Paradise Lost

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Welcoming The District Superintendent

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Can we have a seat? So we have another uh special guest today, which is really fun. Uh, this uh this person reached out to me when everything happened with Mac and said, Hey, I'd love to speak. If uh you know we didn't know Mac would be back quite so soon as he was. Um this is I'm gonna have him come on out now. This is Mark Harris from our district uh through the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Um give Mark a round of applause. So for those of you who don't know or just forgot, we are a part of a denomination called the Christian Missionary Alliance. It is divided up into different districts, and so our district that we're a part of is the Western Great Lakes of Wisconsin in the Upper Peninsula, and Mark is the district superintendent, so kind of the head of that organization of what you said 47 churches this morning. Um, and so kind of uh helps lead the district conference and connects with the different churches, and if there's crises happening, he's the guy who gets to come in and help mop up the mess after a crisis, but he's also there just to encourage and lead us um as a gathering of churches. And so uh, Mark, you've maybe recognized him before he's been out here at least once, I think once, yeah. Um, and so when he said, Hey, I'd maybe be happy to come, I was like, Yes, let's get Mark on the calendar. So uh anything else, Mark? Otherwise, I'll pass it off to you. Wonderful, thank you. Awesome. Thanks, Mark.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Thank you. You know, when I was driving up this morning, I was uh praying for the morning and and thinking about uh y'all praying for you. Uh very grateful for for Mac and Katie and Cameron. You know, uh you you just get used to folk and you think, well, that's just a normal deal. A healthy, godly team you would think would be a normal thing in a church, but not always. So be praying for these guys. I know you do. Be supporting these guys, loving on these guys, give them all a raise, whatever you need to do. Uh, keep doing it because uh God's God's really gifted, y'all. Um let me let me pray for us again, real quick, because Lord, we know the things of your word are spiritually discerned. And uh, Holy Spirit, you gave us your word, and um we can't have the eyes open without you. We can't discern what you want to say without you. And so I pray, Lord, you'd open our eyes, that we would see wonderful things from your word this morning. You know, each of us, you know where we're at, you know what's going on. And we pray, Lord, that your word would be the solve, it would be the comfort, it would be the challenge to us for what we need, that you'd be exalted,

The Big Question About Suffering

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Jesus, through it. Amen. Amen. You know, it's not strange today to hear somebody say, Um, if God is so good, if God is so good, how come? You know, fill it in, right? Just watch, read the headlines. If God is so good, how come uh little children bad things happen to them? If God is so good, how come there's disease? If God is so good, how come there are mudslides and people are missing and it seems like the evil guys are in control? If God is sovereign and he's in charge, what's with that? Have you ever heard anyone ask you that? That's like the number one reason given why people don't follow Christ, don't believe in God. Maybe you've actually said that before when uh life turned upside down for you, as it will for all of us at some point, multiple times before we get home. You know, it it we need to do, I think biblically, a deep dive theologically into the problem of pain. And we need to come up with a doctrine, a philosophy, uh a scriptural understanding of pain and grief. I think we really can. Scripture says a whole lot about that. It's not nothing that's trying to put under the hide under the carpet. God's addressing that one. But you can't start there. I mean, I understand why people want to start there because life goes south and there's pain and how come and we want, but you can't start there. You gotta go back to Genesis 1 and 2 and just be reminded that the world that

Eden As God Intended It

SPEAKER_01 4:15

we're in today is not necessarily the world that God wrote for us, right? We get that. That the world that He intentionally planned for us was paradise. I mean, physically it was paradise. And the world God said set up for us, right? There were no headaches or sore throats or backaches or TB or COVID or ALS or cancers or medical doctors or uh syringes or x-rays. You didn't need those things because life was always, always, I mean, you didn't even get tired at the end of the day. It was always perfect. You were always a 10 plus perfect. Uh relationally, the world God had set up for us was perfect. I mean, there were no arguments, right? There was no drama. That meant great, right? There's there was no needing to ask forgiveness, no needing to forgive, no misunderstandings, no envy or bitterness or jealousies, nothing like that. Life was perfect. Our relationships could not be better. That's the world that he intended for us. And that's the world we know, even though none of us have seen it. That's the world we know is supposed to be, right? Just kind of something in our heart. Um morally, life was perfect. I mean, there's no crime, right? There are no locks or police or military, because you didn't need those things because there are no there were no lootings or shootings or bad intentions. There are no evil people. I mean, everything was purely authentic and purely sincere, and it was all perfect. I mean, that was wonderful. Again, the world we know is supposed to be. Morally, uh, mentally, uh, life was perfect. There was no Alzheimer's, there was no uh schizophrenia, there was no bipolar, there, there was no anxiety ever. There was no fear. There was no depression or discouragement, just being in a funk. It didn't exist. Uh mentally, we were perfect as far as our relationship with nature goes. No, we Hamilton hit by a tornado a while back. No tornadoes, no hurricanes, no tsunamis, no wildfires, no flash floods, no maverick viruses and bacteria. There were no mosquito bites. I mean, it was just life was perfect on every front. And then Tuesday afternoon, 3 o'clock, we blew the whole thing up. And you say, my, why in the world? And can't we get it back? And see, those are the questions that Genesis 3 answers. And I want to turn your attention to Genesis 3 because, in my estimation, this is like a landmark chapter in the Bible. So if you got your Bibles, you got your Bible app, open up, look to it, find Genesis chapter 3. Uh, great chapter. Uh, easy enough, easy enough outline today. The fall, the fall out from the fall, and then the solution. Easy and easy enough. But this chapter, understanding Genesis 3, I mean, the rest of the Bible is is based on chapter 3. If chapter 3 doesn't happen, whole different, the rest of the Bible is gonna look a whole rat, whole radically said different. So really important that we get this down. Chapters 1 and 2, by the end of chapter 2, we we found three characters, right? You know God, we got Adam, we got Eve. But at the beginning of chapter 3, a fourth character is introduced. And this character

The Serpent And The First Doubt

SPEAKER_01 7:40

is actually gonna have a key part through the rest of Scripture and really come in prominent in the end. And let's kick right in. Look at the fall, Genesis chapter 3, verse 1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? And right away we got some questions, right? I mean, I mean, did not a talking snake register on Eve's radar is something maybe amiss here? I mean, for crying out loud, what is that about? And if if the snake is gonna be Satan and he's evil, where did evil come from in a perfect universe, a perfect environment? I mean, how did that happen? Those are good questions. Uh, author doesn't want to address those here, but let me just mention this. We don't know what the serpent looked like before the fall. We know what he would look like after the fall. Uh, God would curse him at the end of chapter three, but who knows? Maybe radically beautiful uh creature. Maybe this was like the mouthpiece creature that all the angelic beings, when they wanted to intersect with people, would kind of inhabit. We just don't know. We just don't know. Um, but somehow from Eve's mind, this was not a big deal if the snake is talking. It says that he's crafty. Now, now, crafty, right, in English, this is like, you know, it's really kind of a bad thing. Yeah, oh, crafty, we know it's bad. But in the Old Testament, the word for crafty is actually used in a positive light more than it is in a negative light. It means diplomatic, it means subtle, it means forward thinking, it means uh uh careful in what they're saying. It's got some good connotations to it. And so when you read just this verse, we don't want to jump to any conclusions here about this poor serpent, because sometimes it can be prejudged, and we don't want to judge this guy too soon here, because he didn't come to Eve saying, hey, Eve, help me help you blow up the world here. He says, I just want to have a conversation. Let's let's talk, Eve. Let's talk about the word of God. I mean, how can that be a bad thing, right? That's where that's where the serpent wants to go. And so he says, Hey, Eve, listen, you know, I uh I I overheard, you know, a conversation with God, and uh, you know, I must have heard it wrong. Can you can you clarify this with me? Because I mean, did God really say you couldn't eat from any of the trees? Now, the the serpent knows what he's doing. Remember, he's he's he's crafty, he knows what he's doing, he knows what he's doing. Uh, but but but so Eve responds. And the woman said to the serpent in verse 2 and 3, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that's in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. Or you will die. Now, Eve's translation of what God said, pretty close. But it's pretty close, but but she missed God's emphasis. What God really said, chapter 2, uh, verse 16, he says, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. From the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Now, you see God's emphasis here? It's not on what you can't eat, it is on what you can eat. You may surely eat of every tree. How many trees do you think are in the garden? Let's just guess. We don't know. We know at least two, right? Are are there any more, though, do you think? Maybe there's three trees? Maybe there's four trees. I'm thinking, I don't know. Not biblical, but I'm thinking there's forests of trees. I mean, they've got at least every fruit we've got today, and then who knows how many more. And can you imagine these trees are always packed full of perfectly ripened pre-fall fruit? I mean, you got the cherries and the peaches and the kiwi and pomegranate and everything is right there. And when I was a little boy, my mom would say, uh, son, folks from the south, son, uh, fruit is God's dessert. And it is, right? I mean, if you ever had a good, really good watermelon on a really hot day, you know there's just nothing coming out of a bakery that's going to touch that, right? And so, so, so God says to Eve, look at all this fruit that I have for you. I mean, tons of it, myriads of it. Go for it. No limitations. It doesn't say don't eat too much. Go, and you notice God didn't say go eat all the spinach you want, right? And the artichoke. I'm sure maybe spinach and artichoke pre-fall were probably tasting all right. But God goes for the fruit. Eat as much as you want, all of it, eat it. I don't care. Eat the fruit, eat the leaves, eat the branches, eat it all. But then he says, But there's one thing, there's one tree over here. Poison fruit. Don't eat that one. That will hurt you. And so he gives Satan this deal with not the emphasis on what they could so much as what they couldn't. And if snakes could could smile, I'm guessing that this one's starting to smile right about now. And maybe maybe start to chuckle. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait a minute. God said what? Eve cut it out, you're killing me. I mean, you didn't believe him, did you? That God, I mean, it doesn't make sense, Eve. I mean, we die, I mean, why would he say all of the yes, but no? I mean, doesn't even have you ever seen die before? I mean, Eve, Eve, only a simpleton, only an anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, gullible, bigoted, close-minded, uh, uh fear-mongering, everything phobic type person would believe that. You're you're you're not one of one of those people, Eve, are you? Yeah. And you could say Eve, right? Uh no, no, no, I mean, Adam, maybe, right? But I mean, no, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. And and so Eve starts steering down this tree and the words of the snake going through its mind. And here, keep this in mind, here's where the snake suddenly shows his colors, right? Verses four and five. He says, 'You will not certainly die,' the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you see, God said, You will surely die. Serpent comes back, you will not surely die. Direct contradiction. For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. Hey, hey, Eve. How do you think God became God? This is the God fruit. Eve, Eve, not only will you not die if you eat this fruit, you don't really begin to live until you've eaten this fruit. Eve, this is the one thing you need to reach your potential. This is the one thing you need to enjoy life. You don't, all these other secondary fruit, this is the tree. And if you don't have it, you don't have it. And so Eve sears this thing down with again the words of the serpent running through through her head. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and

When Sin Feels Like No Big Deal

SPEAKER_01 14:50

ate it. She gave to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. You see what Satan's doing here? Eve, Eve. You don't need to be playing some two-bit part in someone else's play, Eve. Eve, it's it's about time that you you sang your own song. You don't need a authority figure on a power trip telling you who you are. You define who you are, Eve. You figure out what's good for you, you determine what's right and wrong for you. You don't need to listen to anybody else. You know, amazes me as I don't know how many thousands of years ago this was, but but Satan's strategy has not shifted and changed at all, has it? You do you. You don't leave to listen to anyone else try to tell you what you so she steers down this fruit, and she's got the words of the serpent going through her head, and she begins just to obsess with it. And there was a day where she saw all this good fruit and you know, kind of ignored this tree. But now, now it's like all she can see is this one thing that's been denied her. All this other fruit doesn't satisfy, it's nothing. This is the thing uh I need, and she begins to uh obsess with this tree. It's all she can think about, maybe wondering, what does that fruit taste like? My goodness. No and man, it might be nice to be be God. And so so she she realizes she doesn't want this fruit, she needs this fruit, and so she she concentrating, focusing. We're Eve, are we not? God's given us so many good things, He's given us good things. But what is our focus on often? It's on the thing that's been denied us. God could have given me, He's given it to other people I know, other people, but He didn't give it to me. But this is the thing I need for joy or for life or for potential. You know, I need a date for grind out loud, or I need a a wife who truly respects me, or I need a husband who truly loves me, or I need my health to be such and such, or I need kids that do this or that, or I need to get into this school, or I need to have this GPA, or I need to be more athletic. And God could have made me like this, but he didn't, and or I could have had an IQ or something, but he could have given me this, but he did not give me this. Whether it's our portfolio, whatever it is, we're focusing on the thing we need. And you know what happens in our lives? We spend a lot of our life chasing after that thing that's been denied us, right? That we need, we know we need. Meanwhile, God has given us everything we need to enjoy life. But the words of the serpent flow through our mind. We're focusing on that thing we don't have, and so you notice the the quick succession of verbs here. She saw, she took, she ate, she gave. And uh all hell, as it were, broke loose, and the world broke. And man's relationship with God broke, and man's relationship with Adam and Eve broke, and I think man's relationship with himself broke, his relationship with nature broke, paradise was lost. And you might say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on for that there, mayor cowboy. Tell you what, you aren't you just a little bit overdramatic. I mean, really, let's let's look at what's going on here. I mean, this was just one simple, stupid piece of fruit. They didn't take a whole basket of the stuff. Did they trash the garden? No. Was anybody hurt here? No. Anyone bleeding? Were they using God's name in vain while they did it? They were consenting adults. There was no perversion happening. This is not a big deal. Ever here then? Not a big deal. We took a handful of kids to uh mission trip gazillion years ago now, Central uh America, and the the kids, three of them, decided it would be uh good times to sneak away from the group, go to the local bar, and uh get a drink. And they were caught, and their response immediately, this is not a big deal. You guys are making this is not a big deal, you're making this a big deal, until the missionary sat down, and the missionary was he was ticked off. He says, Do you have any idea what happens in that place? In our our our area, our village, town, that place's reputation is one of hell's abode. And we've got people who are saved out of that place in our church, and their relatives are still there and they're praying, and when they hear that the missionaries, for crying out loud, went there and participated, you have destroyed years of work. Not a big deal to them. And I wonder things that we think, that's not a big deal. If God knows, it's a big deal. I just think this is an amazing thing that the sin that damned the entire human race was not mass genocide, it was not a big deal. And whenever we get into the not a big deal, we've got some not a big deal sins, right? I mean, you know, a little lust, you know, no one really knows. No one's hurt, no one's hurt. It's just it's not a big deal. And there's some things that are a big deal, that's not a big deal. Or I know I should forgive, I know, I know I should, but if I do, I don't let them off the hook, and I'm just not going to, and it's not a big deal because everyone is like that, everyone does that. Things that I say, maybe repeating gossip or little white lies, just a white lie. It's not a big deal. You don't understand if I tell the full truth here, my goodness, it's gonna open Pandora's box. This is not a big deal. Things that we think are not a big deal. Every time we commit one, what happens is God's voice gets a little bit fainter, and then a little bit fainter, and then a little bit fainter until we just don't hear him. It's like spiritual death by a thousand spiritual paper cuts, which is not a big deal. And things are shut down and we've lost God, and we've lost God. Now, I think that if in fact we were there, I believe this is a historical event, and if we were there, we would see Eve grabbing the fruit, we would see it all happening, but but after that said and done, we can't miss what this represents. That what these folk are disobeying God, this is spiritual anarchy, man. They they this is a coup. They are taking over the garden, they are seeking to kick God out of the garden. Every time we we we we disobey God, that's what we're doing. You're not in charge. I'm in charge. You don't know, I know, I I I I I am when Satan comes, he says, Listen, uh, Eve, I don't understand how a God who says he loves you would deny you the one thing you need for joy and for life. He's keeping it from you. I don't know why would he do that? I don't know. I don't know if I could trust a God like that, Eve. I maybe it's time to take things in your own hands. And so the fallout of all of that uh begin and I think verse.

Shame Hiding And God’s Questions

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Verse 7. It says, Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed 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 the wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called 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. By the way that's the very first reference to fear in all the history of the world. It just happens to be people afraid of God. Because I was naked, so I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat of? God comes with questions. You know, it's interesting. My kids, they're all grown now, but when they were little, if they disobeyed me so blatantly and messed everything up, I'm telling you what, I would come ticked off. You know, but I think this is fascinating. I mean, that means messed stuff up pretty huge here, right? But God's not stopping angry mad. He's not throwing, you know, lightning bolts all over the place. He just comes at them with questions because he knows they're hiding. And he can he can drive them out, but that never works, right? He needs to draw them out, and that's the goal of the questions. And so the first question, where are you? Now, again, he's not asking questions because he doesn't have the information. He's God. He sees them hiding over there behind that bush. He knows exactly. But where are the are you? I don't know. He doesn't, do they know where they're at? And the the question is is uh uh reflective of this. A 17-year-old guy comes home um Saturday, uh, 2 a.m., 3 a.m. again, and he's smelling a pot and booze, and his hair's disheveled, and he comes and dad's waiting for him. But the kid just makes his way to his room, goes to sleep, and next morning dad goes in there. He sits down at the end of his bed and he says, Hey son, son, where are you? I mean, there was a day when we were close. There was a day when we enjoyed life, but now it's like you're a million miles away. What happened? Where are you? I need you to come home. It's the the wife who walks into her husband's uh uh office at home. It's late at night, he's on the computer still, he's working on another project, trying to climb, keep trying to climb that ladder, maybe his boss is heaping it on him, whatever it is. But she goes and she grabs the screen and she pushes it down and she says, Honey, what happened to that man I married? Used to love being with me and the children. Where are you? We need you to come home. The question, where are you, is designed to wake us up. It's designed to help us stop and see where we are in relation to where we ought to be and where how far we have we have come. So God's asking, where are you? Second question he asks is he asks, uh, who told you that you were naked? In uh, it's it, I mean, can we talk about naked in church? I mean, I mean I'll be I'll be PG. So if you got your kids in here, don't worry about it. It's okay. But what is naked? I mean, other than the obvious lack of clothing. We got we got we can figure that one out. Got that, right? But is it more than that? I think it's more than that, because 225, this is the last verse of chapter 2. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. And so God says, Adam, for what's going on? I mean, what where you at? Where are you hiding? He says, Well, I'm hiding because I'm naked. And God's saying, Adam, for credit loud, you've always been naked. I mean, there was never a day you weren't naked. I mean, how come this is a big deal now? Is there something else going on, Adam? Is there something else you want to tell me about? So he's naked. You know, there was a thing in the business world years ago that uh if you want your team close, you have to get naked together. And what that meant was you're vulnerable. You know, when we we speak often, while we do this at home, often we speak, we give the first 90%. But that last 10%, oh, see, that's when it's can be a little bit challenging. Maybe we're gonna offend somebody, maybe we're gonna hurt something. So we give the 90%, and but we get withhold that 10%. And the the idea was just to be completely vulnerable and sincere and put it all out there. And and you know, with people, uh the same thing. Um, let me Tim Keller would say this to be to be perfectly loved, you have to be perfectly known. And so there's there's there's Mark Twain would say that we're all like the moon. We have a dark side. Now, uh, have you ever have you ever done this before? You you met somebody and you're you're talking with them and you're getting close to them, and and for some reason, right, you just you just want to share. And so you you pull something out from the depth of you. This is not real good, it wasn't one of your better moments, and you put it out there, and you're kind of holding your breath because you know this could go one of two ways, and they they they listen to you, and maybe tears in their eyes, they embrace you, there's no judgmentalism, there's no, there's no, they're not rejecting you. Matter of fact, they're loving you more. When that happens, right? You walk away feeling closer to that person than anyone because they know stuff about you that you pretty convinced everyone else, if they knew it, would reject you. They have not rejected, they know you fully and they love you. Love you, can't be fully loved unless you're fully known. Sometimes, a parenthetical moment here, sometimes we feel like no one loves us. Well, kind of the reason why is because we just are are really closed. And someone says, I love you, yeah, yeah. We're thinking in our head, yeah, that's because you don't know me. If you really knew me. No, you, you, you, you wouldn't. Now, maybe if you've ever done this before, I have done this, where you get that relationship, things are going well, and and something is deep inside you that you feel like you need to put out there, so you put it out there and you're holding your breath because you can know this one of two ways. And they run with it and they start telling other people, and they're they're rejecting and mocking, and you're humiliated. It's now on social media. And what are you thinking? You're thinking, I am never gonna do that again. Yeah, I want to be fully loved, and I recognize I can't be fully loved unless I'm fully known, but the the risk is too great. I am never going there again, ever. And so what do we do? Well, we do what Adam and Eve did. We hide, right? Fig leaves. Now, fig leaves were big leaves anyhow, but but before the fall, who knows how big these things were, right? Fig leaves. And we got our own fig leaves. Uh sometimes our our attitude, you know, whether it's bravado or apathy, yeah, I don't care. Uh, I was class clown for the longest time, man, because if I can get

Fig Leaves Trophy Cases And Masks

SPEAKER_01 28:55

sarcastic humor digs at other people, and I'm drawing their attention away from me on to them. I don't know what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing, though. Sometimes our fig leaves are a trophy case. You know, every one of us has a trophy case, right? Things we're pretty proud of. It's got my degrees in it, it's got my accomplishments in it, it's got those things that I really did well in it. And what I really want is I want you to judge me based on my trophy case. You need to look at my trophy case. Don't look inside because you're not going to judge well. I'm just telling you, I know what's inside. You need to look there. And so we spend a lot of our lives filling our trophy cases so other people will think halfway decent. Sometimes our our fig leaves, our uh portfolio, our net worth, it's what we drive, it's where we live. It's like, you know, you got one of those watches? I mean, only successful people have one of those watches. Oh, you mean this little yeah, well, you know, okay. Okay. Sometimes our fig leaves are uh who we know. It's where we've been. So if I know some real uh pretty people, mover, shaker, shaker people, I know them personally. I'm gonna drop that name because boy, you you think well of those people, and if I'm in that category, yeah, you're thinking if you're thinking well of me. It's our fig leaves. Uh Cinderella had an issue, didn't she? I mean, Cinderella wanted to go to the ball. And I mean, all the movers and shakers hang out at the ball, right? I mean, that's that's where the pretty people go. That's the successful people, that's where she wanted to go so badly, but uh she's got some problems. I mean, not only is she locked up in her dungeon room, but she doesn't have a thing to wear. And not only does she not have a thing to wear, now Disney doesn't tell us this part, but she'd been working a long time, working like a dog without a shower and stuff. I'm guessing Cinderella was kind of, you know, I'm she was not in a good place. But Cinderella is well networked, isn't she? Oh man, she's got a name in her phone and a number that everyone should have. And so Fairy Godmother shows up. And Fairy Godmother doesn't just open the door and say go. She kind of waves her wand and suddenly Cinderella is wearing a gown, otherworldly gown. I mean, you're like, wow! I mean, perfect amount of bling, and what is that material and it fits her perfectly. It makes Gucci and Louis Vuitton look like something on the half, half rack, half-price rack at Walmart, right? I mean, it's just really, it's it's it's pretty nice. And then she weaves her wand again. And Cinderella's hair. I mean, it's like she's been in the hairdresser for 10 hours, it's perfect. And her makeup is perfect, and that her accoutrements are perfect. And it's like, are those real diamonds earrings? You see the gloves she's wearing, and have you seen her shoes? Oh man, Cinderella, she cleans up nice. And and then, fairy godmother, just to put a uh cherry on top, waves her wand again, and Cinderella has a Bugatti stretch limo with chauffeurs and bodyguards, and they take her to the ball. And when she steps out of that that Bugatti onto the red carpet, I mean, everyone is, who is this? I mean, she's clearly the belt of the ball. Everyone knows that she's certainly got the prince's attention, right? And so they're dancing tonight, she's having a great time, and everyone's thinking she is the most until she hears the clock start to tick down, right? And suddenly she realizes in just a few moments that all these people are gonna realize the loser that I am. They're gonna see the ineptitude and the failure and the useless person that I really am. She can't handle that. Most of us can. And she runs. We spend a lot of our time running because we're afraid that someone's gonna really see what's going on inside. We run. It's exhausting. It's exhausting life. Well, let me ask you this, Cinderella. When the clock strikes midnight, which it will do, what are you gonna

God Covers Us At A Cost

SPEAKER_01 33:05

do? Look at Hebrews 4.13. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare, that's naked, before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. One day we will. We got an appointment. We will, if it's closer than it was yesterday, we will stand before him, and we can't bring our trophy cases, right? We there's no fig leaves. There's no fig leaves. And God will see all that stuff inside that we have tried so hard to hide. Well, you do then. Well, here's the solution in the text. Genesis 3.21. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. You know, I think this is a fascinating verse because God didn't just say, you know, Adam, those fig leaves are the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Well, yeah, well, you just put those things, you don't need those things. You've asked forgiveness, I granted it to you, we're all good. If you still feel bad, it's just some psychological thing. Don't worry, you'll get over it. But God knows it's not a psychological thing. There is a guilt, there is a shame that's real. It's not just self-talk gets you through this. It's real. Something's really, really broken. And so, God, I tried to picture this. He brings this animal before him. Again, they've never seen death before. Now, how he how he kills this thing, I don't know. Slits its throat, maybe, I don't know. And they're watching this thing bleed out. You can try to, what's going through their mind? It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, God, God, hang on, hang on, hang on, what's what's happening? And they're watching this thing die. And then they're gonna watch God skin it. And they're recognizing that on the day that I sinned, I would die. That should rent me. Now, they're on the track to death, that no question about that. And then he clothed them in this thing that was this animal had to pay for with its life. I mean, what does that do to your psyche? And you again, you would think God's solution, it was a big one, it was intense, but that, you know, it's God's solution, it obviously fixed things. Well, yeah, no, no, it really, it really doesn't. Very last verse of chapter three. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way of the tree of life. He kicks them out of the Garden of Eden. Now, now, and don't don't misrepresent me here, okay? God's solution really didn't fix it. They're still kicked out of the Garden of Eden. It's as if even God couldn't fix this. That's how messed up it was. That's how broken it was. And the cherubim, now, Eam, put an I am on a Hebrew word and it just makes it plural. It's like what we do with our S's. So instead of a cherub, there's cherubim. There's there's angels gardened this way with a sword, very first weapon ever created, God created it. And the thought is if you try to get back into God's presence and you got to pass the cherubim, you are immediately dead, right? That that that's that's the deal. That's the deal.

The Curtain Torn And The Way Opened

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Fast forward thousands of years, don't know how many thousands. Jerusalem, 30 AD. You know, in Jerusalem there is a uh temple, Jewish temple. It had been the tabernacle temple. There are two rooms in it, right? There's the holy place that the priests are free to come in and out all day. They go in there and there's the table of showbread, and they're remembering how God fed them. They go to the candelabra and they remember how God lights their way. They go to the uh uh incense altar and they burn incense. Um and the goal for the incense is it needs to get into this second room. The second room is the most holy place. No one's allowed in there because that room is symbolic of the Garden of Eden, the very presence of God. And there's this curtain between the uh holy place and the most holy place. Now, I don't know how tall the distance between the floor and the ceiling. What? I don't, I don't know, 30 feet maybe. I don't know, right? But it's not gonna be a whole lot more than 30 feet. In the the temple, it was 60 feet between the floor and the top, and this curtain is going all the way to the top. This is not a shower curtain. Josephus says this thing is like four inches thick, finally woven materials. This is like bulletproof, separating the holy place and the and the most holy place. And this is the craziest thing. Woven into this curtain, get this cherubim, cherubs guarding the the access to the presence of God. No one goes in there. And the word is you tried to slide underneath the curtain, you try to get in the presence of God, cherubs take you out, you're done. This is I don't know how many thousands of sacrifices between the the the tabernacle and the temple over about 1500 years the thing had been around at this point. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands plus of sacrifices have happened at this time. Many of them exactly as God prescribed. Many of them with priests whose heart was right and they they were ordained by God. They did it exactly the way He said it. Many of them, the hearts of the worshippers who brought it, their hearts were sincerely repentant and sincere and authentic and wanting to worship God. The sacrifices were done as well as you could do them, and still, even with all the thousands of them done exactly the way God said it, you couldn't get into God's presence. You just couldn't do it. And then Jesus is on the cross, Matthew 27. It says, when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The cherubs are finally released. Go get another task, guys, because there's no reason to guard the way into the presence of God. You see, see, see, this is this is wild. The sacrifices uh by God, what they could not do, but the sacrifice of God

Three Personal Questions And A Real Story

SPEAKER_01 39:20

did. And finally, God brings this solution. Let me ask, let me ask you some questions. God brought questions to Adam and Eve. Let me ask y'all some questions. First question, where are you right now? Not where's your spouse? Not where are your kids? Where are you? Because maybe you'd say, you know what, there was a day I was real close. I was real close, and I don't even know exactly what happened. But if I stop and take take some inventory right now, you know what? I'm not there. I'm not real close. Second question, what fan leaves might you be wearing? And and I you again hear me, nothing wrong, obviously, with a nice watch, with the with the car, with accomplishments, with with with with uh degrees. There's nothing, obviously, nothing wrong with money. There's nothing wrong with that. The issue is when we use it for our identity, and we use it to try to help you see those things about me instead of really seeing my my my heart, what I'm about. What fig leaves you've been chasing? You've been filling that trophy case with. Third question. Have you ever entered into the most holy place? Because this is what I found in church. In church, that's the most say that's like the holy place. All kinds of folk are going in and out of there. And they've been going to church a long time. They've been in and out of church, in and out of church, and and they're not anti-God, they're okay with God, but they've never made it into the most holy place. You know, it's interesting. My church in in uh Pennsylvania, there was a couple, they were, um I think in their their late 70s, they'd been serving in the church ever, I mean, ever since I knew them, and I'm told for decades before that. Ushers, greeters, small group leaders, all the time, couple, wonderful couple. Well, it's Don and Mary. Well, Mary passed, and uh one of our pastors went and talked to Don, who was at his home, and said, Well, Don, you know you'll see her again one day. And uh Don said, Yeah, well, I'm not so sure of that. And our pastor said, Well, well, Don, do you not think Mary was a believer? And he said, No, no, no, Mary, Mary was, certainly Mary was. But you know, I questioned myself. I mean, I went to church all the time, but I went because it was her idea. And I served there because it's something she wanted to do, and it was okay. But I'm not so sure I've ever got any kind of relationship with Jesus like you're talking about. And that point, uh, Don gets down on his knees by his couch, 70, late 70s, surrenders his life to Christ. And he was his life is radically shifted. And he was a good man before, but but when he would come to it was life was just radically, radically shifted and changed. And I say it to say this. And let me mention something to the kids' students for just a minute. Uh, could be that your mom and dad have drugged you to church, right? They make you go and bless them. That's what they should have been doing. Don't fight it, right? Um, but but maybe you need to know there's a day where you say, I'm gonna be part of the community, I'm gonna be part of the body, but not because of my parents' faith. I'm choosing to accept Christ. I'm surrendering my life to him. It's it's my decision. Maybe, and you know, I found too is there are people going to church in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, all the way through, who are still on the coattails of their parents' faith because this is what they've always done. Without ever themselves making the decision, I'm gonna surrender my life to Christ. He died. He bust the veils ripped, he tore the veil by his blood, not by my fig leaves. It's only through his blood that I can enter in. I'm surrendering my life to Christ. And I would just ask, maybe this morning, maybe for somebody here, it's just that time that you know what, I need to surrender my life to Christ today, right now. Let's take a second to pray.

Prayer And Invitation To Surrender

SPEAKER_01 43:24

We say thank you, uh God, that you're patient with us, that you're so good. You know our attempts, you know our shallow, limited thinking. And God, you sent a solution in your son Jesus. All the same. And Lord, his death is the only reason why we can enter into a relationship with you. His death is the only thing that clears up all that yuck inside that we're ashamed of. Where the righteousness of Jesus now hangs on us, and when you see us, that's God. That's God. Lord, if there's anybody here this morning who, for the first time, would just want to surrender their life to you. Would your spirit just tug on theirs right now? And may they surrender their life to you as they ought. Thanking you for dying for them and confessing whatever they can think of, but knowing that whatever they forget, you're forgiven. Thank you, Lord, for this day, for our hope in you. And would you remind us, God, as we go through this week of who we are in you in Jesus' name? Amen.