God still cares for us, even when we mess up. He s still there for us, even when we re hurting even when our pain is self-imposed. So God kills some animals, for their skins. Hang on to that piece, we re going to come back to it. Something dies, to fix us. 5

Now, that s the pattern that has marked us from the beginning. God graces, man messes, and someone suffers over and over and over again. If you read your chapter this week you ll know the story of Cain and Abel, their kids. Cain and Abel decide to offer sacrifices to God and, well, God is pleased with the sacrifice of Abel, but he is not happy with the sacrifice of Cain. It doesn t tell us why, although I figure it had something to do Abel s heart versus Cain s heart. Because, God doesn t look at our offerings, as much as he examines our heart when we offer them. Well, I don t know how God let them know what he was thinking, but Cain gets ticked. And since he can t lash out at God that would be stupid he takes it out on Abel. He takes his brother out into a field and commits the first murder in the Bible. Because that s what sin does it gets our hearts all twisted up and we find ourselves doing things we know are stupid. Now you didn t read the ending of this ugly little story in Chapter 1 last week, but God banishes Cain from his land, God makes him a homeless fugitive because someone always suffers when we sin. But then we find out that God puts some kind of mark on Cain so that no one would kill him (the first tattoo in history, I guess). And there s the cycle: God blesses; man messes; someone suffers; but God never quits on us. Now there is one more big event in our first chapter of the story. If you are following along in the Bible, we re up to Genesis 6 (page 8 in the Story). By the time we get to Noah, there s no need to go to Vegas the whole world is Vegas. By this time the world is so evil, so decadent, you don t have to hunt for sin; it s everywhere. It says, The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. Did you get that? Every inclination of the heart, every heart was only evil, all the time. We had become just pure bad. So bad that the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. You see, we can reach a point, guys, when we are so twisted that God can t turn us without just forcing himself on us, which he won t do. The Bible talks about the unpardonable sin reaching a point where we are so corrupt that God s Spirit can t get through, unless he overpowers us, which he won t do because he values our freedom too much. So the Lord said, I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created -- and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground, because things around us also suffer when we sin for (God says,) I regret that I have made them. It s about to become a very short story. And it would have been over, except for one man. It says, But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. The rest were too far gone, but one man was enough, to start all over again. So God instructs Noah to build a boat a really, really big boat. In fact the construction will take 120 years. And then there s the animal piece, when these pairs of animals get on the boat. But, if you accept those first four words of the story: in the beginning God well, this flood story wouldn t be too hard for a God who could create a 6

universe ex nihilo. The rain begins to fall, and there s so much water it takes a year for the flood waters to recede. And the human race starts over through one man. One life saved all of life. Hold on to that piece. This won t be the last time it happens: One life saves all life. And then what happens? Noah gets out of the boat, he builds an altar, he makes a sacrifice to God and then he gets drunk, he gets naked, he gets stupid, and the whole cycle starts all over again. God graces; man messes; and someone suffers, again, and again, and again. ** Free Fall Video ** So far we ve tracked the first chapter of this Story from man s perspective. But understand, while man is a crucial piece in the story it is God s Story. And He sees it all from a different point of view. (Climb onto the platform) And even in these opening pages of the story, even as this cycle begins, God starts planting clues that he has a plan to make things right once and for all, a plan to fix what we were breaking. There are some strange words in the story of Adam and Eve. God is spelling out what their punishment will be for eating the forbidden fruit. And then God says this about the serpent (who represents Satan in the story). He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman (which is probably why a lot of you ladies hate snakes), and (I will put enmity) between your offspring and hers; (and her offspring some special man) he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. If you saw Mel Gibson s Passion of the Christ, you might remember that strange scene in the Garden of Gethsemane when this snake slithers out of Satan s robe towards Jesus, and Jesus rises up and stomps on it. That s from this verse. God if giving us a peek, a clue, that at the climax of the Story, someone special is coming. Satan, you may bruise His heel -- you may cause him pain; but He s going to win; he will crush your head You will not recover from the deathblow He will deliver when He rises from the grave It s right here Guys, Jesus is right here in the opening pages of the Story And then there s the moment when God shows grace to Adam and Eve after their sin. It says, The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Just an observation: usually when we make garments out of the skins of animals, we kill them first. They would be rather uncomfortable otherwise. These leather coats God made were a considerable upgrade over fig leaves that s grace. But have you considered what that leather coat cost the cow, or the sheep, or the goat? Bottom line: some animal shed its blood because we sinned. Some animal gave its life to cover our shame. That s going to come back into our Story too in a way that is stunningly horrible, and dazzlingly beautiful at the same time. 7

And then there is this foretaste of God s grace entering the world through one man. One man, chosen by God, rescues the world. Guys, that s a preview of Jesus It s a foretaste of Jesus. That s what God could see from his point of view even as the story begins. And so every week for thousands of years we Christians take a few minutes of our worship to remember, not Adam and Eve, not Cain and Abel, not Noah but the one all their stories pointed to. We remember Jesus who died to cover our shame, who crushed the serpent s head, the one God/man... who made it possible for all of us to really live. 8