The Village Church
Inception to Rebel - Audio
"For you must not eat from one tree, "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die." But here comes the enemy. Here comes the enemy and he says, "Did God actually say you may not eat "from any tree in the garden? "Ah, you won't surely die, for God knows, "then the day that you eat of it, "your eyes will be open. "And what you will be like God knowing good and evil." Across roads, dilemma, a crisis, who are you gonna trust? The enemy or the Lord God? Who's telling the truth? Is God for me or is he against me here? Is God's provisions for me, for my benefit or for my demise? If we eat, we would surely die or we would just be made like God if we eat. Which one is it? Which one is it? See, there are questions in that dilemma. It didn't last forever long. So, you know, the Genesis print that for us. You read the whole chapter, you know how it turns out. We know they made a decision. A decision had to be made. They could not walk the middle and be on the fence. They had to decide at this moment, am I gonna trust the Lord or am I gonna believe the serpent? It could not walk the middle. Could not be on the fence. A decision had to be made. In which one were they gonna make? Which one do we make? Who were they going to believe? Who were they going to trust? If this was a game called Who Wants To Be Like God, when they give me their answer, I would say, is that your final answer? Is that your final answer? The answer that you're telling me, you sure, Adam and Eve, this is your final answer. And it was. And their answer, their answer to the question ushered in a new inception into God's creation. You know what that was? The inception of rebellion. The beginning of rebellion. Read with me, Genesis three, six. (laughs) So when the woman Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he too ate. Please pray with me. Father God, I pray for your spirit to glorify your name. That all of life is about you. Preaching is about you. And it's for your glory. And I pray spirit, you will come. If you don't move, it ain't nothing happening. So, I mean, I have, I don't have the power to change heart. I don't have the power to change lives. I'm just a man. But Father, you are not a man. You are God. And I pray that you will bring glory to your name at the worst that I say will lift you up. That our decrease, Christ will increase. Father, that all we get out of the way, and the spirit will do his job this morning. In my heart, and in the heart of your people, glorify your self, Father, and Christ in my prayer. Amen. The inception of rebellion. This is what we have in Genesis three, six. You see, after Eve's conversation with the enemy, her whole focus, all of her attention was completely drawn to that tree, to the tree of knowledge and good and evil. And in this verse, we have a sequence of responses by Eve that eventually led to rebellion. The first thing she does is she looks. The text says, she saw the tree. Well, did she see about the tree? She saw the tree was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes. No, it's that bad. Is she in trouble at this point? Is it bad that Eve was able to recognize the beauty of God's creation? No, that's not bad. No, was it the enemy who convinced her to see that? Don't forget, God created the tree in the garden. Genesis three, Genesis one, 31 says, the Lord God Himself saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was what? What was it? No, it was very good. It was not just good, very good. And in Genesis two, eight, it says, "Now the Lord God planted a garden in the east, and Eden, and there He put them man, He formed. And the Lord God made all kind of trees go out of the ground, trees that were wet, pleasing to the eye, and trees that were also good for food. In the middle of the garden were two trees, a tree of life, and a tree of knowledge and good and evil. So if God sees the tree, and it's good for food, pleasing to the eye, and Eve is able to recognize that, she's not in sin now. She's not in trouble then, because it's God's creation. And her being able to recognize that it's not evil, it's not rebellion. Think about, I think I shared this with you before, we took Mass into the beach for the first time over the summer. And when she got out of the car, and she saw the ocean, she went crazy. Mommy, daddy, look, the ocean, the ocean! Even at age three, you can be amazed by God's creation. See the beauty of what God has created. All of us have those moments, when we can see something in God's created world, where we're like, taking back, wow. It can be the beach, it can be the grand canyon, it can be whatever. We all are able to recognize that. Now if that is true post-fall, how much more before Adam and Eve fail, if they're able to recognize that? You see, we all see a rainbow, and we're like, that's a beautiful rainbow, and yet we live east of Eden now, but we're still able to recognize the beauty of God's creation. The garden of Eden was a beautiful sanctuary, beautiful. And Eve's ability to see that is not a bad thing, it's actually a good thing. And remember, God created all things, and all things very good. See what hits her into trouble, what the enemy's intentions were, was to create and Eve a discontentment, with what God has already provided for her. Her satisfaction was turning into dissatisfaction. And we see this in the next sequence of her response. First, she saw the tree, now it says she desired. That is where she gets into trouble. She says the tree was to be desired to make one wise. This reveals this contentment, the fact that the enemy's work was working, to see he has planned it was growing, and know for sure that this is not a good desire. This is not a desire by her to glorify the Lord God. The forbidden fruit was the object of her desire. And as we know, what our desires is internal, right? Something inside of us is how a heart, and eternally her heart was turning away from God by her desire for the tree. Her gaze and that the tree had turned into covetousness. It was a lust, a lustful craving to have what the Lord God said she could not have, and remember his command to them. He says to them not to eat from this tree, to acknowledge the good and evil, it was for that benefit. It was for their good. He wasn't holding out on them. He wasn't holding them back. It was for that benefit not to eat from that tree. Why? Because if they ate of it, even if they eat of it, they would die. You don't have to go to Bible college or a seminary to understand what that means. If you eat the fruit, you'd die. You don't have to go to the concordants or Greek dictionary or whatever. Die means die. And if you don't eat, you live. It's not rocket science. It's simple. And Eve was deceived though by the serpent, and she did not hold on to God's word. There was an internal justifying going on, rationalizing going on with her. The tree was to be desired to make her wise. What does that mean? It means she was going to take what was part of God's good creation and use it from something that was never created for. The fruit was not going to be the source of her new wisdom. You see what's happening here? She was going to attain wisdom from a fruit of a tree. I'm going to attain wisdom, be made like God. I'm going to know good and evil, but I'm going to do it independently of God. I'm going to do it through the tree. This is what the serpent was going to. Tuesday, this past Tuesday, my friend Papp, he wanted his songs, one of the songs he sings I like to hear is called Rich Woman for Woman. And the song starts out with the rich woman talking about her nice address that her father has given her. And it goes on, she talks about the nice mention that her father owns. And then it talks about the yacht that her father owns. Then it gets to the poor woman. And the poor woman tells her you see that land that your father's mansion is on belongs to my father. The yacht, the word that your father's yacht is on belongs to my father in heaven. You see, Adam and Eve were beginning to build a hope on something that was not eternal, losing a big picture, losing a big picture that God had given them the freedom to eat from any tree in the garden. They had it all. They had, they wasn't talking about living the high life, the big life, they had it, but yet the desire to have what was not forbidden, they had to have it. It's a lowdown dirty shame what happened to Adam and Eve. When the Lord God created them, he blessed them. He made them beautiful. They had the yacht, and the land, the house, and the land. They had, but they gave it up. Well, he tells them be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth, subdue the earth, and have the million over the earth over all the other created things. I mean, God had given them everything to exercise dominion. And now, instead of exercising dominion, they were gonna subject themselves to the other created things. Does that sound familiar? We worship other things now. Trees, rocks, animals. When we're supposed to have dominion over them, in the created order, that's how God created them. But the fall turned things upside down. Now, she was beginning to place all her dependency upon the fruit, but this fruit is gonna make me wise. It's gonna make me like God, knowing good and evil. Now, how about you in your life? The tension for all of us is, how can I enjoy God's creation without making it the object of my worship? Do you struggle with that? Or is it just me? 'Cause if you don't, maybe, I just need to come sit down and you come tell everybody how not to do it. Yes, we all struggle with it. Do you seek to use God's creation in ways that was never meant to be used? Your marriage, your relationships? Whatever, don't forget, everything in this world is created by God. I don't care if you have a car, your shoes, don't forget who's providing you with the things that you have. It ain't you. It's God. He is still God. He is still the man and he is still creator. So it's not your stuff. It's his stuff. And are you using it the way he wants you to use it? It's the question. Because you can enjoy creation without worshiping it. The question is, do you know when you worshiping it? He said, well, how can I know? If I take what you cherish at most, what would it do to you? Then you know. If I take what you cherish at most, if I took all the money you have in your bank, what would it do to you? Only you can answer that question. And your answer to that question determines is it your worship, is it your many God? Or do you really see it as, this is just God's stuff, I'm just a steward of it. If you're a steward of it, you can let it go. And it won't ruin your life. And it won't ruin your life. You see, Eve wanted to be like God. Is that a bad thing to wanna know God and be like him? You see, what she did is she justified the means to get to that result. You see, she felt like she could eat this fruit and the result was gonna be, I'll be made like God. That should be a good thing. But the means does not always justify the result or the ends, particularly when it comes to God's word. You see, she saw the tree, she's desired the tree, and eventually she just rebelled. It took of its fruit and ate. And she gave some to her husband who was with her. The tree is not the problem in this story. The tree is not the problem. The tree isn't the one with the issues. The issue has always been whether or not they were gonna be obedient to what the Lord God has said. That was always the issue. Were they gonna choose obedience or choose disobedience? Remember, they had the freedom to say no. They were not robots. They were fully responsible and they chose rebellion. They chose it. They were morally free to turn away from the enemy and walk away, but they didn't. I know some of us are thinking, whatever it was means, and our power turned away, well, we don't have that luxury. You notice saying the Alpha doesn't fall far from the tree? "Adam, use your parents and you don't fall far from that tree." They're good parents, our first parents. And what they did, we are filling the effects of that. Simple. You see, Adam and Eve were already like God. How? They were already created in his image. God said, "We would create man in our image." And what does that mean? It was like him. But they didn't realize that. They were already like him. And they didn't realize is that when they took that fruit, bit into it, their fellowship with God was ruined. Their communion with God was broken. It was a self-inflicted death blow. But they didn't foot it upon themselves. I was gonna be like God, but they actually separated themselves from him. And then we have the inception of rebellion, is what we have in Genesis 3. And your relationship with Jesus, that you come in with Him. If you don't have a relationship with God, do you want one, because you can have one? One of the things Mark always talk about is your created purpose. Your created purpose is to know God, to be in fellowship with God. And that's what they lost. That's what they lost. That perfect union of being a perfect relationship with the Lord God, the covenant God, they lost it all. That's what they lost. You see, it's like if, let's say if you're at home, if you're in a room with just one window, you have one, a shade on the window, the light shining through. And so you depend upon that light to light up the room, the sun light it shines through the window, lights up the room. And you can see clearly everything that's in the room, because of the light that shines through. You can walk around the room freely without bumping in the things, because of the light that's shining through the room. The light makes it possible. The light makes it possible for you to function within this room. The sun light does, you depend upon the sunlight. But what if you start to let the shade down? Completely let the shade down. Think about that. The shade has been let down, what happens to the sunlight? It goes away. It's shining outside, but it's no longer shining in your room. The sunlight slowly disappears until it's all dark. Your eyes are open. You can still see you're not physically blind, but it's like being blind if you're in a dark room with no light. And what happens to your way? Can you find, can you walk around the room freely without bumping in the stuff? Can you? Can you? If it's dark, you're going to hold on to the chair, you've got to hold on to the desk to find your way through the room. Listen to this, what happens to Adam and Eve? The sin shut off God's light from their life, the light that they were dependent upon. And guess what? As dependent beings, you're going to have to be dependent on something to hold you up. And so now they're going to be dependent upon creation, to hold them up, to get them through. Because one thing about us, we're not, we're codependent beings. We're not independent like God. God doesn't need anything else, what is this? We do, we do. And so they were built against a creator. And now they're going to have to use creation in order to hold themselves up, so they can function, to cover them. That's what they lost. The covering of God. And so now they've got to be covered by other things in its sin. Codependent, worshipping other things. He said, well, this is a lot of bad news. This is a story I'm telling. The gospel is coming next week. Well, two weeks from now, it's coming. But it's a story. It's a story that I'm telling from Genesis 3. The inception to question, the inception to rebel is what we're talking about this morning. Next week, it would be the inception to hide and cover. And then the inception of the gospel, which is in Genesis 3 as well. We all see that Genesis 3 can explain everything about life. If you only had one chapter in the Bible, if you had Genesis 3, you would see a God who is holy, a God who is merciful, and a God who is gracious, just in those three chapters of the book. They'd give you a picture of who our God is. He just had those three chapters. And I credit, those three chapters are critical to understanding the faith. Why does bad things happen, the fall? The God make a way. He did. He covers us. We all know how the story ends, because we have any testament. I'm just paying the picture for you. And so, when you think about your life, your stuff, are you worshiping it, or are you actually enjoying it for God's glory? That's what you have to think about. That's what you need to think about. Your job, your vocation, your stuff, your house, whatever, your relationships. Am I using it to glorify the Father, or am I using it to glorify myself, to make myself further, to bother myself, to boast myself, to move myself further away from him? That's what you have to wrestle with as a believer. But you're going to still struggle with sin. You're going to still struggle with our Dollar Tree. But you have to fight it. You've got to recognize it when it comes up. Do you recognize it? It's the question. As I said this week, when the enemy comes and whispers in your ear, that God really saved. You shouldn't do that. God was just joking. That command isn't... Nah, that command really doesn't mean that much. You can skip over that one. Nah, they wonder about being faithful to your wife. Nah, you know what? Know what? Hey, God understands. You know what? He understands. It's okay if you do that. It's okay. Stealing. Yeah, that's fine. Just so you're just stealing little stuff. Oh, just a little white lie. Those are not... God doesn't care about those lies. Little white lies are okay. Do you recognize the enemy when it comes to get you to justify your disobedience? And if it comes, you know the word enough to fight him off. You see, we're reading the Bible together as a church in two years. And this is just not something to do for a sake of doing it in the past. That's on the back. This is for you to be in the word. To know the word. To know what God says. And when the enemy comes to you and says that God actually say, you can say, yeah, he said it. And if you don't know it, if he said it, how are you going to be able to say that? If you're not reading the word. And putting it in here. Does that mean you're going to be perfect? And never fall? No, it doesn't. It means you'll be able to fight well. You can't fight well if you don't have your sword. You got to have your sword. And this changed my life when I started to see God's word as food for my soul. So when I first became a Christian, you know, it was just something to do, a checklist. So I got to have my quiet time. Just get it off the checklist and go on to my other activities. But this is life. I don't feed in myself other things every day. Every day I see stuff. People tell me stuff. I hear stuff. If I don't have this, how can I know what's true? How can I have discernment if I don't know his word? And so I implore you to spend time in the scriptures this week. If it's just 10 minutes, 5 minutes, at least get his word inside of me. That's my challenge to you and to myself. Not just to you, I'm talking to myself too. So pray for one another that way. And next week we'll talk about the consequence of what happened to them. And we're filling those consequences today. So pray with me. Father God, your provisions in our life are good provisions. And sometimes it's hard to see that because we look at our circumstances. And sometimes our circumstances cloud our vision, cloud our perspective. But Lord help us not to lose sight of the fact that you're good despite circumstances. And the reason the world is where it is the cause of the fall. It isn't the cause of you. It's the cause of the fall. That's why we have sickness. That's why there's death. The cause of Genesis 3. 6. So Father help us to have your word in our hearts. Holy Spirit, you live in all of us. You live in your, you live in believer spirit. So give us the power to be able to recognize the voice of the enemy when he comes. For he's going to come. Hardships are going to come. Temptations are going to come. I mean, we're not superman. We're not superwomen. But you live in us. Give us the strength to fight. And give us the strength to repent when we fail cause you're going to fail. You can't, we're not perfect people. But Lord, that's grace. You live by grace. And so Father sustain your people. Watch over your people. Protect your people for themselves. And help your people to spend time in your word this week. And fall in more and more in love with Jesus every day. And Christ, I'm a pretty man.