Pastor Phil Burdoin
October 2, 2022It’s easy to focus on our differences, and it's hard to focus on the things we have in common. In In this second week of “Rooted” we are talking about something we all have in common. Every single one of us have this particular thing in common. No matter your background, upbringing, social status, employment status, marital status, how old you are, or what level of education you have. Everyone, and I mean everyone has this problem. It's the problem that we all face. And that problem is that we all have made mistakes. Every single one of us have messed up in some way or another.
The bigger problem that creates is that it separates us from God. God has a standard of perfection and when we mess up we disqualify ourselves from being with him. Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin his death. Wages are something you earn, your wages are what you take home in a paycheck. And God’s standard says that our wages from making a mistake is spiritual separation from Him, forever.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Genesis 3:1-6
We all make mistakes, and God calls that sin.
We all drift towards doing what we think is best and not what God’s word commands. The apostle John would write about this thousands of years later, in 1 John 2:16 the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Those are the things we desire.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Genesis 3:7-21
How we deal with Sin: We hide
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Genesis 3:10
Adam and Eve were the first two human beings that ever walked the earth and thousands of years later we’re no different than them. The first thing they did was try to cover up their mistake and run and hide from it and we have all been doing that ever since.
It's a terrible feeling to do something that you hope nobody ever finds out about, but God sees doesn't he? We ignore or try to hide it. The bible says for God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Ecclesiastes 12:14
We deflect
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Genesis 3:12
We deflect, we say “listen this is not my fault. In fact if it's anybody's fault it's your fault God, because you put that woman here with me.” We look at Adam and think that's horrible of him to say that, but we do the same thing. We blame our sin on our circumstances, or our environment, or our upbringing anything to deflect away from ourselves.
We blame
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Genesis 3:13
And then lastly, we blame others. If it's not our circumstances or our environment or our upbringing, then it must be somebody else’s fault.
How God deals with Sin:
God provides a solution
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Genesis 3:21
Neither Adam nor Eve could fix this problem on their own. They tried to fix it by sewing fig leaves together. Fig leaves were not the proper solution to the problem, it was their best attempt to fix the situation but it wasn’t the right solution.
God provides a sacrifice
In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:22
In the future God will give the law of Moses to his people the Israelites. One of the reasons for the law is there to show them, and the world for that matter, that we cannot live up to God's perfection. Got institutes a system of animal sacrifices and says that in order to receive forgiveness there must be shedding of blood
God provides a savior
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
It has always been God's plan to provide a way of taking care of our mistakes. It has always been God's purpose to provide a savior that would be the perfect once and for all sacrifice. Jesus, is how God deals with sin.
Bottom Line: The answer to the problem we face is to let Jesus take our place.
