Where It All Began
The title this morning is “Where It All Began.” What we mean by “it” depends on where we open the book of Genesis. In chapter 1, we are talking about the beginning of creation. But when we turn to chapter 3, we come to the beginning of something that does not belong in that good world. We come to human rebellion and the ruin that follows it.
We have been tracing the Story of the Bible: creation, ruin, rescue, and renewal. We have seen that God made us to reflect his character, represent him in his world, and work under his direction. Now we have to ask why creatures made for that life turned away from it. How did people surrounded by the goodness of God become suspicious of the God who gave it?
Football season is upon us. Football coaches spend a lot of time watching game film. A play that looked like one person’s mistake may reveal a problem that started somewhere else. The coach slows it down. Where did the assignment break down? What did the player see? What did he fail to see? Understanding how the play went wrong matters when you step onto the field again.
Genesis 3 allows us to look closely at a defeat whose consequences reach every one of us. We are reading our family’s history. And as we watch what happens, we begin to recognize something about our own hearts.
The action itself is painfully simple. She took the fruit and ate it. She gave some to her husband, and he ate. A few ordinary words describe a catastrophe that human beings could never undo on their own.
Much later in the Bible, we will hear Jesus say, “Take, eat.” Those words will accompany bread that points to his body given for us. That is a striking connection to hold in mind. Between the taking and eating in the garden and the taking and eating at the Lord’s Table stands the costly work of our Savior. The eternal Son would enter our poverty, bear our sin, and taste death to rescue us.
But first, we need to understand the defeat. At the heart of this passage is a lie about God: his command cannot be trusted because his goodness cannot be trusted. That lie still shapes our disobedience. The gospel exposes it and gives us reason to trust him again.
I. How It Began
Have you ever watched a movie with the closed captions turned on? Sometimes, between the lines of dialogue, a caption appears: “[sinister music].” The conversation may sound perfectly ordinary, but the music tells you something is wrong. You’re hearing a friendly question, but you ought to be watching for danger.
It’s almost as though that caption belongs at the beginning of Genesis 3. We have been reading about God’s good creation. The man and woman are together in the garden, naked and unashamed. Then we read, “Now the serpent…”
[Sinister music.] The garden hasn’t changed, but a new voice has entered the conversation. And that voice begins with a question: “Did God really say…?” We aren’t told that the serpent sounded threatening. His question might have sounded quite reasonable. That is what makes it dangerous. He is inviting the woman to reconsider whether the God who has given her everything good can really be trusted.
Look at the serpent’s question in verse 1. He asks whether God has forbidden them to eat from any tree in the garden. See how that question frames their situation. It puts God’s restriction in the foreground and pushes his generosity out of sight.
In Genesis 2:16, God had given Adam broad permission to eat from the trees of the garden. Then he identified one tree from which Adam must not eat. God’s provision was abundant, and his prohibition was specific. The serpent speaks as though the defining feature of life with God is deprivation.
The question encourages Eve to reconsider God’s command as evidence against his goodness.
We recognize that temptation. There may be many evidences of God’s kindness in our lives, but one desire remains unfulfilled. One boundary frustrates us. One command stands between us and something we want. Soon that one thing fills our field of vision. We begin evaluating God’s character by what he has forbidden or has not given.
Eve answers that they may eat from the trees, but that eating from the tree in the middle of the garden brings death. In verse 4, the serpent directly contradicts God’s warning. Then, in verse 5, he offers an explanation for the prohibition. God knows that their eyes will be opened and that they will be like God, knowing good and evil.
The accusation underneath those words is that God is keeping something good from them. He knows what they could become, and he is standing in their way. The serpent invites them to believe that disobedience will improve their lives.
Notice the progression. Suspicion about God’s command becomes distrust of God’s character. Once they distrust his character, rebellion begins to look reasonable. If God is withholding what would make life better, why should they keep listening to him?
The enemy has separated God’s law from God’s love in their thinking. God’s command remains before them, but they are losing sight of the goodness of the One who gave it.
She already had reason to know better. Go back to Genesis 1:28-30. God blessed the man and woman, gave them their calling, and provided food for them. Their lives began with his generosity. They had earned none of it. Before they had accomplished anything, they were recipients of his goodness.
They were already made in God’s image. Now the serpent offers being like God as something they must seize through disobedience. They are invited to reach for independence from the One whose likeness they were created to bear. Instead of receiving wisdom under his authority, they will take the right to determine their course for themselves.
Verse 6 shows the change. The woman sees that the tree is good for food, attractive to the eye, and desirable for obtaining wisdom. God’s warning is displaced by her judgment of what the fruit can offer. She takes and eats. Adam, who is with her, eats as well. He shares responsibility for this rebellion; we must not read this as Eve alone.
Their eyes are opened, but the outcome is shame. They know they are naked, and they make coverings for themselves. The freedom they expected has not arrived. The people who had been naked without shame now feel the need to cover themselves from one another.
Romans 1:25 describes sinful humanity exchanging the truth about God for a lie and serving the creature instead of the Creator. We can recognize that exchange here. God’s creatures accept a false account of him and begin acting as though their own judgment deserves the final word.
And we recognize it in ourselves. We know that God calls us to forgive, but we suspect that holding a grudge will protect us better. We know he calls us to tell the truth, but we think deception will secure the outcome we need. We hear what he says about money or sexual faithfulness, and we wonder whether obedience will cost us the life we really want.
The question beneath those choices is often very personal: Can I trust God with my good?
Sometimes we disobey. Sometimes we obey with a deep resentment because we still believe he is depriving us. In either case, the lie about his character has entered our thinking. We need more than a reminder that the rule exists. We need our view of the God who gave it to be corrected.
That brings us from the garden into our own lives. Coaches do not watch game film simply to become better at discussing yesterday’s game. What they learn has to change how they play. So how does this ancient lie show up in us?
II. How It Shows Up
Your life can take two very different directions while the same suspicion about God remains underneath. One direction is legalism. The other is what we will call relativism: setting aside God’s authority and making our own desires the measure of what is right.
Legalism says, “Earn his love.” Relativism says, “Live your life.” One tries to establish a claim on God through performance. The other tries to find freedom by escaping his commands. Both have lost confidence in the goodness of life received from God.
Consider legalism first. Taking God’s commands seriously is not legalism. Jesus calls his people to obey him. Legalism appears when obedience becomes the basis on which we think God must accept us, or the bargaining power by which we expect to secure his blessings.
A person can know that salvation is by grace and still spend much of the week thinking this way. “I have been faithful. I have prayed. I have served. Surely that should count for something when God decides how my life is going to go.”
Then disappointment comes. A prayer remains unanswered. Someone we love makes a painful choice. Years of faithful service do not produce the results we hoped to see. Alongside our understandable grief, another thought may emerge: “After everything I have done for God, how could he let this happen?”
Legalism can also show up as constant anxiety. “Have I done enough? Did I pray enough? Was I sincere enough? Can God really welcome me after this failure?” The person may be diligent, but there is little rest because acceptance seems to depend on maintaining a sufficient level of performance.
There is a particular danger for those of us who have spent years in church. We can keep serving while our hearts gradually turn service into an invoice. Here at CVBC, we need to remember that our labor matters to God, but it does not purchase his love. We may bring our weariness and disappointment honestly to him. We do not have to present a record of achievement before he will hear us.
Now consider the other direction. Relativism treats God’s love as permission to disregard God’s commands. Its reasoning may sound like this: “God loves me. He understands me. Surely he would not expect me to give up something that makes me happy.”
That sounds kinder than legalism, but it creates a different problem. We have decided in advance what love must mean. We assume that if God loves us, he will endorse the course we prefer. Any command that challenges our desires must be unreasonable, outdated, or intended for someone else.
We do not have to deny the whole Bible to do this. We can simply reserve one area of life in which we insist on having the final say. “I will listen to θ about most things, but this is different. This resentment is justified. This decision is mine.”
There may be an immediate sense of relief in setting the command aside. But permission we give ourselves cannot reconcile us to God or heal the damage sin causes. The garden has already shown us the distance between what disobedience promises and what it delivers.
Legalism and relativism look very different from the outside. We might describe them as non-identical twins from the same womb. They share a distrust of God’s gracious rule, even though one expresses it through religious performance and the other through resistance to his commands.
They can live in the same heart. I can take pride in my faithfulness in one area while excusing disobedience in another. I can be exacting about someone else’s behavior and remarkably understanding about my own. I can even tell myself that because I have served so faithfully, I deserve an exception.
We sometimes try to cure one problem with the other. Someone worn out by trying to earn acceptance decides that obedience no longer matters. Someone frightened by the consequences of careless living begins building a stricter system of rules to prove that things have changed. The behavior changes, but the understanding of God may remain untouched.
We need a deeper answer. We need to know that God’s love can be received without being earned, and that his commands can be trusted without being discarded. That requires a renewed understanding of God himself.
Where can we see him clearly enough to challenge both of these errors? Where can we see that he takes sin seriously and loves sinners freely? We come to the third movement of the sermon.
III. Where It Was/Is Defeated
The lie is defeated in Jesus Christ, decisively at the cross. Its hold on our thinking is challenged as the Holy Spirit brings the truth of the gospel home to our hearts.
The cross shows us God’s holiness and love together. They were never actually in conflict within God. The conflict was in the false picture of God that the serpent encouraged us to believe.
Consider what the cross says to the person who assumes that love means sin does not matter. God does not treat our rebellion as a minor inconvenience. Forgiveness comes at the cost of the Son giving himself for sinners. Jesus bears the judgment we deserve. Our sin is serious enough that we cannot repair it through a better attitude or a fresh start.
Then consider what the cross says to the person trying to earn God’s love. Jesus did not come because we had made ourselves worthy. Romans 5:8 tells us that God demonstrated his love for us in Christ’s death while we were still sinners. His love preceded our improvement. The Savior came to people who needed rescue and could not provide it for themselves.
God is holier than our excuses allow us to imagine, and more loving than our attempts to earn acceptance allow us to believe. At the cross, we see both. We have no ground for treating sin lightly, but every reason to come to him for mercy.
The gospel is the good news of what God has done through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to save sinners. Jesus lived in faithful obedience to his Father, gave himself for our sins, and rose from the dead. Everyone who turns to him in faith is forgiven and welcomed through his finished work.
The contrast with Adam matters to the Story of the Bible. Romans 5:18-19 sets the disobedience of Adam alongside the obedience of Christ. Our rescue depends on a Savior who succeeds where humanity failed. Jesus’ obedience reaches all the way to the cross. His resurrection assures us that sin and death will not have the final word over those who belong to him.
This is where the Story of the Bible carries us. The ruin in the garden creates a need no human achievement can meet. God’s rescue comes through his Son. The renewal he promises will finally remove the curse and restore his people to life in his presence. The cross and resurrection are central to that rescue and that future.
But how does this truth change the way we live this week?
Suppose you have failed again in an area where you know God’s will. Legalism tells you to earn your way back before you approach him. Relativism tells you to stop calling it a failure. The gospel enables you to confess the sin honestly and come to God through Christ. You can face what you have done because your hope rests in the Savior who died for sinners.
That confession has practical consequences. You may need to ask someone’s forgiveness, make restitution, remove an occasion for temptation, or seek help from another believer. Grace gives you reason to take those steps. You are responding to mercy already offered in Christ.
Or suppose you are facing a command that feels costly. You cannot see how obedience will work out. The cross does not give you a timetable for an easier life. It gives you compelling reason to trust the character of the One who calls you to obey. The God who gave his Son for us is not indifferent to our good.
As we believe the gospel, joyful obedience becomes possible. We begin to obey from gratitude and trust. We learn to receive God’s commands from the Father who has welcomed us through his Son.
Joyful obedience does not mean that every act of obedience feels pleasant. Forgiveness may come through tears. Faithfulness may require a long struggle. A grieving Christian may obey with trembling hands and a heavy heart. Christian joy can be a quiet confidence in God’s goodness when circumstances are painful.
And joyful obedience grows imperfectly. We do not establish our salvation by checking whether our emotions are cheerful enough today. Our acceptance rests in Christ. As we depend on him, the Spirit changes both what we do and what we love. We learn to say, with increasing sincerity, “Father, I trust you, and I want to walk in your ways.”
Titus 2:11-14 describes God’s saving grace as teaching us to renounce ungodliness and live godly lives while we wait for Christ. Grace brings salvation and trains the people it saves. The gospel continues to work in us throughout the Christian life.
Conclusion and Invitation
Someone may be thinking, “Preacher, I know the gospel.” I hope you do. But knowing how to explain it and learning to live by it are not the same accomplishment. We can confess salvation by grace on Sunday and spend Monday trying to earn God’s favor or excuse our disobedience.
We never outgrow our need to hear what God has done for us in Christ. The gospel is not a diving board we leave behind once we enter the Christian life. We keep returning to it because we keep needing forgiveness, assurance, and a clearer understanding of the God we serve.
In 1 Peter 1:10-12, Peter describes the prophets searching into the salvation God was announcing, including Christ’s sufferings and the glories that would follow. He says that even angels long to look into these things. There is a depth to God’s saving work that familiarity with a summary cannot exhaust.
We discover more of that depth as we read the Bible. The gospel is good news we can understand, but never exhaust; receive, but never outgrow, a kaleidoscope of endless insights as to how the self-sacrifice of Jesus impacts everything.
As you read this week, consider what the passage reveals about God. Where are you resisting what he says? How does the grace you have received in Christ help you respond? Ask the Spirit to make these truths more than information you can repeat.
And this morning, consider where the lie from the garden has taken hold in your life. Are you trying to earn the love God offers in Christ? Are you using the language of love to defend something he calls sin? Perhaps you recognize both tendencies in yourself.
Bring them honestly to the Lord. If you have never trusted Jesus Christ, you do not need to assemble a better record before you come. Turn from your sin and entrust yourself to the Savior who died and rose again. His mercy is sufficient for you.
If you belong to Christ, return to the truth by which you were saved. Confess the sin you have been excusing. Lay down the bargain you have been trying to make with God. Ask him to restore your confidence in his goodness and to show you the next step of obedience.
In the garden, our first parents reached for life apart from God and found shame and death. Through Jesus Christ, God gives life to people who could never recover it for themselves. You can trust the Father who has made himself known in his Son. Receive his grace, and follow him.