Okay, now I’m clicked on. Now you can go on and off. Okay, now you can. Now Phil has control. But thank you. Welcome! Happy Father’s Day!
Just a couple of announcements to go over rather quickly, as they are printed in your bulletin this morning. We see the return of coffee hour, so please don’t zip off right after church. Go ahead on back; we do have coffee and some treats that have been provided. Then, go out to Father’s Day lunch or however else you plan on celebrating today. But please take a few moments to join and fellowship with each other.
Second off, on Sunday, July 4th, you know the Fourth of July, we’re going to have a second shorter service shortly after the normal worship service of patriotism and prayer. We will actually take some time to recognize all those who have served and are serving. So we do ask that everybody who desires to wear some form of red, white, and blue, and those of you who have uniforms or elements thereof that you wish to wear, please you are welcome and encouraged to do so.
Thirdly, on Sunday, July 11th, we will be having a Picture Sunday. Following the service, we will have one large picture taken of the entire congregation gathered around the pulpit. Miss Carrie is going to be going around taking some pictures during the worship service. So on that morning, if you do not wish to have your picture taken because a lot of these pictures are going to be going onto our Facebook site as well as onto our church website as we help to encourage people to come join us, we want to feel welcoming. But if you do not wish to have your picture taken, please let Carrie know that morning so she can make sure she keeps you out of the shots. We don’t want to put anybody into a position that they feel uncomfortable with.
Lastly, the last announcement I have is we do have the prayer card still. There’s a little white box in the back. We do want to pray for you. These do go out on the prayer chain, and by the request of some, we are going to start having a printed copy of the prayer requests posted in the bulletin beginning next week, just for who we need to be praying for. So if you would like, please go ahead and fill out a card because we would love to keep all of y’all in prayer.
Are there any other announcements from the floor? Just a moment, Messiah’s breaking things. Good morning! I just want to again say Happy Father’s Day to everybody and let you all know that there will be a goodie and a gift for you as you leave today, so please don’t forget to stop and get them. Thank you!
I’ll probably get skinned alive for this one, but my mother will be 97 on the 28th of this month. I’m trying to have a card shower for her. [Applause] Any others?
Seeing none, then please take a few moments to stand and greet those around you and pass the peace of Christ. Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord and who greatly delights in his commandments. We welcome you and ask that we now stand as we sing and worship our Lord with hymn number 648, ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.’ Please stand.
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God, we come into this place to worship you. We offer you all the glory, and we offer you all of our thanksgiving for the lives you’ve given us, for the friendships and family that you’ve given us, for our fathers, for our mothers, and for, lastly of all, the ability and joy that we have to worship you, to know you forever and ever. Amen.
You may be seated.
The psalmist writes, ‘Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.’ We are reminded that this is our benefit, this is our joy, this is our opportunity to come before our God and King to confess our sins and receive his pardon.
Please join me with our corporate prayer of confession.
Father, you alone are just; your holy law is righteous, clear, and fair. But we prefer our own ways and transgress your commands. We forget that you are our creator and that you know what is best for us and that you desire us to walk in your ways. You are the author of our lives, but we prefer to choose our own adventure and so follow the wrong path. We think that our way is better. We heed those who ask, ‘Did God really say?’ Instead of trusting you, we doubt, so we do not obey.
You alone could condemn us; we must accept your judgment. But instead, you offer us mercy. Correct us, Lord. Give us eyes to see and follow you, to follow your son Jesus, who is the way. Remove our desire to wander. Preserve us in your way, close our ears to lies, remove our doubts from our hearts, strengthen our faith and trust. Help us to always be thankful for your justice and mercy shown and given by the cross. Forgive us, we pray. Always give us your grace and mercy for the sake of Christ Jesus our substitute. Amen.
The psalmist continues, ‘But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in fear of you. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me.’
This is the good news of the gospel: in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Amen.
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Lord, we return to you what is a part of your own. You have given it to us; we have received it, and now we return these tithes and offerings to you in love and gratitude, and that they may be used to further your will in this world. We ask that you bless it, that you grant us wisdom in the use of it, and that you let us help those you have called us to help. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. Our next hymn is number 406, ‘Wonderful Words of Life.’
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How are you guys this morning? Good?
So this Bible—this is one of my oldest ones. I’ve had it since I was about, oh, your guys’ age, you know, for some of y’all—and this was given to me by my parents, both my mom and my dad. I wanted to bring it out today and share some things with you, okay?
One of those—and this is a verse that everybody else is going to get to hear about later, but I wanted to bring up with you guys—is John 3:16. And you guys have that one memorized? No? No way? Okay, it’s a good one to learn. You know, if you’re going to learn and memorize one verse of the Bible, this is probably it.
So, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’
Now, there’s a lot that can perish. ‘Perish’ means that you have died, that you are no longer alive. There is a lot that can be said about this verse, and I’m not going to go into all of those things this morning, but there’s something that you probably do know already that’s really based off of this.
Do any of you guys know the song ‘Jesus Loves Me’? Yes?
Anybody know how the words go?
Okay! ‘Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong.’ Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
And that’s what this verse is talking about. It’s talking about how God and Jesus both love us so much that God loves you so much He gave His son for you so that you get to be His kids too. Did you know that? Because the Bible tells you this too, just a couple pages before that.
Now let’s see…
And so you want to come help me read? No? Okay, okay, come on, go ahead and read from the 12 to the 13.
‘To all those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.’
To all those who received him, which is Jesus, God gave those who believe in Him the right to be children of God. And so that means that today, you know, being Father’s Day, you know, we can be thankful for our fathers. So when you get the chance, go give them a hug, or your grandfathers, or your uncles, and all those folks who are around to help you.
But also remember that God is your Father too and that He loves you very much, and Jesus, your brother, loves you very much, okay?
So another way of praying is singing. Did you know that? Did you know that you can sing to pray? Because one of the things we do when we sing is we’re praising God.
And so do you guys think that you can help me and help remind everybody else here, you know, about the song ‘Jesus Loves Me’?
Okay! Okay, Nate, do you think you have that one in memory? Sure?
Everybody, you want to help us sing? All right, okay! Let me know when you’re ready.
‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’
‘Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong.’ Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
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Amen!
Okay, guys, you can go on down to Children.
Let us turn to the Lord in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are our Father, that you have chosen us to be your children. Not by anybody else’s will but by your own. We thank you for the great gift of your son Jesus, and we ask now that as you are here with us, we all have different concerns, different fears, different needs. We raise them up to you and ask for your help according to your will.
We have those who have been ill and who are ill. We pray for the many who are getting ready to go through surgery, for those who are struggling with uncertain medical conditions, for those who are traveling home this week and those who are leaving us to go on vacation. We ask that you bless them, that you be with them, and that you keep them safe until we all gather together again.
We pray for those children who are in a loving home but may not yet know you. We ask that they may see your love through the love of their parents, that we may all come to understand your love for us as our heavenly Father.
As we remember and honor our fathers who have taught us, who have led us, who have guided us, and if we did not have those around who we could call Father but we had those who led us still, whether it be our mothers or other male figures, we thank you for them, and we ask that your blessing be upon those who have been, who are, and who are yet to come.
We pray for those who act in leadership of our town, of our state, and our country. In times past, we called our rulers father because their role was to guide us, to protect us, and to lead us. We ask that your blessing be upon them, that they honor you first and that they walk in your ways according to your will for all of our benefit.
We pray for those who place themselves in harm’s way every day, that you preserve them, that you protect them, and that you help them serve and help others as they are called to do.
We pray all these things in the name of the one who taught us to pray by praying:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Our first scripture passage this morning comes still from the book of Genesis. We’re making our way; we’re on to Genesis chapter 3.
Beginning with the first verse:
‘Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of the tree of any tree in the garden?”
And 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 tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”
But the serpent said to the woman, ‘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.’
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and 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 who was with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’
And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.’
He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? 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 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.’
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. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’
To the woman, he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.’
And to Adam, he said, ‘Because you have listened to 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 were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’
The man called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living.
And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever,’ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.’
Our second scripture comes from John chapter 3, beginning with verse 16 and continuing on through verse 21:
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.’ This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!
Let us pray.
Lord, these are wonderful words you have given to us—wonderful words of life that give us knowledge and understanding and bring us into relationship with you and your son Jesus, by whom we have that life and that we know that we do not suffer this judgment and this condemnation.
We ask that you open our ears to hear, open our hearts to understand, and that the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
So we have now reached Genesis 3, the beginning of the end. Thus far, since creation, things have been good—very good, even, and quite promising. Last week, we left Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden—the garden for which Adam had been given the task, with Eve to help as his ezer, to tend and guard, and also which he had been given the authority to rule over and protect—and thus all creation.
They had been given the commands to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
And also, you may surely eat of every tree of 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 we can imagine that they did their best to be faithful and obedient to God’s commands and rules for a time, until that one day when Eve had the serpent strike up a conversation with her.
Now Eve is not to be blamed for the entirety of her and Adam’s sin; she does bear some responsibility but not sole responsibility because the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. You see, she had an adversary with bad intentions, and she honestly didn’t know any better.
The serpent knew something that she did not and could not know because all of the animals, plants, birds, and fish had been created before the woman—before Eve. And we understand this, including all creatures to include both angels and those who would become the demons.
Thus, the Lord God gave Adam the command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When God gave that command, the serpent, Satan, had already been created and was likely present to hear the word straight from God’s lips. But Eve was not there; Eve had to take Adam’s word concerning God’s command of prohibition based on her faith and trust in him.
So, this crafty serpent, when he asked, ‘Did God actually say?’, he knew that God did not say what he was suggesting. Satan was intentionally trying to cause doubt within Eve with the question, but he was also exposing a serious problem and error of Adam’s when Eve responded to the serpent.
She said, ‘But God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden; neither shall you touch it lest you die.” And that’s not what the Bible records God telling Adam back in chapter 2. God gave no prohibition on touching the fruit.
Now, for those of you who are parents and/or who were children at one time, not touching the fruit that’s forbidden sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? To prevent temptation or accidentally eating it, right?
Adam was within his authority as her lord, husband, federal head, and mediator before God to add the extra prohibition for her, for his, and for their children’s good. But the serious error was in saying that God said, ‘Neither shall you touch it.’
Aware of all this and hearing the response from Eve, the serpent continued: ‘You will not surely die.’
So Eve was convinced to look upon the fruit, to gaze longingly upon it, to desire it, and so she reached out and took the fruit. She didn’t die—uh oh!
Full stop. Eve just broke the rules, doing what she had been told not to do upon pain of death. She touched the fruit, but there was no lightning bolt from heaven to zap her, the earth did not open up to swallow her, nor did she just simply fall over dead.
Do you see the big problem here? Might she think that God lied, believing what she did about what God had said?
‘Don’t eat it, don’t touch it; otherwise, you die.’ Believing the well-intentioned falsity which had been added to the truth and then discovering that this extra prohibition was false, she took the next step by disbelieving and doubting the true prohibition.
Adam was only trying to protect her by fencing God’s command to guard it against transgressions, just like all those extra rules and practices crafted by the Pharisees of Jesus’ day that were meant to prevent breaking any of the 613 mitzvot, the commandments found in Torah.
When you add rules to God, it becomes more about obeying the rules of man than about obeying the law of the Lord.
So Eve, by violating Adam’s rule, allowed them both to transgress God’s law—His law of absolute obedience. Touching the fruit and suffering no ill consequence caused Eve to doubt and then to indulge her doubt by believing that either God was powerless and unable to punish her for her transgression or that He was unwilling to punish.
She thought it would be safe to eat the fruit—that she would be safe—like a person who climbs over a fence into an abandoned but still marked minefield or a person who decides to play Russian roulette for the second time.
She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Again, Eve is not the one solely responsible for our fall into sin; Adam was with her. He should have corrected her response to the serpent and refuted the devil.
He could have affirmed her trust in him and God, built up her faith, instead of allowing the seeds of doubt to take root in her heart and mind. Adam was with her; he could have stopped her from eating.
But instead of stopping her, he chose to join her. Preventing her from sinning was his duty and obligation because she was under his authority. Adam was the one who had been given the law by God, so in this, he knew best and so he was held accountable because her transgression was ultimately his failure and transgression.
God made Adam to be responsible for her, himself, and for everyone else to come, including us. Adam was mankind’s representative chosen by God. Adam’s obedience would have been our obedience, so Adam’s sin and disobedience became our sin and disobedience.
And through his disobedience, Adam injected something into our human nature that did not belong—sin. Humanity was changed, altered for the worse instead of for the better.
We became no longer very good.
Think you can improve upon perfection? Do you think that you can make it better? Do you think that you can improve upon any of the master’s paintings hanging on the walls in the Louvre with a five-gallon bucket of latex paint and a three-inch brush?
Or more appropriately, maybe what happens if you were to dare to change the ingredients or even the brand of ingredients of your grandmother’s perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe? Nothing good happens.
Addition is not always positive. Sometimes more is less. Sin is the worst additive to our human nature, bringing sin into ourselves—sin which was not created by God nor given to us by God—but became the result of our free will.
Sin damaged and defaced the image of God within us, like a five-year-old who finds some finger paints left unattended for five minutes in a room with freshly painted white walls, brand new carpet, and brand new furniture.
I think Messiah is probably glad I didn’t use that for the children’s sermon, but we all have become an absolute mess because of Adam’s sin which we have compounded with our own sins.
Adam’s sin not only poisoned the well of our humanity but it also primed our pumps so that all of our works and lives would be tainted by sin.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.
Knowing that they were naked is not the point here. Naked means plainly uncovered, or better yet, exposed. The Bible was not concerned about their lack of dress.
So Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; they sinned and knew that they were exposed. They knew that their sin could not be hidden neither from each other nor from their holy God, but they tried anyways.
And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Adding sin to the imago dei exposed them to God’s judgment; it exposed them to suffer the consequence of their actions; it exposed them to suffer the wrath of God.
They knew it; and they knew that they deserved it too—for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.
Game over, do not pass go, do not collect 200. They were exposed.
Then they heard God walking in the garden, so they tried to hide from His presence. But neither fig leaves nor trees could cover their nakedness. Nothing created could shield these sin-stained creatures from the sinless, holy, sovereign Lord with whom they had been in a personal relationship.
When God asked, ‘Where are you?’ it was not because the Lord didn’t know where they were, but it was to provide Adam the opportunity to come forward for confession and to repent of his sin.
When God asked them who told you and have you eaten, God already knew what Adam and Eve had done. He already knew their sin which they tried to hide with their flimsy, finite creaturely coverings.
But did Adam confess or repent? No! Instead, he tried to pass the buck. He blamed Eve, who in turn blamed the serpent. All of them were guilty, so all of them would be punished because the Lord is righteous and cannot acquit the wicked and guilty.
The Lord is just, and justice must be served. Remember that the Apostle Paul wrote something: ‘For the wages of sin is death.’
Well, that’s what Adam and Eve and the serpent earned and deserved that day in the garden. That is the result of their works and free choices; for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
But instead of justice being served, we witness here the greatest act of mercy. All mankind, through our ancient forebears, received God’s mercy because of the eternally finished work of Christ.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Christ came into the world and died so that we might live. Christ’s sacrificial death of atonement on the cross meant that Adam and Eve lived.
The mercy which Adam and Eve received was not justice denied because justice for all of the sins of God’s elect was served upon the person of Jesus Christ.
Adam and Eve passed the buck, but Jesus said, ‘The buck stops here.’ Nor was this divine mercy justice delayed because Christ’s atonement was efficacious across our community, even if it was only affected over a few hours of time on one Sabbath eve during the remembrance of another of God’s acts of mercy by passing over the children of Israel with His strong hand when the Lord brought the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt.
Jesus is the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
As bad as our human circumstances became following the sin of the garden, we’re still left with such a great hope and promise. Mercifully, instead of death, we and all creation came under God’s curse.
To the serpent, God said, ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’
That promise to the offspring of the woman is Jesus Christ. Satan struck Christ on the heel, injuring Him to His death, but Christ crushed the power and authority of Satan and sin in the resurrection, trampling on Satan’s head.
Christ has triumphed, even as Satan was allowed to attack Him, just as Satan had before been allowed to torment Job. Everything works out to the father’s greater glory.
And while God cursed the serpent, He promised the redemption of His elect by her offspring—the ultimate triumph of His eternal plan and the serpent’s final downfall: Jesus Christ on the cross.
And while God cursed the woman, He promised that both she and the man would have offspring. But although she would suffer and experience pain in giving birth, the Lord also promised her a joy to come afterwards—a joy that makes all the pain worth bearing, a joy which we will all share in when Christ consummates His kingdom on earth and all of our trials, tribulations, sorrows, and pain will be justified and redeemed.
And while God cursed the man, He promised that although his work would now become toil, that although life would become one consisting of pain and suffering, God promised that the earth would still respond to his authority, his efforts, and power.
He promised that he and she would continue to be provided for by God.
God made the merciful judgment that despite their lack of obedience, by their failure to keep God’s command, that although they were deserving of nothing less than death, destruction, and total annihilation, they would live.
Yes, Adam and Eve did not die that day in the garden, but the days of their lives were now uncertain, troubled, and lesser than they should have been because, by their willful choice to sin and disobey God, they removed themselves from the Lord’s presence.
This was a choice that they could not undo themselves. Adam and Eve added sin to God’s created perfection, added the unholy to that which had been made holy and very good.
The Lord is too holy and too pure to look upon or remain in the presence of sin, so Adam and Eve could not stay in God’s presence now because of their sinful state. They could not stay in God’s perfect garden paradise; otherwise, they would be destroyed.
The choice had been made, and it could not be undone.
We all deserve destruction, yet the divine justice was served so that we might receive the divine mercy. Adam and Eve did not pay the penalty for their sin, but they still suffered consequence on account of their sin.
So too do we also suffer consequences for our sins. Adam was created to be the mediator and representative for all mankind before God, created to be the first high priest. But he failed in those roles.
Fortunately for us, before all this, the Lord had taken that into account. God had His plan of redemption for the elect before the foundation of the world. The Lord chose some to be made holy and blameless before Him, elected some to be His children by adoption for Him to be Father to whom He would redeem from Adam’s sin and from their own sins through the blood of God, the Son, Jesus Christ.
The Father covenanted with the Son to forgive those whom the Father gave to the Son so that they would be saved and not eternally lost.
So how are we saved? By our faith in Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son.
People say that we are the product of our choices, but we’re also the product of the choices made by our parents and all those who came before them. We cannot change or undo these choices of the past.
Our lives are enslaved by their choices—like where we are born or live as children, causing us to have different opportunities from other people and different challenges. Therefore, many of our life choices really aren’t freely made; there’s always some constraint placed upon them.
So too, our ability to choose God has been constrained by sin, preventing us—unless or until the extraordinary happens and the Holy Spirit works inside of us, regenerating us and granting us that saving faith in Christ.
Until that happens, we cannot say yes to Jesus.
The disobedience of Adam, our representative head, limited all of our future choices to always be made away from God until we were grafted into Jesus Christ, our righteous representative and the greater Adam.
Whoever believes in him, Christ, is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
We are no longer condemned by our sins or by Adam’s original sin because we believe and trust in Christ. We now receive mercy because the Holy Spirit has been given to each of us, has given to us each our measure of faith to believe in Him.
Thanks be to our merciful Lord. The Holy Spirit unites us together and into Christ who fulfilled all righteousness and requirements of the law.
He fulfilled the requirement of perfect obedience so that we might receive God’s mercy and be saved, so that Adam and Eve could justly receive God’s mercy way back when in the garden.
Adam and Eve ruined things such that God could only fix them. Nothing that we have ever done can we undo, but we who are called can come to Christ for restoration and repair.
Forgiveness and mercy is offered freely to all who hear and answer God’s call.
And this is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.
But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
We can be sure that all those who are called will come to Him. They will come into the light of life, the light of the Father’s love.
Like Adam in the garden, God calls to him, calls us to Himself and allows us to confess our sins so that we may receive forgiveness, mercy, and have our works to be sanctified.
We do this every Sunday morning during our time of corporate and individual confession. After our earnest confession, we then receive an assurance of our pardon, like Adam and Eve did, granting mercy.
What then did God do following the proclamation of the curse? The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
The Lord, in His mercy, covered their nakedness and removed their exposure. He removed their guilt of sin; He covered their sinfulness so that He would not remember it and hold it against them.
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!
Scripture tells us that God made them garments of skins for recovering. See, this was the very first sacrifice of atonement.
Like every sacrifice performed by the priests of Israel at the tabernacle and in the temple, this was a temporary covering for sin. It was a reminder that the true penalty for sin—for every sin and any sin—is death. Animals died so that Adam and Eve could be covered.
Their sacrificial deaths, significant in themselves, were even more significant because they foreshadowed and pointed the way to the one effective sacrifice of atonement of Jesus Christ, our great high priest in His death on the cross.
Now before, we’ve established that the value of a person is much greater to God than any animal or flower. The death of an animal then, as payment for a man’s debt of sin, could never cover what we owe, but it could show the way until our full debt was satisfied by Jesus.
That’s why the doctrine of the incarnation is so important to our faith—that in the person of Jesus, God took on the likeness of sinful flesh and became human—the God-man.
Jesus, both God and man together, unified but not mixed or mingled. Man owed the debt for sin, but only God could afford to or be able to pay that debt.
Jesus died to cover all of our bounced checks and return check fees that we’ve accrued because of our sin. And until Christ came, we needed the regular sacrifices to remind us of our sinfulness.
Now we act in sacrifice and love out of thanksgiving because of all that He has done for us until He returns to bring us to our eternal home.
After clothing Adam and Eve, they were banished from the garden, sent out into exile, removed from their home and locked out. They were removed from what was meant to be their eternal home in paradise.
And all of us—we’re still looking for Eden—looking for a way back into the promised land, well beyond the Jordan.
Genesis chapter 3, there is such tragedy here, but there’s also so much hope. We fell into sin, but in His mercy, God promises us that we will be restored and redeemed.
He promised us a Messiah and Savior who will clothe us in imperishable garments. Our sins will be and are eternally forgiven and forgotten, covered by the blood of the Lamb before we even needed His precious blood.
When the Lord drove Adam and Eve from the garden, I don’t think it was in a Plymouth Fury. They received His mercy because God did not express His righteous fury against them; His wrath was turned aside from them, and they were passed over.
God’s wrath was satisfied by Christ in His death on our behalf. He died so that we can live in mercy.
The Lord drove Adam and Eve from the garden; He removed them from that place, but He did not remove our hope to return there. But He did place a guard at the gate to keep sinners out.
And one day, when Christ returns, Jesus will welcome us at that gate, wash us clean of our sins, and then usher us into paradise to live and dwell with Him forever.
Until then, we’re still banished people living in exile. The earth, the world, this present life in which we live is not our home. We are strangers in a strange land because we are citizens of heaven, wandering in this sin-racked world.
But we have an eternal home, and one day our merciful Lord will bring us home to Himself and end our exile.
This is our great hope in Christ. This is what every faithful Christian looks forward to when either Christ returns or we are called home to glory. Amen.
Please stand, and let us affirm our faith with the words of the Apostles’ Creed:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended to hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended to heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Please remain standing as our final hymn is number 435, ‘God of Grace and God of Glory.’
[Music]
And as you leave, remember that for God so loved the world that He loved you so much that He sent His Son into the world so that you all may be able to call Him Father—Daddy.
And now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship with the Holy Spirit be with you now and always. Amen.
Go in peace.