The Village Church
Inception of Consequences, Pt. 1: Loss of Innocence! - Audio
Please pray with me Father God, we are all lost without you And we need you this morning Lord to come to your preaching of your word you need your spirit to come and apply your word to our hearts The pastor doesn't make preaching what it is your spirit does Pastor's that's a vessel a broken vessel that you have chosen to use you bring glory to your magnificent name And I pray that that will take place today Your word your spirit will work hand in hand in my heart and the hearts of everyone here that we may lead here encourage built up And our faith and I walk with you in power to go back out into the world To engage, to live as your people, to fight as your people Oh spirit, just ranting us by power of God's Word. Christ in my brain. Amen Well, I hope you guys didn't set your cloths back last night If you didn't then you came to church early Author and poet Robert Lewis Stevenson says one said that everybody Everybody sooner or later sits down to a banquet of consequences And read that again Everybody sooner or later sits down to a banquet of Consequences they didn't rest on your mind for a moment not just some people Not just rich people poor people white people black people, but everybody sooner or later in their life Let's sit down to a banquet of consequences. Do you agree? Yes, we should in this life We all daily make choices and decisions We all do it's it's it's unescapable reality. You can't live live without making decisions or choices Even if you decide not to make decisions a decision and there's a consequence for that. So you can't get away from it Sooner or later. We all sit down The consequences that stem from the choices and decisions that we're making our lives My question to you this morning is that when you sit down at that banquet table You sit down in honor or is it more like a personal road to go on bad? Because all your bad decisions and choices have come back To remind you just how bad they really were Is it a good banquet or is it a personal road scone bad? All of us here this morning myself included included 11 with the consequences of some choices that we have made in life Some of those good some of those consequences are good and some of them are not Reverend Homer McCall of St. John's Baptist St. John's and A and me church Once said life is about choices So choose wisely Life is about choices. So choose wisely oh How I wish Adam and Eve would have chosen wisely Don't you Last week we talked about the inception of rebellion by our first parents We saw that they were at a crossroads They had a great dilemma They had a decision to make either to trust and obey the Lord God or either to distrust him and disobey him as We all know the story they chose the latter Which was the beginning of rebellion and now after the rebellion something else comes the inception of consequences The inception of consequences that resulted out of their rebellion against the Lord God Look with me at Genesis chapter 3 verse 7 Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew they were naked and they saw fig leaves together and May coverings for themselves Now keep in mind here that For the past few weeks now We've been looking at Genesis 1 2 and 3 for the viewpoint of us for the viewpoint of inception Genesis 1 and 2 was the inception of creation the inception of provision Genesis 3 1 through 5 Was the inception to question God's word the inception to question God's provision over your life last week Genesis 3 6 the inception of rebellion and now in Genesis 3 7 Adam and Eve now sat down at the banquet Consequences and these are not good consequences And the first consequence we see for Adam and Eve is the loss of innocence That was the first consequence for the disobedience the loss of innocence verse 7 says Then the eyes were open and they knew that they were naked and so they saw fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves Now you can read that and think well, what's wrong with that? That's not that bad. Is it? I mean, what's wrong with seeing your own nakedness and putting clothes on? I mean, none of us are gonna walk that walk around Huntsville naked, are we? I hope not. I Mean, what's wrong with that? What's the big deal God? Don't they have the right to make that decision? They're independent They can put clothes on if they want to stop holding me back They have the freedom to do that, right? So we have to keep in mind that what's going on here is more than just two people curving themselves. It's more than just that Keep in mind This was a consequence of rebellion against the Lord God Then their eyes were open This was the one thing the enemy promised would happen to them what did he tell Eve? Soon as you enter the fruit your eyes will be open, right? The promise came true their eyes are open, but what does that mean? What were their eyes open to? I mean were they blind before that? No, of course not. The eyesight was fully functional The opening of the eyes here is not talking about physical sight or something else is in mind You see before Genesis 3 6 Adam and Eve were innocent Meaning they had never experienced pain Think about that they never experienced pain they never experienced disappointment They never experienced suffering. They never experienced shame or guilt None of those things were part of God's creation Our first parent where parents were innocent to the things that are quite common to you and I today They were blind to them think about that The ignorance of that kind of innocence the blessedness of it We wish in love for that type of ignorance now, don't we? Because on this side of Eden We can't even comprehend of life. That's completely innocent of these things You can't comprehend a laugh that way. That's free from headaches. That's free from disappointments That's free from suffering. That's free from shame. That's free from guilt I mean we don't even have a category for that. I mean, what does that mean? What does that look like? For our first parent, they knew what it looked like They lived it They had it They had it on And another thing is that We can't hide from those things either Can we can you hide from shame and guilt and disappointment headaches. Can you hide from it? Can you eliminate it from your life? Can you structure your life in such a way? They know what I'm not gonna ever gonna have a headache. I'm not gonna ever gonna be disappointed Can we know? Okay, how smart you are. Okay. How many tithes you have in front of your name? You ain't ever Gonna eliminate those things from your life ever. No this side of heaven And um 2004 a movie came out called the village no village village church was released and It's a strange movie The movies about a group of people who they got tired of living in a wicked place They got tired of living in the world. They got tired of sin pain. They got tired of sin sin They got tired of sin wickedness. So what they decided to do they were gonna take their families use people people They were gonna relocate themselves to a secluded area in the middle of a wildlife preserve So they're gonna pick up leave society go create their own little town Their own little group of people their own little culture And what they did they create this village a 19th century village In the founding elders of this village that that they sought to completely cut themselves off from the world They considered the world to be a wicked place where a wicked people live That goal was to create a community that was free from such influences You know they failed They didn't do that you see later in the movie one of the residents in the movie Hainesley attacks another resident out of jealous anger He attacks wounds and badly And so what they tried to escape from was already in the village They didn't have to go to the towns to see wickedness wickedness was already in the camp because they were in the camp and You can't escape the consequences of the fall nor can you elbow ever duplicate life and Eden? Understand that you cannot duplicate life and Eden I don't care if you go to the city on the hill Surround your city with a with a brick wall and say you can't get in world You still got a problem because you're inside the city So you just as wicked to You just as messed up to So there's no way to escape life in the fallen world. It can never escape And so we desperately longed for Eden That's what these folks in the village wanted they wanted Eden They wanted a place where it was free from those things and so they tried to recreate it But they failed Adam and Eve They before the fall that they didn't have to create that type of life You know they didn't have to hide from pain. I select themselves from pain They didn't have a category for that all they knew was pleasure all they knew was innocence All they knew was joy For them it wasn't a reach enough of the stars To try to find true peace. They had a total satisfaction Total joy total bliss. It was paradise, man But paradise was lost which is one bite One bite Missed everything up and it doesn't matter if it was a little bite a little taste or a bit bite Rebellion was rebellion and now They're dealing with the consequences of that Their eyes were open and they saw something they knew something the verse says they knew that they Renaked their eyes were open to realization that they were naked and they didn't gain in the secret knowledge a Wisdom from eating the fruits how they thought they were gonna get all the fruits gonna make me wise But what did it do to them? They only saw their own nakedness This is interesting. You know why because in Genesis 2 after the Lord God created Eve and her and Adam Adam became husband and wife Verse 25 says the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed meaning they felt no shame Remember The innocence was still intact. They were still innocent. They were naked before one another but were not ashamed that was a normal condition But what they did They took the innocence to the pawn shop and punted for shame and guilt There it changed innocence for shame. They pawned at the pawn shop For shame. Here's my innocence and now give me shame and guilt. That's what they got. That's what they did gave it all up And for what? Just so they can see that they were naked They were gonna gain a knowledge of good and evil. They were gonna have this an intellectual hidden knowledge It wasn't just gonna be knowledge of good and evil. They were gonna know good and evil through personal experience They were gonna know something they had never known before they were gonna know what it meant to hurt They're gonna know what it meant to feel pain to be broken to be disappointed to be betrayed to lose a son Which they did lose later To have siblings one sibling kill another sibling They were gonna experience all that stuff Because they were disobedient and ate of the forbidden fruit innocence left the building Bliss gone eating no more and sin has entered into the room ladies and gentlemen And now we live with the consequences of in 2010 You know why there's murder sickness death pain hardships in life the fall Genesis 3 You don't have to listen to Oprah and Phil Jackson to figure that out You don't have to go to the self-help section of our philosophy You want to know about the world and the condition that it's in Genesis 3 6 tells you Send into the world and when sent into the world everything messed up Everything's messed up God's creation turn upside down The bank with the consequences is what we see from the act of our first parents What is revealed about you was it revealed about me? Keep in mind here that Our first parents when they fail it meant everything up for their descendants Meaning every here every hearing being now is born into a state of sentiment Not into a state of blessed ignorance of innocence each of us here See our own neck Don't you don't you know what it's like to be to feel shame? To feel guilt Whoever feels incomplete empty Unfulfilled broken dirty abuse taking advantage of abandon we all have Have you ever been hurt? taken advantage of lied to All of us experience these things in our life every day My children and your children would experience them too. It ain't nothing we can do about it. I hate that I Hate knowing that my son and my little girl They're gonna hurt in life They're gonna suffer in life. They're gonna make mistakes in life and guess what? I Can't chef enough from that. It's going to happen eventually That's the consequence of living in the broken the fallen world in the fallen world falling things Happened to falling and broken people and that's the gospel truth You can't hide from it You can't shelter yourself from it. You can either accept this or you're gonna drive yourself crazy Trying to isolate yourself from it or trying to duplicate life and eating which you cannot do here You can't have enough degrees. You can't have enough money Can't have enough houses to make life like it was an eating and it gonna happen Life is gonna be broken life is filled with hardships because of the fall Now when you experience Hurt and pain shame or guilt. What do you do? What do you do with that? What's your reaction? Our reaction is the same as Adam and Eve See that first what was that first instinct after they realized they were naked the verse says they sold feelings together and made coverings for themselves There was the instant reaction When they realized they were naked the purpose For those fig leaves to cover up their shame To cover up that guilt As I said last week as I said last week It's amazing to see the turn of events for Adam and Eve who went from being the height of God's creation Created in God's image the only thing in all the creation that was created in the image of God was man and woman And look at them now bottom feeders This is what they have become in the sense They have changed their innocence to become a bottom feeder where now instead of exercising the meaning of a creation They subject themselves to creation Now creation is going to cover me Going to hide my shame go hide my guilt Somebody says it's amazing to see that They're attempting to cover up and hide how about you in your life Do you use God's creation the same as Adam and Eve Your fig leaf to cover your shame your guilt your disappointment to hide Do you you see they cover that they cover the nakedness because they couldn't better side of it. I believe They couldn't better side of it Life as they knew it was completely over Don't know second chances God can't get a do over Yeah, I Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me Give me a do over God. Let's go back and repeat that whole scene this time Adam would say I'll step up This time God. I'm not going to step back and be silent this time God. I'm gonna step up to the plate this time Just give me a do over Or they do overs For Adam and Eve here Spurgeon says the nakedness of their bodies bodies Which in innocence admitted ministry no occasion for shame now caused them to feel the need they had a covering Not just for their bodies bodies only but much more for their souls So they felt the need to be covered They felt it and they tried to do it. They made coverings from themselves And you know a man that's interesting in this verse is that and Jesus is born in two The only person who ever created anything was God Where you have him Genesis 7? Where do you have Adam and Eve doing it said they made for themselves? Coverings what's that show you by our first parents? They have the acting independently of the creator They have now become their own providers. I'm gonna cover myself. I want something I made with my own hands They instantly made a fiddly to hide the shame and guilt. They were now experiencing for the first time something they never experienced before And so they trying to hide it They knew they were in the wrong you realize that don't you they knew they messed up You see when their eyes were open to realization of that they they felt the shame They knew they had been disobedient to Lord God They felt that because they knew they lost their innocence. They knew it was gone Because they disobeyed the Lord God They realized they just gave up paradise Just to gain shame and guilt They gave up everything for it And so the floodgates of shame and guilt Accelerated them and they need your reaction or she creates some type of covering a man made covering Not just the highest shame and guilt, but they want to restore the carbon of innocence They were gonna they want to use that fig leaf for two purposes to hide that shame and guilt but also To recover the innocence that they lost I can go back home again Because this fig leaf covers my shame. Maybe I can't get eating back Maybe I can now have life as it was in in Eden because of this fig leaf They tried to repair the damages that they had to put themselves in creation And we do the same When you experience these things what are your fig leaves that you run to fig leaves you have in your life right now That no one else knows about The things you use to numb Pain in your life hurt in your life shame in your life guilt in your life Could be could be drugs sex could be relationships could be stuff could be anything could be ministry It could be stuff that's not even bad in themselves What is it for you? And do you recognize why you have? Do you recognize why you use those fig leaves that you have? The same reason I first parents did you wanted to cover up your shame and guilt but you want it to restore Your innocence you wanted to make you feel good about yourself You want it to boost your self esteem you want it to cover you so much that when you look in the mirror All you see is innocence you want it to give you Eden You want it to eliminate all the pain and hurt and sin from your life. That's why you have to feel these you have To make life easy to make life like it was before the fall you want them to duplicate Eden in your life in a fallen world But they can't Then enough fig leaves in the creation they can restore the damage of the fall They won't work Here's why Let's say you go out to the store when you leave here for church you go to Walmart target You go get you a new desk to put into your house new desk is nice It's clean you is all polished up you put your computer on you have your pencil sharpener on it You have some pictures on it, but give it some time Give it some time your nice desk starts to get cluttered right other things find their way on the desk loose paper cups McDonald's bags and loose files chip file a boxes Kelsey boxes are there bills Taylor chips can't solders all this stuff all over your desk It's so cluttered now. You can't even see the top of the desk anymore It's totally covered and junk is messy, and this is how you treat your soul The same way You cover it with stuff So much stuff. You don't even know what you really need anymore So many fig leaves you have so many fig leaves of you so I have to pee like an onion to get to the core of who you are The thing about fig leaves is what they always die and when they die you always replace it with another leaf Well, that's one more gone pick one more Cover me again fig leaf Make me happy fig leaf be my savior fig leaf give me peace fig leaf Then ever gonna give you peace There's nothing in this creation. That's man may is gonna ever give you peace nothing can do it Nothing can do it Eating is gone It's gone And your fig leaf will never bring it back ever You can't chef yourself on the consequence of the fall and What we're going to the npc? Is that we need a permanent solution To our messed up problem. We need a type of covering that completely takes away our shame and guilt a fig leaf won't do it We need a type of covering that were also restored innocence to us fig leaf Cannot do that And we're going to be able to see that in in Genesis 3 not only do we see the inception of rebellion and consequences We're also going to see the inception of the gospel promise That what man messed up God was going to fix up with a permanent solution a covering that completely covers you and restores you and in a sense Restores your innocence before God that when God sees you in that covering he sees innocence Not shame and not getting y'all know who that is. We just not getting to that yet You know who that is and some of you are standing in that covering right now And then when the father sees you he doesn't see a loss of innocence He sees innocence restored because of what he did for us. Amen May pray with me Yes father loss of innocence happening in the garden The innocence was restored on cavalry Because we are holding his righteousness Christ righteousness that is given to us He takes our shame our guilt I was seeing and bear upon himself And he gives us his blood to cover us his righteousness to cover us That you brought a permanent solution to what our first parents messed up And so we praise you that You are faithful You made a way Lord when you didn't have to You could have left us in this state the law. You provided a demon a savior who is going to rescue us Talk about love stories. You talk about wrote a great love story ever told. That's the gospel That's the gospel you rescue the people who self-inflicted the pains upon themselves And you suffer the death they show all we all die, but you gave us life You give us joy you restore to us in a sense Stands that we lost in Eden you restore us to yourself. It will save your craft in my prayer Amen.