#4 - Becoming Unconnected: Genesis 2-3

jeff — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:23:43 GMT

Becoming Unconnected

¹⁵Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. ¹⁶The LORD God ^acommanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; ¹⁷but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not ¹eat, for in the day that you eat from it ^ayou will surely die." ¹⁸Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; ^aI will make him a helper ¹suitable for him." ^{19 a}Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the ¹sky, and ^bbrought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the ¹sky, and to every beast of the field, but for ²Adam there was not found ^aa helper ³suitable for him. ²¹So the LORD God caused a ^adeep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. ²²The LORD God ¹fashioned into a woman ^athe rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. ²³The man said, "^aThis is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; ¹She shall be called ²Woman, Because ¹she was taken out of ³Man." ^{24 a}For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. ^{25 a}And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.



Ephesians 2:1-5 And you ¹were ^adead ²in your trespasses and sins, ²in which you ^aformerly walked according to the ¹course of ^bthis world, according to ^cthe prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in ^dthe sons of disobedience. ³Among them we too all ^aformerly lived in ^bthe lusts of our flesh, ¹indulging the desires of the flesh and of the ²mind, and were ^cby nature ^dchildren of wrath, ^eeven as the rest. ⁴But God, being ^arich in mercy, because of ^bHis great love with which He loved us, ⁵even when we were ^adead ¹in our transgressions, made us alive together ²with Christ (^bby grace you have been saved),

avpe,qanon verb indicative aorist active 3rd person plural [Fri] avpoqnh,|skw (and avpoqnh,skw) impf. avpe,qnh|skon; fut. mid. avpoqanou/mai; 2aor. avpe,qanon; (1) literally, of natural death die, suffer death (MT 22.24), opposite za,w (live, be alive) and me,nw (remain, abide); of plants and animals decay, die (JN 12.24); (2) figuratively; (a) of not responding to something due to separation from it have no part in, become dead to (RO 6.2); (b) of spiritual dying as the separation of the soul from God lose (eternal) life, die (JN 6.50); (3) of being subject to death as a human being be mortal (HE 7.8); face death (1C 15.31)

Thesis: We must acknowledge our depravity and its effects on us. (At the fall our fellowship with God was fatally broken (like a child separated from their Father). From this springs a hostload of consequences. Instead of relying on God and His power, here we learned many sinful, flesh-driven coping mechanisms to survive which have an effect on the quality of our life) .

I. Intro

A. Why, if Christians are God's children and have God's Holy Spirit within us do we experience negative emotions such as jealousy, fear, guilt, shame, anger, depression, anxiety and the like?

1. We all experience these emotions as normal emotions during our lifetime.

B. Did God create us to be like that? Sounds pretty cruel if so.

1. Let's do a little test and count how many of these negative emotions there are before the fall of man when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

2. Let's read Genesis 2:7-25 and note any negative emotions which you find.

3. Did you find any?

4. Now let's read Genesis 3:1-13 regarding the fall of man and let's see if we can find any negative emotions such as fear, shame, guilt, anger, etc there.

5. Did you find any now?

II. We must acknowledge our depravity and its effects on us.

A. State

1. Before the fall (Genesis 2:15-25 which describes conditions before the fall)

a) Notice first of all that Adam had fellowship and a relationship with God.

(1) God provided for their needs - their physical needs by giving them food to eat (Genesis 2:9), their emotional needs by giving man to woman & vice versa (Genesis 2:18), and their psychological needs by giving them purpose in tending the garden (Genesis 2:15).

(2) Man on the other hand helped God by working and tending God's creation - the garden, the animals, etc (Genesis 2:19)

b) Notice that Adam and Eve were not ashamed even though they were naked. (Genesis 2:25). This negative emotion was not present pre-fall.

c) There is no hint either that man is fearful of God before the fall. This negative emotion also was not present pre-fall.

2. After the fall (Genesis 3 describes conditions after the fall)

a) As God had promised, the relationship between humans and God died (ceased) when they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's what Genesis 2:17 says will happen. "when you eat of it you will surely die". Spiritually man died. God wasn't talking about Adam's body dying, but His spirit. God is much more concerned about our spirit than our body. The relational ties were severed. Man was cut loose and was now living independently of God.

(1) This is big. We must understand what this means that we died spiritually.

(2) Ephesians puts it this way, "

(a) Ephesians 2:1-2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

(i) First, Paul is writing to the Christians at the city of Ephesus. In Ephesians 2:1 he says that before they became Christians their sins caused them to be dead to God(a) what does it mean to be dead? The next verse tells us.(ii) Ephesians 2:2 says that dead means that the spirit that controlled our life before we came to God was a spirit of disobedience toward God.

(b) What does this mean?

(i) Ephesians 2:3 says, "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature {3 Or our flesh} and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath." (ii) So, being dead means that when we are without Christ, we are controlled by sin - our desires and thoughts are under the power and influence of sin! In other words our desires and thoughts follow a sinful spirit, not the Holy Spirit of God.(iii) Let me translate this because a lot of important things follow from this.(a) First, it means that when you were born Adam's sin and transgression was passed on to you. Therefore, we come into the world dead to God and under the power of sin and of Satan (called the prince of the power of the air in v. 2) (see also Galatians 4:3; Col. 1:13). That means we naturally rebel against God and disobey him. (b) God has set up some rules for us to live by and we are set on breaking them - that is until you become a Christian as verse 4 describes - but that's next week's message. BTW look at any infant and you will soon realize that they are selfish and only looking after their own needs. You will never see an infant give his bottle of milk or drink to another infant who is crying because he doesn't have one! In fact you see the opposite - one infant taking another infant's toy! They are programmed to be selfish - the essence of sin.(c) Also, we are totally unable to change ourselves from rebellion against God. Spiritually dead men don't raise themselves from the dead. They must be spiritually raised from something outside them (compare John 3:3).(d) Finally, we are exposed to the just anger and judgment of God (verse 3; Romans 1:18-20).

3. The lasting effects of the fall

a) The fall was big. We are all still struggling with the lasting effects of the fall - Christians as well as non-Christians. If we fail to understand what happened at the fall and what the ramifications of it were for us then we will fail to understand who we are, how we are struggling and how we can fight against our fleshly tendencies.

(1) Some merely think that man just needs to correct his external behaviour through various means whether it be education and knowledge, through training or discipline or any other method. If man would just pull himself up by his own bootstraps and try hard enough to be good then everything will be alright. We'll talk about that next week but according to what we've learned so far that is the biggest deceit yet.

b) I'm still struggling with the effects of the fall in my life. And I suspect you are too since as far as I know none of you have reached perfection???

c) As I've shared before, one of my greatest struggles is with overworking or in other words work-acholism. I have the disease. My Dad has it , my brother has it and my sister has it too. It's been passed down in our family. As I look back on my family I suspect my grandfather had it too.

d) Hebrews 12:1 says,

(1) Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

(2) Work-acholism is the sin that easily entangles me. I have to work. It is linked with my self-worth and self-image. This is a deeply rooted, evil tendency in my life that can consume my life and damage my family and others around me. It is a thing that goes way back in my life and my family. And only something that reaches deep down into my life can untangle it. And that something is Jesus (wait until next week for that sermon!).

III. Conclusion

A. The distortion that sin leaves on us can be found everywhere. If you have eyes to see it you can see how much we are shunning God's plan for His creation. Just look at the news:

1. a recent article in the Times noted the recent increase in teenage anti-social behaviour - teen violence, teen pregnancies (England has the highest in Europe), etc.

2. Right here in Darwin Park the Multi-use games area had to be closed because of noise pollution from late-night teenage drinking and carousing.

3. the decline in marriage is also now getting attention as being a social weakness. A recent Times editorial again noted that government statistics gathered over the last 6 years showed

a) "that couples who cohabit are dramatically on the rise; that their children do less well at school, leave education earlier and have a higher risk of developing a serious illness; and that children thrive if their parents are married. These are facts and despite what one might think about marriage …"

b) this is the effect of the fall - a disobedient attitude toward God's way of living. The fall explain the statistics well - when you live outside of God's will there will be consequences for all of us.

B. If you've ever seen "The Matrix" (the first one) you may remember the conversation between Morpheus and Neo at their first meeting. Morpheus says something like

1. Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

2. Neo: The Matrix?

3. Morpheus: Do you want to know what IT is? The Matrix is everywhere. … It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

4. Neo: What truth?

5. Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind....

C. Regardless of what the film writer meant, it is a good illustration of what happened at the fall - man become a slave to sin and from then on nothing in life seemed quite like it should be.

D. Next week we will talk about what Christ has done to reverse the fall. Stay tuned.

For questions, comments or further information contact:Rev Jeff Fry
Darwin Park Community Church

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