What is Wrong with the World.
(Genesis 3:1-21)Intro / Review:
- What is Sin?
- Where did sin Come From?
- What Problems does sin bring?
- Sin brings shame we try hide. (Gen 3:7)
- Sin brings shame we try to avoid. (Gen 3:8-10)
- Sin brings shame we try to deflect. (Gen 3:11-13)
- What is God's Response to sin?
- To the serpent: Defeat. (Gen 3:14-15)
- To the woman: Pain at home. (Gen 3:16)
- To the man: A hard and temporary life. (Gen 3:17-19)
- To fallen humanity: Forgiveness. (Gen 3:20-21)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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I don't know if you heard about this, but a Kentucky man attacked his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend, and used a knife to remove her scalp.
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And at his sentencing, he told the judge, I don't need a lecture.
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Zachary Gross said it was his dog, it wasn't him who attacked his ex in the fall of 2015, ripping her hair from her head and mangling one of her ears before the judge.
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He said, "I don't feel responsible.
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I maintain my innocence.
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It is what it is.
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I'm not asking for your mercy.
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I don't need a lecture." Subsequently, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
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But the court records indicate that what had actually happened was Gross had lost his temper.
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After noticing a photo of his ex-girlfriend and her son on the Facebook page of another man, The attack unfolded inside Gross' trailer in Walton, Kentucky.
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According to prosecutors, Gross confronted Stanley, who grabbed the knife in self-defense.
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And when she refused to drop it, Gross not only assaulted her, but he ordered the dog to attack her.
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After the attack, Gross forced Stanley to look at herself in the mirror, mocking her appearance and telling her no man would ever want her because she was now bald.
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He later dropped Stanley off at her mother's house with a part of her scalp in a plastic bag.
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How about closer to home? Have you seen this on the news?
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The McCandless woman whose trial just opened.
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McCandless mom who is charged with drowning her two sons.
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Have you seen this?
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We can look at these articles and read these stories and see all these horrible things that happen all over the country.
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But here's one that happened in our neighborhood.
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Ms. Schlemmer decided to drown her two youngest sons.
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This is an excerpt from the article.
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I'm not going to read the whole thing.
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I can't do it.
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She decided to drown her two youngest sons as she walked home from dropping off her oldest son, who was seven, at the bus stop that morning.
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She thought she'd be a better mother to Joshua if her other two children would go to heaven.
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Those crazy voices were prompting me to act irrationally.
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I changed clothes.
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I got in there with them and held them underwater.
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I felt like I was just looking at the whole thing.
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I wish I could say that these were the only two incidences of articles that I've read recently that just made me step back and say, what is wrong with people?
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We get these every day.
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This stuff is happening.
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What is wrong with people?
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Then I get to the next thought.
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You know, you don't have to do things like this to realize that you have a problem.
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There's times that I look in the mirror and I say, "What's wrong with me?" Where did this anger come from?
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Where did this horrible thought come from?
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Where did this self-centeredness come from?
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Why do I insist on getting my own way?
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And I'm willing to mistreat the people closest to me.
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Where did that come from?
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That's what we're going to be addressing today.
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From God's perspective, the title of the message is "Sin - What is Wrong with the World?" And that's not a question, okay?
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That's a statement.
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Sin is what is wrong with the world.
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We're in week three of Bible 101.
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The first week we saw that the Bible is the book that God wrote.
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The Bible is the book that God wrote.
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Last week we talked about creation.
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Genesis 1, God created on day one light.
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On day two, the sky and the heavens.
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Day three, land and vegetation.
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Day four, the sun, the moon, the stars.
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Day five, He created the water animals like fish and whales.
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He created the earth and the sky.
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created the birds.
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Day six, he created the land animals.
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He also created Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman.
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And in their creation, he instituted marriage.
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And if you look at Genesis 1, go ahead and turn there because we're going to be just over a page in Genesis 3.
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But all throughout the creation account, there's a recurring phrase The Lord says, "It was good, it was good, it was good." Verse 4, verse 10, verse 12, verse 18, verse 21, "It was good," verse 25, "It was good." And then God creates Adam and Eve.
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Something unlike anything else in creation.
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Do you recognize that?
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Do you realize that human beings are different than every single thing in creation?
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Do you know that?
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That's another reason I believe Genesis is literally true.
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Human beings are different.
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What makes us different?
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The Bible says we were created in the image of God.
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Your dog - I don't care how many sweaters you put on your dog - your dog is not a person.
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He is a garbage eater that's wearing a sweater.
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No matter how many bells or what kind of fluffy nickname you've given your cat, it is a vicious killer that will try to eat you in your sleep.
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is not a person.
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Man was created different.
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We were stamped in the image of God.
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That makes us different.
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But when God created man, God said, looking at His creation, and now with this pinnacle of here's a creature that can have a unique relationship with our Creator.
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That's why God created man.
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And He said it's very good.
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That's all you knew about the Bible.
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God created. He created us.
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He said it's very good.
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You'd walk away going, "No, no, no, no, no.
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There's something wrong because everything isn't very good." Right? Everything isn't very good.
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This stuff is happening all over the place.
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And this stuff is, you know, happening in me.
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The wickedness and the evil thoughts and the...
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Everything isn't very good.
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So, something is severely messed up.
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Something is severely messed up globally.
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There's still wars and there's still poverty and there's still dictators oppressing people and so much injustice.
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Something is wrong globally and something is wrong personally.
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Why can't I get my act together sometimes?
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And the problem all boils down to one word.
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One word. One three-letter word.
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And the issue is sin.
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And really, sin is what the Bible is about.
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You're like, wait a second, I thought you said the Bible was about Jesus.
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Yeah, the Bible is about Jesus, but what about Jesus?
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See, the Bible is about our problem with sin and God's solution to fix our problem.
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That's why we need Jesus.
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That's why we worship Jesus.
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That's why Jesus is so precious to us.
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That's why the message of the Gospel is the priority of this church.
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Because sin is the issue.
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So, four questions today.
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This is Bible 101.
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Like I said, for a lot of you, this is going to be basic information that you've learned, you've studied.
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I knew that.
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For some of you, it's going to be a great review.
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For others, it's going to be new information.
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But our goal over these ten weeks is to understand the Bible, and we can't understand the Bible unless we understand what sin is.
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It has to start here.
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Number one, first of all, what is sin?
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Well, sin is defined a lot of ways.
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It's defined as breaking God's law.
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It's defined as a failure to conform with God's standards.
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is defined as a rebellion against God.
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It's defined as wrongful acts toward God and man.
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I define sin simply as self-centered living with no regard for God or thought towards what is the right thing.
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Really, that's what sin is.
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Sin is I do what I want.
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I do what I want.
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I don't care what God wants.
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I do what I want.
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What's good for me, what's going to make me happy - that's sin.
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Every one of us - we've talked about this before - every one of us are born with this sin nature.
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We're born with it.
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And if you don't believe me, stop by Harvest Kids after church, talk to one of the parents, and say, hey, can I take your kid home with me just for a couple of hours this afternoon?
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We're going to learn very quickly that that kid was born with a sin nature.
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We have the most beautiful children on the planet in this church, but they are sinners to the core - mine especially.
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Can't blame them. They got it from me.
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Your kid's got it from you.
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It's passed down according to Romans 5.
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So where did it come from?
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God created everything. He created man and woman.
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But look at Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17.
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Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden.
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Verse 16 says, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, "You shall surely die." Now the Hebrew phrase, "You shall surely die," is literally this.
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Dying, you will die.
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And he told Adam, "If you eat off this tree..." Spoiler alert, he does.
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But when he did, he didn't just drop over dead.
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Like, wait a minute, what happens here?
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Well, the language is very specific.
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He says if you eat off this tree, It's going to start a process.
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Dying you will die.
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It's going to start a process.
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It's going to end with something.
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That's why we're wearing out.
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That's why we're wearing out.
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You're not going to believe this, but I have pictures.
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I used to be young and good looking and in shape.
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It's true.
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You're like, "What happened there, Pastor Jeff?" I'm wearing out.
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I'm wearing out.
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And some of you, before you laugh, None of you are further down the road than I am.
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And you young people that are laughing, "Oh, just wait. It's going to happen to you too." We are wearing out.
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We're wearing out.
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Because dying, we will die as the result of sin.
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We see that.
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And I know what you're thinking.
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You're probably asking the same question that I've had to ponder.
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Why did God put that tree there if He didn't want them to eat off of it?
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Did you ever wonder that?
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God put the tree there.
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God didn't want them to eat from that tree.
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Why did He put it in the garden?
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Well, we're going to see Satan enter the scene.
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And Satan is opposed to the things of God.
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And you can read in the book of Job, Satan actually accuses.
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He says the only reason Job worships you God is because you're good to him.
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You take away his stuff, he'll spit in your face.
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That's a paraphrase.
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See, I think the same kind of thing was happening here in the Garden of Eden.
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Satan could, hypothetically, he could come before God and say, "You know why your new creation worships you and loves you?
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It's because they don't have an alternative." And God here, because love is about free will, He gave them a choice.
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Here's the tree in the middle of the garden.
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This is the only law that you have.
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Don't eat from that tree.
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So Satan saw his opportunity.
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"Okay, well who's Satan?" Satan is an angel named Lucifer, who according to Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, he's an angel who thought maybe he should be God.
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And he became known as Satan. That's actually more of a title. It means "the adversary." And upon God creating this new creation, he saw his chance to warp something that God made beautiful.
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He showed up, we're going to see here in a second, he shows up in the form of a serpent.
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Like, how do we know that that serpent is Satan?
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Well, we find that out later in Scripture, Revelation 12, verse 9.
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But I want you to see as we go through the text how Satan attacked God's creation to bring sin into the world.
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And we're going to go through this quickly, but I want you to see there's a pattern because this pattern that takes place in Genesis chapter 3, this same pattern happens every single time somebody sins.
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You're going to see it.
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Every time somebody sins, it's a definite pattern.
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Alright?
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So where did sin come from?
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We're going to see here.
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Bottom line is sin is the disregard of God's Word.
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Look at verses 1-6 with me.
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Now the serpent, we know, say in Revelation 12-9, "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast in the field that the Lord God had made.
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He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" Is that what God said?
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Does it kind of sound like something that God said?
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Yeah. Satan, he doesn't just blatantly put up something, "Oh, I know that's not true." He took something God said, just put a little bit of a twist on it, and tried to get Eve thinking, and Adam, thinking in a different way.
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Eve specifically here, we're going to see in a second, the Bible says Adam was with her, but he's speaking directly to the woman Eve here.
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First of all, notice he says, "Did God actually say that?" We know that God said something about the tree.
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We know exactly what He did say.
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Satan here, he wants to cast a shadow of doubt.
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Is that what he said?
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Then he twisted.
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The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the trees in the midst of the garden.
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Neither shall you touch it, lest you die." Looks like she added the "neither shall you touch it" part.
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That wasn't in the original statement that God had made.
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"The serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die.'" Wait a second, how did we get there?
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"You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
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So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband was with her and he ate. I'm going to pause there for a second. You see the progression because when you sin it always goes down this path. The first is this, you doubt God's Word. You doubt God's Word. Did God really say that? Did God really say that? We know what he said. Did God really say that? We doubt God's Word. Then the second step is we deny God's Word. "Nah, He didn't say that." Then the third step is we disobey God's Word. Now you know what, I'm gonna do what I want to do. Think of any sin.
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Pick a sin. Just think of how that how that carries through in a person's mind.
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I shouldn't do that. I think the Bible's... "Well, is that really what the I mean, nah, nah, you know what?
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Nah, that's not what the Bible says.
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And then we talk ourselves into it.
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Three easy steps.
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Dial to nine, disobey.
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The third question is, what problems did sin bring?
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What problems did sin bring?
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We see what it is and where it came from.
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What problems did it bring?
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I want you to jot some things down, because again, this to me is just more verification of the truth of God's Word, because we see these things playing out right in front of our eyes.
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First of all, sin brings shame.
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We try to hide.
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Look at verse 7.
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It says, "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths." But not in the "you're going to be like God" sort of way that Satan was promoting.
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It was a lie.
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I heard a preacher say one time about God knowing good and evil and man knowing good and evil.
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I heard somebody say God knowing evil is like a sunbeam shining on sewage.
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Like, nose but untouched.
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I don't know.
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unstained, unblemished by it.
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But man knows evil like somebody drowning in sewage.
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That's the difference.
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That's the part that Satan left out.
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You're going to be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil.
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But that didn't quite work out the way it was advertised.
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It says, what was the first thing that they noticed?
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Go ahead and say it.
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It's in the Bible.
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What was the first thing they noticed?
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They were naked.
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Were they naked up to this point?
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Yes.
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What's the difference?
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Somehow they noticed.
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You're like, what does that mean?
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I don't have to sell you on this.
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You know this is true.
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Somehow there is a certain shame tied to sexuality that's attached to sin.
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You look at every perversion, whether it's pornography, whether it's lust, whether it's adultery, There is a shame.
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You see, God didn't create sexuality to be a shameful thing.
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He created it to be this beautiful thing between a husband and a wife.
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But suddenly, at the very base, there's this shame that got attached to it.
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Now, the only two people in the world that had already seen each other naked, all of a sudden were ashamed.
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And it says they sewed fig leaves together They were covering themselves from one another.
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They'd already seen each other naked, but they felt this shame all of a sudden.
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Only two people on earth sensed that they needed to do that.
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Notice it says they sewed fig leaves together.
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I'm going to be honest with you.
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I took home ec in high school. I don't know if they still do that.
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They still do home ec where you have to sew stuff?
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They still do that?
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I remember in high school, I had to make a pair of sweatpants.
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They were horrible.
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I mean, you couldn't even tell that they were pants.
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I'll be honest with you.
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They were terrible.
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OK, so when I'm speaking, I'm speaking now of somebody who's read about these things and who's imagining, but not somebody that's actually tried this.
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But I can't imagine that sewing fig leaves together to make yourself britches is going to be very effective, right?
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And I'm not speaking as somebody who's worn such apparel.
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I'm speaking as somebody who's raked leaves in the fall and know that after a while, those things dry up and get crunchy and real brittle and they turn to dust, right?
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So I can't imagine if you make yourself, you know, underclothes made out of leaves, that it's going to last very long.
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And there's a picture here, there's a definite illustration and application I'll roll up into one.
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Because this is man's attempt to cover up shame.
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And it is completely futile.
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But sin, somehow sin always makes us want to try to cover it up.
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Doesn't it?
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We get this idea, "Okay, we sinned, we did something wrong, but we can cover this, we can fix it." And we try to hide our sin.
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You know, the man that hides his stash of pornography in the drawer, or somehow hides it in a file on his computer.
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We're hiding our shame.
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Or the person that says, "You know what, I have sinned, but this is wrong, but we'll cover it with more religion, we'll cover it with more churchy stuff, We make all these efforts to try to cover up sin, and it's as effective as underpants made out of leaves.
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Sin brings shame that we try to hide.
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Secondly, underneath what problems does sin bring?
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Secondly, sin brings shame we try to avoid.
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It brings shame we try to hide.
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It brings shame that we try to avoid.
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Look at verse 10.
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and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
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And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
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The Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" Let's be honest.
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Do you think God couldn't find them?
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Of course, He knew exactly where they were.
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This wasn't, "I'm looking for information." This is, "I'm calling you out." Like when you say to your kids, "What did you do?" You know what they did.
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You want them to tell you what they did.
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Right? That's what's happening here.
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That's all.
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This wasn't like the first game of hide and seek.
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God knew exactly where they were.
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Verse 10, "And he said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.'" that just sad? Like I was naked and I didn't want you to see. I was like I created you. I know what you look like naked. I made your body. Suddenly, God I couldn't let you see that. I just, I just, so I had to hide.
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It brings shame we try to avoid. Perfect fellowship with God was broken to the point that these newly created people and we don't know how long it was they were in the garden before they said but we know it wasn't a really long time sin makes us do crazy things the craziest thing that sin makes us do is run from God see that's conviction that's this is wrong I know this is wrong I know I shouldn't be doing this and instead of running to God we run Sin brings shame, we try to deflect.
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Sin brings shame, we try to deflect.
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Look at verses 11-13.
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So Adam's like, "I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." And verse 11, God said, "Who told you that you were naked?
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Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate." Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Sin brings shame that we try to deflect.
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Again, God's asking more questions, but He's not looking for information.
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He's looking for a confession.
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And don't you find it almost unbelievable that when Adam's called to the carpet - do you realize when Adam's called to the carpet, he literally blames every single other person that he knew?
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Which at this point in history was two people, right?
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Right? Adam knew two people.
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Right? He knew God and he knew Eve.
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And God's like, "What's going on, Adam?" Adam's like, "Uh, the woman that you gave me?" Adam's like, "You know, things were good until you did the go to sleep, take the rib break.
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I'm just, God, I'm not criticizing, I'm just saying everything was good until she showed up." Adam not only blames Eve, but you see he indirectly blames God, "The woman you gave me!" "God, you know, this sin thing's kind of your fault.
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You put her here, and I wouldn't have done it, it was just me, yeah right?
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He blames every single other...
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And that's how it is with sin.
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We get caught, what do we do?
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What do we do?
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Nobody's responsible for their actions anymore, right?
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I have, what was that thing I saw last year?
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Affluenza.
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I'm a jerk because I have money.
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What?
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And it's like I have this disease and my actions are not my fault.
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My life's been too easy.
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And seriously?
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Affluenza.
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It's always everybody's fault.
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I have this diagnosis or I had this...
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My mom made me eat lima beans growing up and that's why I'm a jerk.
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And we have all of these...
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It's always everybody else's fault.
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So you know what, I was wrong.
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Yeah, that's on me. That's my bad.
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I did wrong.
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The first thing we think is who can I blame?
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Whose fault is it? Whose fault is it?
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Whose fault is it?
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Even Eve, she kind of did it too.
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She's like the serpent deceived me and I ate.
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Well, she was more like telling the truth.
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But guilty still, yes.
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But here's what happened.
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It was the serpent. It was the devil.
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So, I want you to see here that all attempts to deal with sin on our own, epic fail. Every one.
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We can try to hide it with our leafy underpants.
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We can try to avoid it by running from God.
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We can try to deflect it by blaming everybody else.
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But guess what? At the end of the day, you are guilty.
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You are. You are. You're guilty.
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And you can do nothing about that.
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I'm not just talking about Adam and Eve.
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I'm not just talking about this monster in Kentucky that attacked his ex-girlfriend.
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I'm not just talking about other people.
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Listen, I'm talking about Jeff Miller.
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And I'm talking about you.
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I'm talking about you.
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You're born with it, and you know sitting here right now, you know listening to this right now, that you, by nature, a self-centered sin problem.
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This would be a really bad place to stop.
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But I got some good news for you.
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Number four, what is God's response to sin?
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We got some more bad news.
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Don't leave just yet.
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I want you to see that because of sin, God made some very specific promises of sin's consequences.
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First of all, what's God's response to sin?
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First of all, to the serpent?
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Defeat.
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I'm going to go through this quickly.
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The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.
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On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life." That tells us that the serpent looked different before this.
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What did snakes look like?
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Before the fall, snakes would have had legs.
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Did they stand upright or more upright? I don't know, but I know that they looked completely different.
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And part of the fall, snakes are going on their belly.
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And he says, "Dust you shall eat." That's just a euphemism for defeat.
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We still use that, right?
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that God put a curse on the actual animal that Satan used as a tool to get to the first man, the first woman, Adam and Eve.
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Why did God do that?
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Well, I believe that what God did was He turned the snake into a symbol.
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Every time we see a snake, it should be a reminder that when you try to exalt yourself, God's going to put you down.
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And that was Satan's whole thing, right?
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I should be God. I should be exalted.
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And he tried to attack God's creation.
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God took the very animal that Satan used and said I'm going to make a permanent illustration of you on your belly.
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You're going to exalt yourself.
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You're going to crawl on your belly the rest of your life.
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Maybe that's why most people get a little freaked out by a snake.
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I mean, how many people here are like Remember we were shooting the youth group video, remember?
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Dan, Alicia, Brooke, they were over at our house, we were shooting.
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And there was this snake that gets bigger in my mind every time I think about it, just like crawling through our yard.
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I don't know if I would have been more scared if there was an actual dinosaur in our yard.
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Okay? I'm just so thankful that other people were there to help me deal with it.
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But it's a picture. It's a picture.
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You're going on your belly, snake.
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Every time man sees you, he's going to remember you exalt yourself.
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This is what God's going to do to you.
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I will put enmity between you and the woman.
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Between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
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What's that all about?
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I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.
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in this account, this isn't a story of, you see, Adam and Eve were running from Satan and they ran to God. The account is actually the opposite. They sort of ran from God and to Satan in a sense. And God says, "No, no, no. Things aren't going to stay that way for sure. You think you've won. You thought you made Adam and Eve your friends by coming and tempting them and giving them these false promises? No. We're going to change that relationship real quick. So you say, "You thought you were going to be their friend and you were going to make me the enemy?" God says, "Nah, I'm going to switch you out. I'm going to be their friend. You're going to be their enemy." What he's talking about here, he says, "You will bruise his heel." That's an obvious sneak attack from behind. "He will bruise your head." You might want to underline that in your Bible. That's the first prophecy in in Scripture concerning Jesus.
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That's the first one - Genesis 3.15.
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You see, the sentence has been passed on Satan.
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He's just waiting for God to execute the judgment.
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He says here's what's going to happen.
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You're going to strike him on the heel.
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What's that?
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That was when Jesus died on the cross.
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Satan thought he won.
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Like, look, God came to the world as a man and man just beat Him up and spit on Him and sold them and publicly execute them.
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Satan's like, I won.
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And then three days later, Satan realized he just got defeated.
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That was the prelude to Satan being crushed, which ultimately is going to come to pass totally.
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That's the serpent.
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Secondly, to the woman.
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The curse to the woman is shot this down.
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from verse 16, "a pain at home." Pain at home.
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Look at the promise to the woman.
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To the woman, God said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing.
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In pain you shall bring forth children." Is that true, ladies?
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Giving birth painful?
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I've never done it.
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Is it?
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I've heard.
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I've heard stories.
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Look at this next phrase, "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." Like, what's the big deal with that?
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I mean, shouldn't your desire be for your husband?
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Well, if you just look over, it's actually right across the page in my Bible.
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When God was speaking to Cain, He was talking about sin, and He said to Cain, chapter 4, "If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.
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Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." It's a Hebrew phrase that means "rule over," "desire for." God said to Cain, "Sin's going to try to rule you, but you need to be the one in control." Now that's the same language that's used here in Genesis 3.16 when God says, "Eat your desire, it shall be for your husband." What he's saying is simply this, there's going to be an authority struggle in the home.
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And I'm not going to ask for a show of hands for this, but it happens.
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In probably every home that I know of, there's an authority struggle.
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You have a man who is supposed to be the godly servant leader authority in the home that completely doesn't love his wife the way that he should.
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So he messes up his part, and then you have a wife who should be submissive to her husband's authority, but instead tries to be his authority, and the whole thing is messed up.
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You have to see that to Eve, to the woman, God says, "Yes, sin has consequences, and for you, it's going to be at home." God says there's going to be problems there.
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Childbearing is going to be painful.
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And your relationship with your husband is going to be painful.
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Then to the man, consequences to the man, jot this down, "a hard and temporary life." "A hard and temporary life," verse 17.
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And to Adam he said, "because you have listened to me, the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken. You are dust into dust. You shall return." "Cursed is the ground." By the way, young people, work was actually before the fall.
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I've heard people say, "Well, the reason we go to work is because of sin and the fall of man." That's not true.
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Work was before the fall.
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But now work was going to be hard.
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See, when you have to work and the work is easy, it's enjoyable, but God says, "No, Adam, you're going to work and the earth is going to fight back." It's going to get hard.
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Hard work is going to consume your life.
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The whole earth, you see, is under a curse.
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The whole earth.
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That's why there's disease and sickness and cancer.
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The whole earth is under a curse.
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The Lord here to Adam speaks of thorns and thistles and sweat.
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He says you're going to work and the earth is going to fight back.
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You're going to spend your life working hard in the dirt, and someday you're going to become dirt again.
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To the man, a hard, temporary life.
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Every single one of these things are realities that we see played out.
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That's why it just baffles me when somebody comes along and says, "I don't believe Genesis is literal history.
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I don't believe it's literally true." It just baffles me.
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Because I say, "Wow, I see everything that's written here.
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literally coming true in my own life and in the lives of people that I know.
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I see it all literally happening. So if Genesis isn't literally true, you got explaining to do. Because I understand the situation that we're in because...
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Oh, right there. This is sin. Here's the really good news. I want you to look at verses 20 through 21. One more thing I want to share and then we're going to that we are going to worship.
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Okay?
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God's response to sin, to follow humanity - forgiveness.
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Look at verses 20 and 21.
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"As the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living, and the Lord God made for Adam..." Look at this.
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"And the Lord God made for Adam for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them." I think verse 21 is one of the most beautiful and one of the most ugly verses in the Bible at the same time.
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It's one of the most joyful and one of the most sorrowful verses at the same time.
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Why?
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Where did the skins come from?
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Where did they come from?
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God didn't go down to Burlington Coat Factory and say I'm going to buy you a coat.
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The skins would have had to have come from an animal.
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Who would have killed the animal?
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God did.
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I understand you might want to underline this.
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This is the first death in the Bible.
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This is the first bloodshed in the Bible, and it was committed by God for the purpose of benefiting man.
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God took an innocent animal and He killed it to make a permanent covering for man and woman's sin and shame.
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I have in the margin of my Bible, I have a word written.
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And it's the word "grace." Because man's sitting against God.
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God says, "You've got one rule." And man almost immediately runs out and breaks it.
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Spits in God's face.
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"I know what God said, but I'm going to do what I want to do." God would have had every right at that point to say, what? Done. And ping the universe into the abyss. I'll start over. I'll create people that actually will listen to me for longer than five minutes. He would have been justified to do anything, but you know what he did instead? He chose to show grace. He said, "You've made an attempt to cover your shame, and your attempts as a man are always going to fail.
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God says, "But I'm going to step in.
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I'm going to cover your shame." And it's going to require the death of an innocent, the bloodshed of an innocent to do it.
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And now church, do you understand why we celebrate Jesus Christ?
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Because while we were walking in our sin, while we were spitting at God's face, but we were insisting on doing things our way.
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God said, "I'm going to allow the death of an innocent to pay the price for your sin." This is why we celebrate Jesus.
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This is why we come and exalt Him.
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This is why the church exists.
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This is why we spend so much time worshiping in music.
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This is why we get out into the community This is what would get us on an airplane to fly to Moldova or Romania or Thailand or wherever to tell people this message.
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That our God is not a God who is angry with us and is done with us and can't wait to punish us.
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Our God is a God who is pursuing us with forgiveness and grace and love.
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This is why we celebrate Jesus.
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I want you to bow your heads.
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We're going to pray.
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And when we are done praying, we are going to celebrate Jesus.
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We are going to celebrate the work that God has done on our behalf.
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And in the midst of that celebration and music, we're going to be receiving the Lord's Supper to prepare your hearts.
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We thank You, God, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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We thank You, God.
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We see this even back in the Garden of Eden from the very beginning.
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You were a God.
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You are a God.
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You always will be a God who loves.
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You never change.
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And the same God who comes to us who killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve as the same God that allowed His own son to die.
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The same God who will ultimately make all things new.
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Who will reverse the curse.
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Father, we come today to celebrate You.
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And I pray, Father, that You would put that impression on every single one of us sin is. Globally, nationally, and in me.
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The wickedness that we were born with.
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Let us grasp that, Father, so that we can stand up and worship the solution.
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We can worship the cure. We can worship the provision that you have made for us.
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Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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all of God's people said.
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Are you ready to worship Him?
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Genesis 3:1-21
If God didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil", why did He put it in the Garden?
What caused Eve to disobey (Genesis 3:6)?
Note: Not WHO (we know that) - WHAT.
What "curses" were given to the serpent, woman, and man (Genesis 3:14-19)? How does each curse relate to the one God is addressing? (i.e., Why did man get THAT curse, and why did woman get THAT curse, etc.)
Explain the progression of sin (doubt, deny, disobey). What would that look like in the following scenarios:
A teenager tempted to drink alcohol with friends.
A man tempted by porn.
A woman tempted to shoplift.
A child tempted to lie.
Breakout Questions:
How have you seen the above progression play out in your own life? How can you be on guard against it next time?