The Promise in the Ruins

Good morning. My name is Dean Van Ostrin. My wife Debbie and I have been members of Prosper Christian Reformed Church, coming up on 30 years. Most recently I had the privilege of serving on the search committee with an extremely dedicated group of people. Our scripture reading today comes from Genesis 3, verses 1 through through 15. Please turn with me in your Bibles as we hear God's word. 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 any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat 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.

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 to make themselves loin cloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden and 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 he 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 you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman, who you gave to me 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 you are above all livestock and above all beasts of the fields.

And 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. And he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Thank you, Dean. On April 26, 1986, at 1:23 in the morning, five men changed the world. They would make a mistake that quite nearly would almost ended the world in the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. It started out with all things as a safety test. These five men made a series of mistakes, of reckless decisions. They ignored warning signs, they shut off safety systems and they pushed a nuclear reactor core past its limit, past what it was designed for. Within seconds, the reactor core exploded and it became one of the worst man made disasters in human history. After the Soviet Union had realized what had happened, that the reactor core exploded, they dumped boron sand on it. They built a concrete sarcophagus, they evacuated cities. They tried to seal the ground, the air, the water. But no matter what they did, they could not undo their original mistake. Genesis 3 is the Chernobyl of human history. One act, one choice, and the fallout is still with us. Like Chernobyl, Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves. They tried to shift the blame. But they could not outdo or undo what they had broken.

No matter how much concrete, no matter how many helicopters they sent, no matter how many lives were risked, they could not undo what they had already unleashed. That's Genesis 3. The fallout of one act, one choice still reaches into every corner of the human heart. And advent begins with this truth. We need a savior. Because we cannot fix ourselves, Humanity still can't. Sins fall out is far deeper than the human repair. We can patch symptoms, but we cannot reach the core. That leads us to our main question. Do we have the ability to make up for what we've done? Do we have the ability to make up for what we've done? We want to believe that we can fix the things that we've broken. If we get a speeding ticket, we'll be more careful and feels like that speeding ticket should be, shouldn't count anymore. Or if we blow up at somebody, then, you know, if we're, if we apologize, then that kind of minimizes the damage or it erases the damage. If someone steals, they can convince themselves that giving to charity balances the scales. If they lie, if someone lies well then if I'm honest more often, then we can pretend that the lie evaporates.

This is how our human hearts work. We believe that good behavior should outdo the bad behavior in our life. But does it? A season of good driving, does it erase a reckless driving ticket? A month of kindness doesn't erase a cruel word that cuts someone deeply. A generous donation does not return what was stolen. An apology does not put back the trust that once was was. We instinctively try to outweigh our wrongs with something that was done, something that we do right. It's built into us the sense that with enough effort, we can repair our own mess. But here's the uncomfortable truth. We may be able to fix a dented car. We may be able to repair a broken window, but we cannot repair a broken soul. We cannot unsay words. We cannot undo the choices we make. You can't unbreak what sin has already broken in your life or in the world when we feel it. Or we feel it when we lie awake at night replaying something that we said, something that we've done. We feel it in the shame from years ago that's still stings today. We feel it when we look at a relationship that was shattered and think, if only I could go back.

If only I could unsay the thing I said. That's Genesis 3. One act, one choice. And the fallout is still with us today. We can try to cover ourselves with fig leaves. We can try to shift blame. We can try to justify or perform or try harder. But we cannot undo the core meltdown of sin. And that leads us to our big question of Advent. Do we have the ability to make up for what we've done? Fortunately, the Bible has answers for us. So keep your Bibles open to Genesis chapter three as we see these three movements in this section. Actually, before we get there, this series, what we're going to be looking at is this. From the ruins of the fall to the birth of the king, God weaves a story of judgment, mercy and promise fulfilled in Jesus, the long expected Savior. So let's look at these first three movements in this passage, Genesis 3, we'll see the first sin, the first consequence, and the first judgment. This may not feel like a typical Advent series or an Advent text to read during this season. We're not talking about the angels coming to Mary yet.

We haven't gotten there. We're starting off with the fall in the next couple weeks. We're going to stay in the book of Genesis as we look for this long expected Savior. But what is Advent? Advent is waiting, is longing for Christ. And that's what we see in the story of Genesis, the longing for the one who would make everything right again. Advent begins in the shadows of Genesis 3 because you cannot long for salvation unless you understand the fall first. This chapter will teach us. As humanity falls into sin, God promises to defeat the serpent and sin itself. And that let's look at that first section in verses 1 through 7. The first sin. Up until this point in the Bible, everything's good, everything's right. Adam and Eve have a perfect relationship with God. Everything had just been created. In fact, creation had just been getting settled into what it meant to be created. Everything was good. There was no sin, no death, no evil. And then we get to verse one. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. We see that word now stick out like a sore thumb.

Now there's a change in the shift of tone of this book. So far, everything's good up until this point, but now, now we get introduced to the protagonist, to the enemy, to the one who's going to cause problems. We are introduced to Satan in snake form. And I think we need to pause ourselves just for a second and ask, who is Satan? We talk about Satan a lot, but we don't really maybe understand him. Or we don't take the time to talk about Satan enough. Who is Satan? Satan is a real and personal and malevolent spiritual being who opposes God, opposes his purposes and seeks to deceive, accuse and destroy humanity. Satan, here in the garden and here today, is here to destroy us. Jesus speaks about this in John chapter 8. He says, when he lies, speaking about Satan, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. And that's what we see him do in this section. Notice how he tempts Adam and Eve. He doesn't talk about offering gold or a better house or, you know, some kind of benefit. He tempts them by questioning them, by questioning God's words, by taking God's words and turning it against Adam and Eve.

He says, did God really say, I wonder how often we say that in our own heart when we choose sin. Well, I know you know, this probably is wrong, but did God really say, I can't break it? Here he lies to them by saying that they won't die, that God is holding back something from them. God gave them one rule, and he gave them this rule because God knew that if they ate it, Adam and Eve would think that they didn't need God. They would think that they could find happiness or that they could try to be happy apart from God. They knew that, or God knew that this would lead them into misery. Then the snake tempts Eve by saying this in verse 5. For God knows that when you eat of it, eat of the knowledge of the tree of good and the Fruit of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. Your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil, essentially asking Adam and Eve, does God really love you? He's keeping something from you. He knows that if you eat this, you'll be like him, knowing good and evil, being able to define it.

This is the temptation that Satan uses against the first people, Adam and Eve. Satan hasn't switched up his tactic at all. This is the same trick that he plays on each and every one of us. This is the same trick that he uses day in and day out since this moment in Genesis 3. This is the universal problem for us. This is the scar left on every human heart since the fall. We want to choose what's right and wrong. We want to be the judge. We want to be able to define what is good and what is evil. This is the essence of sin. This happens from here on out in the book of Genesis. This happens from here on out in the Bible. Cain kills his brother because he defines what's right and wrong. He gets to decide who lives and dies. Noah, after completing the voyage, gets drunk and naked after the flood. Abraham decides that he's going to lie. He gets to decide what's true and what isn't. About his wife being his sister. And the truth is we do the same thing. Probably not about our wife being our sister, but you know, you get the idea.

When we choose to lie, when we choose to gossip, when we choose to hate or to lust or to be greedy, we are choosing. We are deciding what is right and what is wrong. All sin is choosing to sit in God's place and decide. I'm the one who gets to decide what's right and wrong here. Every temptation from Satan carries the same lie. Is God withholding something from you? And sin begins. All sin begins with believing that lie at it's at the heart of our sin nature that we want to serve ourselves. And we will be the people who decide when we get to break the law, when it serves us best. When we decide that breaking God's rules gets us what we want. We hear this today in phrases like be in charge of your own destiny, right? Essentially, be the one who decides your own path. Be the one who decides how you're going to live. Be the one who decides whether you're going to obey God or not. From Cain to Noah to Abraham, and even down to us, every sin is an attempt at God's throne. Sin is not just breaking one of God's rules.

It is replacing God's rule in our life. That's the lie behind every sin. The belief that life will be better on our own terms than God's. And at the moment Adam and Eve believed this lie, everything changed. Not just for them, not just for humanity, but for all of creation. As soon as they sinned, they felt the weight of it. And they knew they needed to cover themselves and run. And so that's what they do. That's what we see in this next section, verses 8 through 13. The first consequences. God came to them. God comes down into the garden and their first response, their first impulse is to hide. They didn't just hide, but verse eight says, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. Does that sound familiar? Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord when he knew that he didn't want to follow or obey what God did. He knew that he was sinning. He fled not from God, but from his presence. This is an ancient thing in our hearts that we want. We want to run away from God's presence because we know God sees all and is all, and we hate.

We hate that he can see our hearts. They realized that the fig leaves that they tried to cover themselves with would not work, would not be enough, weren't sufficient. It's an interesting note here that as sin enters the world, the first thing that people try to do is to cover themselves. The same word used in this section for cover is used later on in the Old Testament. It's translated a different way. In our English Bibles, we'll read the word atonement. This word to cover is trying to atone for their sins, trying to make right what they had made wrong. We need someone to cover us. We feel that when we sin, we feel the need to justify ourselves or to do something to make it okay, what just happened. But instead of turning to God, we turn inward. We're the ones who try to make it right. And that's what Adam and Eve do. They run. They cover themselves. The question for us isn't are we trying to run? Are we trying to cover it? Is what are you covering yourself from? What are you running from? What are you running from this season? From something you said that caused a rift relationship.

Is it a lie you told? Maybe gossip that you helped spread or an addiction that you don't want to bring into the light? Is it greed in your heart? It's easy to believe that we can cover ourselves, that we can run away, but it usually comes to light. The truth is we're not that clever. Our sin usually has a way of coming out in our life, but even if it doesn't, God sees it. Even if it doesn't come out, even if you clever enough to hide your sin from everyone else that's in your life, God knows. God sees, isn't hidden. So God calls Adam. And in verse 10, we hear Adam's response. It says, and he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Adam replies, God, I was naked. God's reply to that is, who told you this? Essentially, have you done the one thing I told you not to do? And Adam's response to that is clever. He says, the woman you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate it first.

He goes, it was my wife's fault. I don't know if men you've ever tried that, but that doesn't go very far, does it? I almost think that he was seeing out of the corner of his eye when he started that sentence. And he goes, it was. It was the woman. And then he sees her and goes, it was the one you gave me, you know, he goes, from her to God really quick. Adam is showing signs of the fall on the human heart. Already within minutes of this happening, the fall has pervaded his heart, invaded his heart. He's defining what's right and wrong. He tries to blame shift. He blame shifts from his wife to God himself. And Eve, following her leader, following her head, does the same thing, shifts the blame to someone else too. What results is the first judgment. And that's what we see in this next section, verses 14 and 15. Then God hands out curses on all three. And it's interesting the order in which God does this. He doesn't begin with Adam and Eve, but he begins his first word of judgment. The first word of judgment in human history falls on the serpent, not on humanity.

Before God addresses the sinners, he addresses his enemies, his enemy who deceived him. God's judgment begins as an act of protection. I think that's a neat thing that we often miss in Genesis chapter three, but primarily today, we're going to look at the curse that's handed out on the serpent. Specifically verse 15. Verse 15, it says this. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. And he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. These words are not just a curse, they are a declaration of war. God himself initiates the ongoing conflict that will play out for the rest of humanity. I will put enmity. In other words, I will not allow the serpent to stay in alliance with humanity any longer. God is taking back the territory that the serpent invaded. As humanity falls into sin, God promises to defeat the serpent. God's curse on the serpent, or when God cursed the serpent, it wasn't only a message of doom, but it was a message of hope. There would be a rescue, There would be a rescuer. Someone would come to save humanity and all of creation.

The Heidelberg Catechism gives us a great question and answer here. What kind of mediator and deliverer should we look for? One who is true and a righteous man. One who is a true and righteous man, yet more powerful than all the creatures. That is one who is also true God. What we see here handed out in this first, this first condemnation, this first curse, the first consequence is the first gospel. The Belgian Confession Article 17 says this, I think, hits this right on the head. I One of the things that you're going to learn about me is I love the creeds and confessions. And sometimes I try, sometimes they're long and lengthy and I try to cut them out. But these two, I just couldn't. They're so, so good. Here says we believe that our good God, by his marvelous wisdom and goodness, seeing that man had plunged himself into physical and spiritual death, set out to to seek him and comfort him. When he was trembling and fled from him, he promised him that he would give his son, born of a woman, to crush the head of the serpent and restore what was ruined.

Notice how specific God is in this verse. In verse 15, a child will come, the offspring of a woman. Of the woman he will be wounded. You will bruise his heel, but he will deal the final blow. He will crush your head. The serpent will strike, but the Savior will destroy. This isn't vague hope. This is a roadmap. Roadmap directly to Christmas. Even in judgment, God is already moving towards mercy. Humanity is in hiding, blaming and covering themselves. But God refuses to leave them there in this very moment, justice. As justice falls, grace breaks in. Before God speaks a word of judgment to Adam and Eve, he speaks a word of salvation over them. That from the woman a savior would come. God vows to make right what man made wrong so right. At the center of humanity's darkest moment, God lights the first hope candle. He promises that sin will not win, that the serpent will not win, that death will not win. That leads us to our main idea. God promises to make right what man made wrong. God promises to make right what man made wrong. And he does this by sending himself.

Oftentimes when we think about Christmas, it's the positive holiday, right? Easter is another one of those positive holidays. Good Friday, that's a sad one. But Easter comes and then it's a happy one. But Christmas, if we're honest with ourselves and if we read the story of Christmas, it's not necessarily a happy holiday. We think about the cute nativity, we think about the snow and think about Santa Claus and all these different things. But Christmas is an indictment on humanity. Essentially, God's in heaven saying, don't make me come down there. But we force his hand. If you've ever been in a car with little kids and you've said that, you understand that sometimes your hand is forced. He didn't come down to destroy us, though. He came down to save us. He came down both as a judge and a rescuer, confronting our sin while providing the way for escape. And that's what makes Christmas so staggering. The very God we rejected is the one who came to redeem us. The manger only makes sense in the shadow of the garden. The crib only makes sense because of the curse. The birth only makes sense because of the fall.

Christmas is a holiday full of hope, but it's born out of hopelessness. Hope that had to come from outside of us because there was nothing left inside that could fix what we've broken. Genesis 3 tells us that we can't cover ourselves, that we can't save ourselves, that we can't climb our way back to God. So God came down to us. He stepped into our darkness. He entered the very world that rejected him. He became the offspring that would crush the head of the serpent. And that's what we remember at Advent. Not just the sweetness of Jesus birth, but the desperation that made his birth necessary. And once you understand that, you'll see that. You'll see why Advent always leads somewhere. It can't just stay in our homes. It can't just stay in this building. It invades every inch of our life. It changes hearts, changes lives, changes relationships. And that's why it leads us into our application. Our first point of application is this. Stop blaming. Take responsibility for one relational conflict. Christmas this season can be a tough time on relationships. Maybe. Maybe your Thanksgiving was rough. Maybe you had a liberal uncle who said, you know, crazy things at your dinner table.

I don't know, but I'm just kidding. Adam and Eve, when they were caught in sin, pointed to someone else. And we often do the same thing by Doing this, we get to try to define what's right and wrong. We try to justify our own bad actions. We say what I said wasn't really that wrong because X, Y and Z, whatever we want to use to justify our poor behavior. But today I want you to think about one relationship that is strained. Maybe it's you and your spouse or an adult child or a co worker or maybe it's somebody here at church. I want you to ask, I want you to ask God, is part of this genuinely my fault? Most of the time it is if we're honest with ourselves. And I want you to go to that person, I want you to confess to that person what you've done, your part in this, but I want you to do it without adding, but you also did this. Every time we try to blame shift, we reenact the fall grace begins where our excuses end. So take responsibility for one relational conflict. The next thing is to invite someone into the story of the snake crushing savior.

In the seats in front of you or on your seats when you walked in, there were these cards, these invite cards. They're business cards. They can fit in your wallet. That's why I wanted to make them that size. So that you take them with you. Take all of those with you. I don't want to see any left in here. Otherwise I'm going to remember where you guys stood. Do I need to take a picture? No, I'm just kidding. Where you guys sat. Take them with you. And I want you to invite one person who needs a church home in our community that you know, invite them to Christmas Eve. Fewer than half of us adults, only 47% say that they will attend a church service this Christmas. Yet more than half of those people who don't attend. So 56% of people say that they would come if they were invited by someone. That's crazy, right? I thought that would be like 2%, right? Half of the people that we interact with who don't go to church would come if only we would invite them. So this is the time, this is the season to be bold, to take initiative and to invite someone who doesn't have a church home.

There are people in our community right now who will suffer eternal punishment, eternal suffering if they don't hear the gospel. I truly believe that if we all did this, if each and every one of us did this, that there wouldn't just be individuals whose lives are changed, but there would be families and generations of lives that are changed. Hearts that are turned to God. But I promise you this will not happen. If we think right now in our head, well, someone else will do that. You know, so and so. They're really good at evangelism. If that's the way that we think. This won't work.

That.

I was a lifeguard for a while, and what they teach you when there's an emergency is that you can't say, somebody call 91 1. If you say that, no one will call. No one will call. Everyone will think somebody else will do this. You have to point to someone and say, you call 91 1. So this is my moment right here, pointing at you, each and every one of you, saying, you invite someone this Christmas. All right, I think I laid it down thick enough. Next one. Our last application point is this. Bring one hidden thing into the light this week. Genesis 3 exposes our instinct to hide. We need to do the opposite. Identify the lies that we hear the most in our heart. Identify something that you've hidden or tried to cover yourself with that you've tried to cover all by yourself. Maybe we speak lies to ourselves that say we deserve this sin or God's holding out on you, or you'll be happier doing it your own way, or nobody will know the first sin. The first thing that sin does to us is that it makes us try to hide. That's what the first sin shows us.

But the first thing that the gospel does is, is it brings us out of hiding. Bring one thing hidden into the light this week. So how is it that we can be people who avoid blame shifting that bring our sin out of hiding? Why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we try to hide our sin? Right? Isn't it better for us? Isn't it easier to not have to admit something that you've done wrong? Why would we intentionally make ourselves weak? Why would we actively take the blame when we might be able to pass it on to somebody else? The truth is because someone has taken our blame. Because someone became weak for us. When we try to cover ourselves, we can do this by all types of methods. By justifying ourselves, by dismissing, by hiding, by blame shifting. This is humanity's natural response to sin. And it seems like that's the only way. But the gospel shows us another way. As Christians, we have another way. We can try to conceal ourselves and we can try to cover ourselves. But the gospel tells us that we've realized that our sin was covered because Jesus wore our sin on the cross.

We don't have to worry about trying to cover our tracks anymore. We don't have to try to worry about saving face. We don't have to try to be the people publicly who seem blameless. Because our religion is built on the fact that each and every one of us are sinners. We have to admit that that's the first thing that we have to do. We don't have to be people that have it all together. In fact, it makes Christ stronger. It makes Christianity stronger when we admit that that we don't have everything together. We don't have to be the ones who make the world right. We don't have to be the ones who make ourselves right. We don't have to justify ourselves. We don't have to save ourselves. We can't. The good news is that God promises to make right what man made wrong. Remember that this Advent season. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for who you are. That you are a God who saves us. That you are the God who promised to make right what we couldn't. God, we thank you that it is not on us. God, you are so good.

You are so good to us. Help us respond as we worship as people transformed by your word. It's in your name we pray.

Amen