Introduction:
The Gospel in the Garden: Three Foundations of Faith (Genesis 3:20-24):
- Believe God's Promise . (Gen 3:20)
- Receive God's Provision . (Gen 3:21)
- Trust God's Path . (Gen 3:22-24)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:54-00:58
Open your Bibles with me please to Genesis chapter 3.
01:00-01:06
I want you to imagine with me please that you have a teenage son.
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Now some of you do.
01:08-01:11
And some of you, your children are too young.
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Some of you maybe don't have children.
01:13-01:14
Some of you aren't ready to have children yet.
01:14-01:16
But you can pretend with me today, can't you?
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Can you pretend?
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Alright, four of you can. How about the rest of you?
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Can you humor me?
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Okay, so you have this teenage son.
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I want you to imagine this teenage son goes to a party, and at this party, there is a classmate of his that just hates your son for whatever reason.
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He just, he hates your son.
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And he, this other boy lies in ambush, and when your son shows up, this other boy jumps out and viciously sneak attack.
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He murders your son.
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Okay?
01:54-02:05
Now if you track that murderous boy down and you kill him, that's called vengeance.
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Or if you track that murderous boy down and you cooperate with the police and you make sure that he goes to trial and he's punished for what he did to your son, that's called justice. Or, we're pretending, let's say it goes to trial, and somehow you're able to convince the judge and the jury to let him go, out the door. No punishment. That's called Oh, mercy.
02:45-03:17
But, at the trial, let's say somehow you convince the judge to allow you to take that boy who murdered your son, you convince that judge to allow you to take that boy home, and you raise him as if he were your son, and you love him, and you encourage him, And you do everything for Him as if He was your own flesh and blood.
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That's called grace.
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I love that little illustration because it helps me understand some terms.
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I'm going to be honest with you.
03:27-03:31
Usually when I think about it, I identify with the parent.
03:32-03:34
Because I have teenage boys.
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One of them is turning 16 today.
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The truth be told, church, in that illustration, we're not the parent.
03:46-03:49
We're the kid that murdered the son in that illustration.
03:52-03:57
Because of our sin, in a real sense, we are responsible for Jesus' death.
04:00-04:02
He went to the cross not for His sin.
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He went to the cross for our sin.
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And the Father adopted us.
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Because of Jesus Christ, church, this is why we celebrate today.
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Not just today, we celebrate this every week, don't we?
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But through Jesus Christ, not only can we be forgiven of our sin, that's mercy, we can be adopted as children of God.
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John 1:12 says, "For those who received Him, for those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
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Our church has been going through this series the past few weeks called Foundations.
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It's a Theology 101 series because this stuff is important.
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We started with creation, right?
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Nothing else really matters if we don't believe the first verse of God's Word.
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We talked about creation and we talked about how God created the perfect relationship, and woman, husband and wife.
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And then we talked about sin.
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And a couple of days ago we talked about the consequences of sin.
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We talked about the curse.
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And while Jesus Christ was on the cross, the Bible says He literally became a curse for us.
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And the amazing thing about all of these foundational things to me, of all the truths that we've looked at over the past few weeks, This could be the most amazing thing.
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As soon as man falls, as soon as man sins, God immediately goes to work to redeem him.
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We know the whole story because of the side of history in which we live, right?
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We live on the other side of the cross.
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We live on the other side of the empty tomb.
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We know the whole story.
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In fact, our church just finished a series in the Gospel of John called "Knowing Jesus." And we know the story.
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We know that Jesus Christ died on that cross for our sins.
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We know that He rose from the dead to give us eternal life.
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And we know right now, Jesus Christ is ruling in the lives of those who receive Him.
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And everything we celebrate about Jesus, everything that God has given us in Jesus, we actually find the foundation for those things in the Garden of Eden.
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Because we're going to be completely honest here, as we are every week.
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But yes, Jesus died, Jesus rose from the dead, but honestly, those truths mean nothing to you without biblical faith.
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And I'm talking today about real biblical faith.
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You see, on Friday I talked about how Good Friday Service sort of carries this heaviness of sorrow, and that's natural!
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An innocent man was betrayed and falsely accused and horribly executed, and we talked about how the cross is so much deeper than sympathy for a man who died for a cause.
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It's so much deeper than that.
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And I would say the same thing today.
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Because this type of service naturally carries with it another type of emotion, doesn't it?
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Because we all come to church and it's morning and it's bright, and we're going to see a bunch of new people here.
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And we all have new shirts on.
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I got this one at Gabe's.
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$11.99.
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Don't I look so handsome in it?
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But you see what I'm saying.
07:59-08:02
This carries a whole different atmosphere, doesn't it?
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Friday had the sorrow, and it should!
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And there's excitement this morning, and there should be!
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But you can't just reduce this another feeling of sentimentality. There has to be real biblical faith or this doesn't mean anything to you. Like, "Yay, Jesus!" No! This is so much more than that.
08:30-08:32
And that's what I want to talk about today.
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Alright? What is faith? Do you have it? Because if I pulled the room right now, I I guarantee you, 100% of you would say, "Yes, I believe." Every one of you.
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And if we were able to reach out and poll every single person that watches this stream, "Do you believe?" Every single one would say, "Yeah, I believe." But what does that even mean to believe?
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Because biblically, it might not mean what you think it means.
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So in your outline today, the Gospel in the Garden, Three Foundations of Faith.
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Everything that faith means we find right here in this account, right off the bat.
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What does it mean to believe?
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What is the gospel?
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What is faith?
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Here it is, number one, write this down.
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Faith is believing God's promise.
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Believe God's promise.
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Now as we talk about faith, the most simple definition of faith, like if you're like, "Just make it as easy as possible," it's this.
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Faith is believing God's Word.
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That's what faith is.
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God said it, I believe it.
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And Adam and his wife, we've seen through this story, they believed God until the serpent came along, Satan in the form of a serpent, he got them to believe the lie.
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Satan convinced Eve and Adam was with her, "Hey, hey, hey, God's holding out on you.
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Did you know that?
10:03-10:44
God's holding out on you." They stopped believing God started believing the lie. They experienced perfection. They experienced God's perfect grace and provision and love and presence and they stopped trusting Him. And now as we saw on Friday, they're cursed. They're dying. Look at verse 20, after God pronounces the curse, ending with, by the way, death. Look at the last line of verse 19. He says, "For you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Adam, you're going to die. Your life is going to be painful and temporary.
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Look at the response to that. You can't miss this. This isn't an accident.
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This is the very next verse. Verse 20 says, "The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." So Adam, we saw that he got to name the animals And here, Adam got to name his wife.
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So husbands, let me ask you, if it were up to you, what would you name your wife?
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This is a really smart room.
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I want you to notice that nobody shouted out any suggestions, but there's a lot of men shifting and sweating right now.
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Smart. You're smart.
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You're smart.
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Anyways, back to Adam.
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He got to name her.
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And he named her Eve.
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You know what Eve means?
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It means life.
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And that is so significant.
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As God just pronounced death on them, Adam named his wife Life.
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Like, why would he do that?
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Well, first of all, the command to multiply and fill the earth was not voided because of the fall.
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And this, Adam, he believed what God said.
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Back in verse 15, God said that one of Eve's offspring was going to crush the serpent.
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And what you see here is Adam, bless you, believing the Word of God.
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Because remember, at this point in history, no one was born yet.
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So the very fact that Adam names his wife, "wife", demonstrates that Adam believed God.
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In other words, it demonstrates that Adam had faith.
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You know, faith is the same for us.
12:45-12:56
Even though, as I said, we live on the other end of the timeline, even though that we are on the other side of the cross and the tomb, faith is the same thing for us.
12:57-13:12
And I'd like to remind you, when it comes to faith, whether it's our faith or Adam's faith, everybody who is saved, everybody who is in heaven or ultimately will be in heaven, it's thanks to Jesus Christ, okay?
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We look back on what God accomplished in the past and our faith is based on a past event.
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The person, our faith is on the person, but we're looking at what he did in the past.
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You see in the Old Testament, they were looking ahead.
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Their faith was based on what God would do in Jesus, just as our faith is based on what God has done in Jesus.
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But everybody in heaven is walking around there because of Jesus Christ, glorifying him, all right?
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But appropriating that salvation, our part of that is faith, and that is believing God's promise.
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Like, well, what does it mean to believe?
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Evan, would you bring me a chair up, please, buddy?
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Like, what does it mean to believe?
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Thank you very much.
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You da man.
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And this is where a lot of people miss it.
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What does it mean to believe?
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If you've ever come to me for any type of counseling or talk of any kind, we talk about this, but there's really three levels of belief.
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And the first level is knowing some facts, right?
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Like if I said to you, hey, this chair that Evan brought me will hold an adult that sits down in it.
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Now you have facts, you know something, I told you something.
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That's the first level of belief.
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The second level of belief is agreeing with the facts.
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You know something and the second level is, you know what, yeah, I'll go with that.
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I agree with that.
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That's the second level of belief.
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But see, here's the problem, That's where a lot of people stop.
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And there's so many people sitting in churches that think that that is the requirement.
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That look, I know Jesus died and he rose from the dead.
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You know, I even agree with that.
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I'm not against it.
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I mean, I'm sitting in church, and I mean, I'm not against it.
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But listen, that is not biblical faith.
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You know what biblical faith looks like?
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It's level three.
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It's resting in what I know.
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It's trusting.
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You see, I know that this chair will hold, I agree that this chair will hold me, but it's not really faith until I sit down in a chair and let it hold me.
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In other words, faith biblically isn't really faith until it acts upon what it knows.
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That's faith.
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You have to go all the way like Adam did.
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We know that Adam believed.
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How do we know?
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Because we see right here he acted on God's promise.
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God says he's going to have an offspring, eventually, that's going to crush Satan.
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And Adam's like, "Well, then I'm going to name her Life.
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That's what I'm going to name her because of what is going to happen through our eventual offspring." Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins?
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Do you believe that He rose to give you eternal life?
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Do you believe God's Word?
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It's not enough to just know some facts and nod your head during a sermon.
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Like Adam, you have to go all the way and act on what you know.
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That's what it means to believe.
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And if you say you have faith and it doesn't show up in your life at all, not in your home, not in your workplace, not in your private time, not...
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Jesus Christ doesn't make...
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He doesn't affect any decisions that you make.
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Then you don't have faith biblically.
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Today's the day that can change for you.
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Today's the day that spiritually maybe you can sit in the chair instead of just knowing some facts about a chair, all right?
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Believe God's promise.
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Secondly, second foundation of faith is receive God's provision.
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Receive God's provision.
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Look at verse 21.
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It says, "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife "garments of skins and clothed them." Remember we talked about grace in the beginning?
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This is grace.
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God should have killed them.
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And what did He do?
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He covered them.
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That's grace.
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Quick review, back in chapter 2, verse 25, before the fall, it says that they were naked and not ashamed, never had a thought about it.
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But then after they sinned, chapter 3, verse 7, it says they were naked and ashamed.
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And we talked about that.
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There's a certain shame that's tied into sexuality that came as a result of the fall.
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and now the only two people on the planet who had only ever seen each other naked, now all of a sudden they have to cover themselves up.
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This is what we said about that, what we saw from God's Word.
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They made loincloths out of fig leaves, the Bible says.
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And I asked you, "How long do underpants made out of leaves last?" And I also said that man's attempts to cover shame are futile, but sin always makes us want to try.
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And I wanted to remind you of those things, because right here it says that God made them permanent coverings out of animal skins.
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Look at the language used in God's Word, "skins." You know what that means? You know why that's important?
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God didn't use wool. See the difference?
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God didn't grab a sheep and some clippers, say, "I'm going to make you a nice sweater." See, a sheep can donate to wool without dying.
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But an animal can't donate skin and live.
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You see what's happening here?
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Is it connecting?
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God killed an animal to make a covering.
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for Adam and Eve's sin and shame.
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You're seeing a connection?
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But you've got to stop here for a second and think.
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God killing an animal, what do you think that looked like to Adam and Eve?
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Because at this point, they'd never seen anything like that.
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Never.
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Everything was beautiful and harmonious and life and...
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What?
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Could you imagine?
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Could you imagine what that looked like?
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You know, last week, my son Cade came to me, and he said, "Dad, one of the chickens is dead." And I'm thinking, like, you know, "Are you sure?" I'm like, "So what's going on?" He goes, "Well, I went up to feed the chickens, and there's feathers everywhere." I'm like, "Well, feathers everywhere doesn't mean a dead chicken." I'm like, "Maybe not." I said, "So there's feathers everywhere." I said, "Are we sure that it's dead?" He's like, "Well, I, um, I, he, I, I..." He goes, "Dad, I don't see a head anywhere."
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(audience laughing)
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I'm like, "Let me get my shoes."
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(audience laughing)
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So I went up to the chicken coop and the door has this wood frame.
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We have like chicken wire on the frame, right?
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and a piece of the chicken wire came detached from the frame, just like a little flat.
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And long story short, something grabbed the chicken and tried to pull it out that hole, but the chicken was bigger than the hole.
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So what the predator decided to do in that moment was eat what it could right there, which was the head.
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and down into the chicken, kind of hollowed it out mostly, couldn't take the rest and just left it.
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Like I was gonna take this meal to go, but I'm gonna eat it.
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Do you know how grisly that was?
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Do you wanna see a picture of that?
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You wanna see, no, you don't wanna see a picture of that, what's the matter with you?
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I just told you how gross it was.
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It was horrifying.
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And I would have said, okay, before you send the nasty emails, like, "That was inappropriate, Pastor Jeff, that you told that story." You're going to go out and you're going to have like 20 chicken wings for lunch and not think a thing of it.
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And some poor little precious starving raccoon eats one chicken and I'm the monster all of a sudden.
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But you see my point, it was a horrific scene.
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And I was thinking about that, like, What do you think that looked like to Adam and Eve when they saw the first death?
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What just happened?
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I mean, they knew of death, but to actually see it is another story.
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What you have to understand, church, is this.
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God making for Adam and his wife garments of skins.
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Do you understand that this is more than about clothes?
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What this is is a profound foreshadowing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And that is this, listen, "Those sinned against God initiated His grace by killing an innocent substitute which provided a permanent covering of their shame, accomplishing what man could not." This, look at your Bible, this was God's idea.
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God chose the animal, and then God killed the animal, and then God covered them with the animal.
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And the cross of Jesus Christ is the same thing.
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It was God's idea.
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God chose the sacrifice again.
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This time it was His Son.
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And then on the cross, God killed Him.
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Make no mistake.
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God was the one who killed him.
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Isaiah 53 tells you that the Lord crushed him for our sin.
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And you see, Adam and Eve, here's the connection, church.
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Listen, Adam and Eve needed to receive God's provision, because their attempt at covering their sin and shame, leafy britches wouldn't last. Right? And I've never tried it, but if you were to sew underpants out of leaves, yeah, when you get them right off the tree, they're kind of soft and, you know, we can work with this, but what happens to a leaf after a couple of days? It shrivels up, doesn't it? What do you think happens if you You have a pair of britches made out of leaves and you sit down.
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Dust, right?
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That was the best Adam and Eve could come up with until God made provision that Adam and Eve had to receive.
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God did all the work.
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Their job by faith was to receive what He provided.
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I suppose, hypothetically, Adam and Eve could have taken the skins off and put their leaves back on.
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And so, you know, hypothetically, it didn't happen, but hypothetically, right?
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They could have said, "You know what, God? Appreciate the gesture, but we're going to do it our way." And how foolish that would have been, and how completely ineffective that would have been, right?
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And if that actually is what happened, I know we'd be sitting here today going, "Man, that was awfully dumb of them to reject God's provision and try to do it themselves.
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That was awfully stupid of them.
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Why would anybody reject God's provision because it was perfect and it was permanent?
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Why would somebody insist on doing things their way?" And as foolish as people might think that notion would be, that still is happening right now.
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There are still people right here that are rejecting God's provision.
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There are still people right here that instead think they can get to heaven their way, like through good works.
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I've done enough good stuff. I've done enough good stuff, Pastor Jeff, and someday when I die, God's gonna look at all the good stuff that I've done.
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You know what your good stuff is? Leafy britches. That's what it is.
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And you're like, "You know what, Pastor Jeff? You see me at church.
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I'm really involved in church. I have pretty good church attendance." And I'm not just like here. I'm like, I actually get involved.
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And someday when I die, God's gonna see that I was involved at the church.
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And when it comes to your salvation, do you know what your church attendance and involvement amount to?
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Tell me.
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Leafy britches.
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Or for some people, it's being a moral person.
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All I know, Jeff, is that really bad people go to hell, but not me.
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Like, I've always tried to do the right thing, Pastor Jeff.
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I've always been kind of a moral person.
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I've never hurt anyone. I'm just, I'm a good person deep down, deep down in my heart, deep down where I'm soft like a woman.
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I've always been a really moral person.
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And some people think they're in here in goodness, which they actually don't have, but they think that that's what's going to get them to heaven.
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Your morality amounts to nothing more than what, church?
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Leafy britches.
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If you're trusting these types of things, any work on your part to save you, it can't do it.
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Like Adam and Eve, listen, here's what you need to do.
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You need to receive the provision that God made for you.
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It's the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.
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And finally, the gospel in the garden, three foundations of faith.
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Last and certainly not least, you've got to believe God's Word, you've got to receive God's provision.
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But then, when you do those things, and when the rubber meets the road, you've got to catch this, you've got to trust God's path.
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You've got to trust God's path.
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We already said that back in verse 15, God made the promise of a Savior.
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And then in verse 21, He provided atonement.
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And now, what you're going to see is God acting— don't miss this, because this is kind of a— if you miss this, you're going to say, "What in the world is going on here?" What God is doing is acting to protect Adam and Eve.
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That's what's happening here. God is protecting them.
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Look at verse 22, because it makes it so clear here. Look at this.
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It says, "Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us, and knowing good and evil.'" All right, we talked about this.
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God knows good and evil perfectly, but God is incorruptible.
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And now man knows good and evil, but is thoroughly corrupted.
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Right? We talked about this.
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Look at this. Here's the protection.
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It says, "Now, lest he reach out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..." And then he does something, but hang on a second.
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Yes, man knows good and evil, not the same way God does.
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He's incorruptible. We are corrupted.
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But now, here's the point, Adam and Eve saw death when God killed the animal.
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And now they would be tempted to avoid that themselves by eating from the tree of life to live forever.
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Why shouldn't they eat off the tree of life?
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Here's why.
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Because if Adam and Eve ate off of the tree of life in the state that they were in, they would have been eternally evil.
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In other words, they would have been stuck in that state forever.
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And do you know what it's called?
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To be forever stuck in a state of corruption.
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Do you know what that's called?
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That's hell.
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That's hell.
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And you see, God very clearly says, "I don't want that for them.
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I don't want them stuck in this state of fallenness." So, verse 23, "Therefore the Lord God sent them out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which He was taken.
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He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life." You're like, "What's going on here?" Here's what's going on.
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God drove them out of Eden to prevent permanent harm.
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Interestingly, where it says in verse 24, "He drove them out." That's a very, very strong word in the Hebrew.
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In other words, it wasn't like, "Sir, ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." This was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants, and "Out! Go! You are not going to be here anymore! Driven out!" And then he posted an armed guard to block the way to the Tree of Life.
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There's no going back there for them.
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And you're like, "Boy, that's bad." And I want us to think about this for a second.
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Adam and Eve were put on a path of suffering.
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And as forceful as God was about this, throwing them out, posting the angel and the sword, as forceful as God was about that, it was for their own good.
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And I want you to see something very clearly, because this is where theology goes so applicational.
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Look at this. God very clearly didn't give them what they wanted.
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He knew if they had access to the tree of life, that that's all they would want.
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God did not give them what they wanted, instead He drove them out to suffer, because that would not only prevent permanent harm, but instead it would bring ultimate blessing.
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And this is a fundamental truth that...
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This is where we need to hit, church. All of us. All of us.
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Listen, we too find ourselves on paths that we don't want to be on.
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Anybody testify to that?
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Can anybody right now say, "Hey, you know what?
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You know what, Jeff? Yeah, I'm on a path that I don't want to be on right now.
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I'm going through some serious pain and some serious suffering, and I don't like this, and I have prayed about this, and I have tried this, and I'm miserable right now.
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And sometimes we too find God not giving us what we want.
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And I just want to ask, church, is it possible that, like Adam and Eve, In this whole story, is it possible that God knows what is better for us than even we do?
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Is that possible?
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Is it possible that what looks like hardship from God is actually a profound act of love?
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Is that possible?
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I suppose we could ask Jesus.
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Do you know before He was crucified, the Bible says He prayed?
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He prayed so fervently that He was sweating blood.
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Do you remember what He was praying for?
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"Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me." Did the Father give Him what He was praying for?
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He didn't.
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Jesus said, "Nevertheless, not My will, but Your will be done." But you have to see, the cup didn't pass from Jesus.
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And instead, He was driven to suffer on the cross.
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So let me ask you, did any blessing come from that?
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Did any blessing come from what Jesus accomplished on the cross?
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Any blessing at all? Can you think of anything?
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Well, if you can't think of one, allow me to submit this one.
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That the blessing came three days later, when the Lamb of God triumphantly emerged from the tomb, defeating death and defeating Satan and defeating sin and guaranteeing our resurrection and eternal life for everyone who would receive Him.
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So you know what that tells me?
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When I look at the garden of Eden, and I look at the garden of Gethsemane, I see that sometimes God doesn't give me everything that I pray for, and instead drives me to a place of suffering.
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But in these cases, it was for ultimate blessing.
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Is it possible that it's going to be a blessing for me?
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I have to trust His path, because the path that God leads me on is always ultimately where I need to be, even if it doesn't look like it in the moment.
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So, you know, in a way, we're still kind of with Adam and Eve, out of paradise and suffering.
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But provision was made for our sin, and we have been adopted by God through Jesus Christ.
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And the story doesn't end there.
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Because next Sunday, I'm going to show you even more of God's grace, because there's even more good news.
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We're heading back to paradise.
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Will you pray with me, please?
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Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word.
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And we thank You, Father, that we see the foundation of faith.
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Even in the garden, we see belief in Your Word, we see receiving Your provision, we see ultimately it's trusting Your path.
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And Father, right now I pray specifically for those who need to do these things, that there are people, somebody here needs to believe, Not just agreeing, but acting on what Your Word says.
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And the first part of that is receiving Your provision.
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There's somebody here right now, Father, that needs to say, "I'm done trying to think that I can earn my way, or be a good enough person, or do enough good works." They need to receive the provision that You've made in Christ.
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And I pray, Father, that you would open their eyes, and open their heart to receive your provision in Christ.
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And right now, Father, there's a whole lot of us on a path that we really don't want to be on.
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But we see in your Word, Father, it's a key part of faith.
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Adam and Eve went through it, and Jesus Christ Himself went through it.
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Help us to trust you, even when it's hard, even when we don't get all the things that we want.
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Father, teach us what it means to wait on you, and teach us what faith looks like when we trust you with the big picture.
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Father, we are about to stand in worship, and I pray that this is a sweet sound to your ear. As you deserve all praise and glory and honor and power, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Genesis 3:20-24
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What is a curse? What does it mean that disobedience to God results in a curse from God? What does this have to do with Jesus? See Galatians 3:10-13
What is faith? How did Adam demonstrate faith (Gen 3:20)?
Explain the significance of God clothing Adam and Eve with skins (Gen 3:21).
Why did God drive Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:22)? How was this actually a blessing for them?
Breakout
Pray for one another.
