Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Nothing is really more offensive, I believe, to our ears than the idea that we are fallen, sinful, morally depraved creatures.  Does anybody like to hear something like that?  I certainly don’t.  We really like to believe that as human beings we are basically good, not evil.  We’d like to believe that evil is a fairytale, not a fact.  In fact, to suggest that something or someone is evil is really politically incorrect today.  President Bush found this out early on in his administration when he talked about a certain group of nations in our world as “living on the axis of evil.”  Oh my, we can’t call something like that evil.  This is also why the cross of Jesus Christ is offensive to some and stumbling block to others.  We don’t want to believe that we need a Savior even though the Bible diagnoses our condition in a dire way.  Listen to these words from scripture.  Romans 3:10-12 says, “There is none righteous, not even one.  There is none who understands; there is none seeks for God.  All have turned aside.  Together they have become useless.  There is none who does good, not even one.”  A little bit later in that same chapter of the book of Romans, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  “All” means all, doesn’t it?  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,”—or “sick” one translations says—“Who can understand it?”  Isaiah 53:6 says, “All of us like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way.”  And then finally, when Paul was writing to the Ephesians believers he reminds them of who they were before they met Christ.  And he begins chapter 2 by saying, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.”  He’s talking about a spiritual state or a condition where we are alive physically but dead spiritually.  That that part of us that was created to have a relationship with God is without life.  And that’s how we are born into this world, friends.  Very much alive physically, but dead spiritually.  And the reason for that is traced all the way back to the book of Genesis 3.

0:02:57.1

Sin is an internal disease that’s difficult to detect from the outside.  It’s sort of like looking at a computer- a laptop computer or a desktop computer.  You can look at that computer and you think, yeah, it looks pretty good.  But what you may not know is that a virus has corrupted that computer on the inside, and you don’t know until you turn it on.  Most of us don’t display our depravity to the extent that we’re really depraved.  Oh, every once in a while we get a glimpse of it here and there.  But make no mistake about it, beneath the surface of our lives, down deep in our hearts there is a disease that has corrupted our thoughts, our words, our emotions.  It’s corrupted our relationships and even our behavior.  That’s the biblical diagnosis that we get from the scriptures.  And the beginning of that was in Genesis 3, a chapter that describes what theologians call the fall of man.  The fall of man, the tumble, the Humpty Dumpty world that we talked about last week.

0:04:00.6

Now, in Genesis 3 the imago dei, or the image of God, takes a beating.  The image is deface though not erased.  I love that phrase.  It came from a seminary professor of mine many, many years ago.  It stuck with me then.  I’ve carried with it all these years this idea that the image of God is defaced though not erased.  It’s defaced by sin.  And it reminds me what it would be like if you woke up one morning and turned on the news.  Or maybe you were driving down into the District on your way to work, and you discovered that somebody had taken a can of paint and sprayed graffiti all over the Washington Monument, defacing one of our national monuments.  Can you imagine the horror that would come over you?  And can you imagine how that news would spread not only across this country, but around the world that somebody had the audacity to spray graffiti and deface one of our national monuments.  That’s something of how God must feel as sin has defaced the image of God.  And so there is something in Genesis 3 that we need to understand about our spiritual condition.  But I also don’t want you to miss the idea that while the image is defaced and not erased, the image defaced also makes room for God’s grace.  I’ve read Genesis 3 I don’t know how many times, but as I came back to it again this week and really for the last couple of weeks, what grabbed my heart was the hope that you find through these verses.  What grabbed my heart was the idea that God had a plan from the beginning.  He had a remedy for the fallenness of man.  We find that pictured in the flaming swords that protect the tree of life.  Do you ever wonder why God, you know, banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and protected them from the tree of life so they couldn’t take from it?  We’ll talk about that in a little bit.  But it’s a picture of God’s grace.  We’re also gonna find in Genesis 3:15 the first gospel presentation.  Yeah, imagine that.  You thought it was John 3:16.  Well, add to your list Genesis 3:15, a picture of the cross of Jesus Christ right here in Genesis 3.

0:06:21.3

So with that in mind, let’s go back to the book of Genesis.  And let me give you kind of an overview, a flow of how this chapter lays out.  It begins with the temptation of the serpent in verses 1-5.  We looked at that last week.  Verse 6, you know, that’s the fall, their disobedience, their fall into sin.  They run into some consequences in verses 7 and 8, a confrontation or conversation really that God has with Adam in verses 9-13, some curses or condemnation that come their way in verses 14-19, and in verses 20-24 a picture of salvation, which leaves us on the high side of things.  I used to think that Genesis 3 was really nothing more than the sad ending of the creation story.  But as one author says, “It is also the glorious beginning of the redemptive saga that fills the rest of scripture.”  And we’re gonna see that this morning.

0:07:18.5

So last week we took a look at the temptation.  We took a look at the fall.  Let’s pick it up in verse 7 and review some of the consequences we talked about last week and even look at a few more.  Verse 7 says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”  Verse 8, “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.”  Now, when God introduced Adam to the Garden of Eden, remember, there were two trees that He placed in the garden- the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the moral accountability that was established there.  And God told Adam and Adam later told Eve, “If we eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there is a consequence.  God said, ‘You will surely die.’”  Now, death in the Bible means a number of different things.  At its very core it means separation from something.  Physical death is when our spirit separates from our body, okay.  Physical death didn’t happen at once with Adam or Eve when they fell.  In fact, Adam lived to 930 years.  Ultimately, he did die physically though.  Spiritual death, though, is when our relationship with God is separated. We were created to have a relationship with God, but sin separates that relationship.  It breaks that relationship.  That’s called spiritual death.  And then there is also eternal death in the scripture.  That’s when a person who is without Christ is separated from God forever eternally in a place called hell.  Adam and Eve did not experience physical death at once, but they did experience spiritual death at once.  They experienced the alienation, the distance that came between themselves and God.  And they would have experienced eternal death if God didn’t place those flaming swords around the tree of life.  If they had taken of the tree of life in their fallen state, they would have lived forever in eternity in their fallen state.  We’ll talk about that more in a just a little bit.

0:09:36.5

But when they took of the forbidden fruit, they knew something had changed.  The scripture tells us that the eyes of both of them were opened, and just as the serpent said they would be.  “Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Their eyes were opened, but their eyes were opened to a consciousness that resulted in shame and guilt and a sense of lost innocence.  And they also experienced good and evil.  The serpent told them, “You’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.”  But Adam and Even didn’t exactly know good and evil as God did.  Now, think of it this way.  God knows evil sort of like an oncologist knows cancer.  He knows it from a distance.  It’s not a part of His own being.  But Adam and Eve came to know evil like a cancer patient knows cancer, okay.  So the devil kind of told a half-truth there, and they experienced a consequence that they wish they hadn’t experienced.

0:10:45.2

And then the scripture goes on to say that when God came to the garden, you get the sense that there was this kind of daily communion and conversation and fellowship that they had.  In the cool of the day as the wind would blow through and garden, the Lord God of heaven and earth would come and have a conversation or relationship with Adam in some way.  But it says here that Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees.  They lost fellowship with God.  They lost relationship with Him.  They played the first of two sporting events that we’re gonna find here in Genesis 3.  This is the hide-and-seek game.  You ever tried to hide-and-seek with God?  Some of you this may be the last place you wanted to be this morning is in church listening to the sound of some preacher’s voice.  It’s possible to be here in the pews somewhere…in fact, I can remember a time in my life when I was far from God.  And I sat in a balcony up in the corner somewhere up there.  Don’t get nervous, folks, I’m not pointing you out up there.  It could be over here, could be over here.  It could be right here on the front row.  There are all kinds of bushes out there that you can hide behind like Adam did because you want nothing to do with God.  And it’s kind of a sad yet foolish consequences, isn’t it.  Sad because the trees that once gave Adam delight now become something that, you know…he’s hiding from God.  There’s this distance between himself and God.  And it’s foolish because you really can’t hide from God.  The Bible says in Hebrews 4:13, “There is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.”  That’s not great news if you’re trying to hide from God.  That’s kind of disconcerting news, isn’t it, that all things are naked and open and bear.  Adam tried to hide from God, but God knew exactly where He was.  Are you trying to hide from Him today?  Well, I’ve got news for you.  He’s gonna come after you, but in a tender and compassionate and loving kind of way.

0:13:01.2

Let’s read on in verse 9.  It says, “Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’  He said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’  And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked?  Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’”  This is a fascinating scene.  I mean, God comes to the garden asks a question.  An omniscient God who sees and knows everything asks questions.  Not so He can get information, but He’s looking for a confession.  He’s trying to rustle the bushes a little bit from Adam.  He says, “Adam!  Where are you, Adam?”  You ever played hide-and-seek?  Where are you?  Where are you?  You ever played hide-and-seek with your kids?  You know exactly where they’re hiding.  You know, they’re in the closet somewhere.  You’ve already figured that out.  They think they’re being really coy.  But you come along and you do the “where are you” thing.  This is kind of what the Lord’s doing.  “Where are you, Adam?”  And I get the sense…it’s hard to read the tone of voice in the black and white text here, but I get the sense that it’s not a harsh tone.  That God in a very tender and compassionate and loving kind of way, although tough and firm, is coming to Adam and saying, “Adam, where are you?  Adam, I’ve missed my time with you today.  Adam, I created you to have a relationship with Me here, but you’re hiding from Me.  What’s with this, Adam?”  He misses His friend, in a sense.  And finally Adam comes out from behind the bushes, or maybe a voice, you know, comes up over top of the bushes there.  And he says, “Well, I was afraid.”  And isn’t this what sin does to us?  It replaces faith with fear.  And in one sense Adam had every right to be afraid and fearful because the Bible does tell us in the book of Hebrews 10:31 that it’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  And what we have here is a picture of a God who is both tough but tender, a God who is both a Savior in this passage, but He’s also a judge.  But sin makes us want to hide from God.  It distances our relationship with Him.  And God comes calling to Adam.

0:15:29.3

And Adam and Eve play the second of two sports we find here.  We move from hide-and-seek now to the blame game.  Look at it in verse 12.  It says, “The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave [to be] with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.’  Then the LORD God said to the woman,” verse 13, “‘What is this you have done?’  And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”  Now, there is truth in those two statements, but Adam and Eve are playing the blame game.  Adam is blaming his wife Eve, and the woman is blaming the serpent.  The classic blame game.  We don’t like to get caught, do we?  And you can see it in your kids, can’t you?  Every time my kids, you know, get caught in something, “Well, she did it.”  I’ve got a son and I’ve got a daughter.  They love to blame each other.  It’s always somebody else’s fault.  We’ve got a little rule in our home.  If we weren’t there to see it, both of you are at fault and both of you will suffer the consequences.  But we love to play the blame game, don’t we.  And isn’t it interesting, we see a picture of just how far Adam has fallen.  This wife, this woman that he once received as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, he called her woman, ishshah, “from my side.”  And now he says to God, “She’s the cause of my problems.”  And he almost has the audacity to say…to lay some of the blame at God’s feet.  He says, “That woman that thou gavest to me.”  It’s kind of like when I’ll say to Cathryn or she’ll say to me, “Your daughter,” or “Your son,” you know, that kind of thing.  Playing the blame game here.

0:17:10.4

But God is confronting.  He is confronting through a tough love conversation, a difficult conversation.  We don’t like to have difficult conversations, do we?  We try to avoid people with whom we have to have a difficult conversation.  And I get the sense that this was a more difficult conversation for Adam than it certainly was for God.  He here is the hound of heaven.  He’s the one seeking out Adam.  Don’t miss that.  Adam is behind the bushes over here.  But the God who created him is the ultimate seeker.  Remember, Romans says, “There is none that seek after God.”  Don’t be deluded into thinking that you’re seeking after God in some kind of way.  No, He seeks after us.  He is the one who created us.  He sees us in our fallen state.  He sees us hiding behind the bushes wanting nothing to do with Him.  And in the midst of that, He is the hound of heaven coming after us, chasing us down even when we want absolutely nothing to do with Him. Does that describe you today?  Are you sitting here today, and somewhere on the inside there is a corruption in your heart that is saying, “God, I want absolutely nothing to do with You.”  Just know that there is a loving, tender, God who is pursuing you.  Who is calling out, “Where are you?  I miss you.  I miss our time together.  I created you to have a relationship with me.  What’s going on here?”  Okay.

0:18:43.5

So we go from consequence to confrontation, and then to a tough part.  We’ll call it condemnation.  There are a series of curses that happen in verses 14-16.  Verse 14, “And the LORD God said to the serpent…”  First, He delivers one (0:19:00.0) to the serpent here.  “‘Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle.’”  There is a curse that comes on the animal kingdom generally, and then specifically one to the serpent.  “‘And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life.’”  This is how the serpent—which some scholars believe was probably an upright serpent or reptile with legs before the fall—this seems to suggest that part of the curse was that it would take on a different form after the fall- the snakes that we see today.  Now, I have a few things in common with Indiana Jones, despite the fact that my name is Jones and I grew up in Indiana.  I hate snakes.  I really despises snakes.  No reptiles (0:20:00.0) as pets in the Jones household.  I mean, give me a golden retriever, but don’t give me a snake.  And I don’t know is that’s a result of the fall or not, but I just remember that scene in the Indiana Jones movie where he falls into the pit.  And he turns this way, and he’s goes, “Ah, snakes!”  You know, he just hates snakes.  But there is a curse that comes upon the serpent himself.  Verse 15 He goes on to say, ‘I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.’”  Here is the John 3:16 of the Old Testament and of Genesis 3.  Here is the gospel presentation.  If you can hear it, it’s, “Joy to the world, the Lord is coming.”  If you can hear it, it’s, “Go tell it on the mountain, because I’m sending a Redeemer someday.”  This is what the theologians call the protoevangelium.  It’s a big that just means “first gospel.”  It’s a glimpse into what we celebrate here at Christmas time.  He makes the serpent and the woman enemies.  And the seed of the serpent is a reference to all those who live in rebellion against God.  In fact, the Bible tells us in the New Testament that if we’re apart from Christ, we’re children of the devil.  You think you’re a child of God?  No, children of God are those who believe on His name.  But to those who believe on His name, they have the right to become children of God. And until you believe on His name you're a child of the devil.  You're a seed of the serpent.  And the seed of the woman, as you trace it through a scriptures…and we don’t have time to do all of that, but as you trace it through the scriptures, this is nothing less than a prediction of the coming of Messiah.  “He,”—that is, Messiah—“shall bruise you on the head, shall crush your head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”  It’s a picture of Christ on the cross crushing the head of the serpent, delivering a fatal blow to the devil and his demons.  Christ won a victory on the cross.  And here is right in the midst of Genesis 3 and the fall of man and all the curses.  And God drops hope right in the midst of it all, a gospel presentation.

0:22:29.5

Next, He goes on to deliver a curse that involved the woman.  “To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children.’”  And all the women here said…   (Amen.)  All right.  I guess it’s not all that painful is it.  All the women said, “Amen.”  I remember when our two kids were born, both present us with a little bit of a challenge and a bit of a scare.  Our son, the oldest, when he was born, he came out code blue.  And we weren’t quite sure what was going on.  We just, you know, thought the doctors were working on him over here.  And the neonatal crew came in.  Well, they said later he was just holding his breath, okay.  Says everything about my son, okay.  My daughter, on the other hand…you know, this pain in childbirth thing.  My wife, you know, requested the…what is it?  An epidural?  Something like that, okay.  She got it on the first time.  The second child, the doctor was late and came about that close from missing the time that she was going to get that shot to kind of ease some of the childbirth.  I saw a side to my wife at that moment I’d never seen before.  But we got it in her, and it eased some of the pain in childbirth.  But this is part of the consequence or curse of the fall here.  It goes on to say in verse 16, “Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.’”  Interesting phrase there and the cause for a lot of discussion and debate among Bible scholars and so forth.  In a nutshell, what that desire means though…it speaks of a reversal of the order of creation where initially God had established Adam as the leader in the home and one that had positional authority in the home.  And in his unfallen state, he could wield that authority in a relational kind of way that was kind and tender and so on and so forth.  But now that sin has entered into the world, that’s gonna be reversed.  And the woman, her desire will be to rule over her husband, to have authority over him.  We saw a little picture of that when Eve gave the fruit to Adam and Adam chose to obey his wife rather than obey God.

0:25:00.4

Eve was deceived.  And throughout scripture she is described as the one who was deceived, not because she’s more gullible, but that’s just what happened.  The serpent came to her first and deceived her.  He’s in the deception business.  But Adam sinned with his eyes wide open, didn’t he, choosing to obey his wife and to let her have authority over him.  Boy, there is a lot that we could talk about there.  But, guys, even in our fallen state, remember, we have positional authority in the home, and with that, responsibility and accountability.  But there is a relational component to that authority.  And how we exercise our positional authority in the home in a relational kind of way has everything to do with whether or not we’re gonna have a good marriage, okay.  So don’t accept the authority without the relational component there.  But this is the beginning of the battle of the sexes, okay.  You thought it was Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King.  No, it’s right here in Genesis 3:16.

0:26:00.8

A third curse comes in verse 17, and this is aimed at Adam, actually to Adam’s work.  “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat from it”; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.  Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.’”  Here the curse comes upon the ground.  Now work is going to become more difficult.  Work is not a curse, mind you.  God introduced work as gift to Adam when he entered into the garden.  God is a worker, and there is a whole theology of work there.  But work became more difficult, harder.  Maybe Adam ran into a tough economy, you know, five minutes after this.  I don’t know.  But there was a reminder here from God that physical death was ultimately going to be Adam’s consequence.  “You are dust,” He says.  “Remember, I made you from the dust of the ground.  And to dust you shall return.”  You go to work.  You go to work.  It’s hard, and then you die, right?  Well, not exactly.

0:27:31.5

In verse 20 and following we move from temptation and fall and consequence and confrontation and condemnation and curse to God’s remedy, to His salvation.  Verse 20 says, “Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all [the] living.”  This is the first time she is called Eve.  Up until this point she is called woman, ishshah.  The man was ish.  He named her ishshah, “from my side.”  But now she is called Eve.  And the name Eve means “life” or “living.”  Somehow in the midst of the curse and curses, somehow in the midst of, “Adam, remember, you’re dust.  I made you from dust, and you’re going back to dust,” somehow in the midst of all that Adam heard hope from God.  He didn’t name Eve “death”; he named her “life.”  And some scholars suggest that here is the beginning of Adam’s turning back toward God.  He sees the hope and embraces the hope, perhaps that he even heard in Genesis 3:15.

0:28:42.6

Verse 21 says, “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.”  Here God provides for them.  The fig leaves weren’t enough.  They never are.  Man’s fig leaves, man’s attempt at religion, man’s attempt to cover up his sin is never enough in God’s eyes.  In fact, the Bible tells us that any acts of righteousness we might do are like filthy, smelly rags in the sight of God because He is a perfect and holy God.  And so He does away with the fig leaves.  And He makes a couple of Armani suits for Adam and Eve.  And it’s the first time we have bloodshed in the book of Genesis, because these are garments of skin made from animals.  It’s a picture of what the Bible later says in the book of Hebrews, that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.”  God loves pictures and word pictures, and He gives us one here as He clothes them.

0:29:39.1

Verse 22, “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’-- therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.  So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.”  Why did Adam and Eve need to be banished from the garden and guarded from taking from the tree of life?  Remember, the first command was, “You eat freely from all the trees except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  And all the trees included the tree of life.  But now God is protecting them from that.  It’s because if they would now, in their fallen state, take from the tree of life, they would for all of eternity be in that fallen state.  And God was protecting them so that the plan of redemption could begin to unfold.  And they, in fact, could be redeemed.  And so He puts these flaming swords around.

0:30:48.7

I’ve always had this kind of dream or fantasy of an Indiana Jones move, okay, his final movie.  And if Harrison Ford doesn’t want to do it, I’ll be glad to star in the role here.  You know, you’ve had Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and…whatever the others are.  How about Indiana Jones and the Garden of Eden.  And Dr. Jones is taken out of retirement reluctantly.  But somebody says, “Listen, I think we can find the cradle of civilization, the Garden of Eden, and the tree of life.”  And it captures Dr. Jones’ heart, and he comes out of retirement.  And the movie goes on for an hour or two hours, I don’t know.  The last scene though, this is what I’ve got pictured in my mind.  He’s running out of time.  He’s in his race for his life.  He is running out of time, but he is running through this thick garden, kind of slashing the branches out of his way.  And these serpents are all coming around.  And finally he comes to this opening, and he sees the entrance to the Garden of Eden.  And off in the distance he sees the tree of life.  And you think, great!  He’s found it!  All he has to do is just walk through the entrance and grab from the fruit.  But as he looks off into the distance, he sees the cherubim and he sees the flaming swords.  And the movie ends, okay.  That’s about as far as I get with it.

0:32:18.8

But it’s a picture of God’s grace, isn’t it?  I mean, you have the gospel in Genesis 3:15.  You have life, not death, in the name of Eve.  You have God providing through substitutionary atonement and the shedding of blood in verse 21.  You have the grace of God, who takes them out of the garden and puts them in a place where they can’t take from the tree of life.  It’s all right there in Genesis 3.  And like the author says, this is not merely the sad ending to the creation story.  It’s the glorious beginning of the redemptive saga that fills the rest of scripture.  And the reason we celebrate Christmas thousands of years removed from this is because the fulfillment of the promise in Genesis 3:15 started on Christmas day. And 30 some odd years later the Messiah, the promised one from Genesis 3 hung upon a cross and crushed the serpent’s head.  And the serpent bruised His heel.  Oh, it was a time of pain and suffering, no doubt.  Those who were in the know on Christmas day knew that the reason this child was born was to redeem humanity.  Mary knew that.  Just study some of her ponderings this Christmas.  She had a sense that this was the promised one.

0:33:51.5

And my question for you this morning as we finish up this series from Genesis 1-3 is, how are you receiving all of this?  How are you receiving God’s diagnosis of your spiritual condition?  Are you finally willing to say, you know, “All the fig leaves I’ve tried to sew up for myself, they just aren’t working.  And, yeah, I’m one of those fallen, sinful, morally depraved, corrupt persons who need a Savior, who need redemption.”  That’s the story of scripture.  That’s the story of Christmas and Easter and all the things that we celebrate around here.  Have you trusted Christ as your Savior?  Are you wearing the righteous robes and clothing of Jesus Christ?  Not your own righteousness.  You’ve tried that, and it’s failed.  But the righteousness of God that is suited up for us when we place our faith in trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s God’s free gift of eternal life to us by faith.  Let’s pray together.

0:34:57.9

And with your heads bowed and our eyes closed, I just want to ask you today, will you receive Christ as your Savior?  I don’t know where you are spiritually.  Maybe you’re one of those people who are still looking for a bush somewhere to hide from God.  The last place you wanted to be was maybe in church, but, hey, it’s the Christmas and Easter thing to do.  And I’ll come.  But maybe you’ve sensed and felt the breath of the hound of heaven on the back of your neck this morning chasing after you, saying, “I miss you.  Where are you?  You were created to have a relationship with me, and today’s the day.”  Maybe you want to say something like to God.  “God, I know that I’m a sinner.  I accept Your diagnosis of my condition.  But I thank You for the Savior that You promised all the way back in Genesis and that You delivered at Christmas and that who one day died on a cross for my sins.  And by faith right now, I receive Christ as my Savior.”  Father, what a glorious moment that is when the saga of redemption unfolds in yet another person’s life.  And I pray that would be true this morning in every person’s life under the sound of my voice and, more importantly, under the sound of Your voice as You speak to us personally, tenderly, compassionately, and yet in a tough love kind of way, Father.  We thank You that You came running after us.  We thank You that You came back to the garden and chased after Adam.  We thank You that You sent a Redeemer that we celebrate this Christmas.  In Christ’s name, amen.

0:37:06.4