At the end of Genesis 2, everything had been going great for Adam.
Adam and his wife were enjoying the created realm and living at peace with their Creator.
But by the end of chapter 3, everything had changed.
Our first parents had now been removed from the garden with a fiery sword preventing their return.
So what happened in Genesis 3?
And what are the implications for the rest of humanity?
That will be the focus of today's study.
Your average man, the man on the street, so to speak, has no idea the cataclysm that his
sins have placed him in. No idea, no concept. In the marketing world, the word sin has actually
become a good thing. This chocolate bar is sinfully delicious, right? Sin has been utilized
as a word, a synonym, a euphemism for something desirable, something good, something that you
should want. And because that's true, because we're in a culture that drinks down sin like
it's water, then when someone comes to you and says you're a sinner, you go, yep, what about it?
They say, well, that's a problem. Really? Oh my. And then they think, well, if it is a problem,
well, here's the thing. If I'm a sinner and there is a God, well, the way I can appease this God is
just by doing enough good deeds to offset the sins that I've done. So if you get the man on the
street to understand that he's a sinner, that's not the hard part. All of us know that we've broken
the laws even of our culture, let alone of our God. The problem is we don't know what to do about
it, and we don't know why God cares. Your average man doesn't understand the cataclysm he's in.
You know, years ago in the first great awakening, there was a man, there was a pastor. His name was
Jonathan Edwards. And Jonathan Edwards preached one of the most famous sermons, if not the most
famous sermon of the past 500 years. Remember what it was called? Sinners in the hands of an angry
God. If we put that on a banner up by the street, you think people would respond? You think they'd
line on up to come on in? Probably not. Why? Because none of that sounds terribly desirable.
Now, if we put on a banner, come in to get your best life now, well, that sounds much more
appealing. Nevertheless, in the 1700s, you have Jonathan Edwards. He preaches a sermon called
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, probably the most polarizing sermon title known to man,
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. But rather than people just running away or blocking up their
ears. Rather, God used it in the time of the great awakening to teach people something that their
hardened, seared hearts had forgotten, that they have a problem. Jonathan Edwards spoke. A better
way to put it, Jonathan Edwards' preaching style is he just read it. He looked at his text and just
read it. But God, through Edwards, spoke in such a way that those who heard this sermon, when they
heard the danger they were in, and what Edwards would say is things like this. He would say that
All of mankind hangs on the thinnest of strands over the deepest of pits.
When he said that, there were men and women in the midst who had never heard that before.
And many openly fainted at this concept that they had a problem.
Culturally, they'd forgotten that they have a problem, that there is a God.
Guess what? This God is greater than you.
Guess what? This God has given you laws that you've broken.
What are you going to do about it?
culturally, the answer is, as long as I'm better than Hitler, right? We can accept that hell exists.
We can accept that someone's got to be the sinner in the hands of an angry God, but we think there's
like a dozen people in hell. You know, Idiot Man, Hitler, you know, fill in the name of the politician
you don't like, that they're the ones consigned to that abode, to that pit, that hell's reserved
only for the really bad of the bad. We think if hell exists, it exists to judge only the most
depraved and only the most wicked. With that said, we think the rest of us, as long as we're
graded on a curve against them, we're going to be okay. And that even if we say, yes, I've sinned,
you've sinned, we all accept that, but we don't think that that's that huge a deal. As long as
we're better than those guys over there. As long as grandma likes me, I'm good. If grandma likes me,
if my mom likes me, if my dog likes me, surely, surely God will like me too. Surely. Newsflash.
God liked Adam just fine.
How many sins did it take before Adam was cast from God's presence?
One.
The wages of sin is death.
When you look at the text, it's not plural.
The wages of sin, singular, is death.
Here's a question for you.
How many times have you sinned?
What are you going to do about it?
That's what Edwards put to the people.
What are you going to do about it?
Do you have any idea what hell is like?
Do you have any idea the cataclysm that awaits you?
Do you have any idea what it's like to be a sinner standing in the presence of a holy God?
Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah was the most holy guy, most holy dude of his generation.
If Isaiah walked in the room, we'd all be like, oh wow, Isaiah.
Isaiah, he's something else than Isaiah.
Isaiah was the most holy man of his age, the most desirable, righteous, godly man walking.
And yet, when Isaiah, this paragon of virtue, entered into the presence of a thrice holy God,
in Isaiah chapter 6, what happened next?
Isaiah fell down.
And this is what he said.
He said, woe is me.
I'm a man of unclean lips.
I live among a people of unclean lips.
I've done all manner of things wrong.
And now I've seen what holiness is.
And because of that, I fall down prostrate as a sinner.
if Isaiah couldn't make it? What's our hope? In this morning's text in the fall, we have to
have a close encounter with our problem. If you don't understand your problem, why will you care
for the solution? In all seriousness, if you don't care about sin, you don't understand sin, you think
sin is the chocolate bar, you think sin is just something benign or small or what have you. If you
don't understand your problem, why would you esteem, why would you value the solution that God gave us
in the personal work of his son. Why would you value God's own son's blood poured out on Calvary
if you don't understand why it needed to be poured out to begin with? In today's text, we see why.
We see why it was poured out. We see the first sin, and as we look at the first sin, we can apply
its lessons to our sin. And then, God willing, before the morning ends, we will also see that
although there is a sword that blocks access, blocks the way, blocks the path to our God,
to our King, to our Creator, that God has made possible our approach through Christ.
All right, let's look at verses 1 through 3 once again,
then we'll work our way through the balance of the text as our time will allow.
Verse 1,
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field with which the Lord God had made.
And he said to the woman,
Has God indeed said that you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Notice what he says.
And the woman said to the serpent,
We made the fruit of the trees of the garden.
but but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden god said you shall not eat of
it nor should you touch it lest you die all right one of the predation predatory characteristics
of a snake is the degree to which it stalks its prey if you look at certain animals in the kingdom
if they see prey they just move they're right on it but snakes not necessarily snakes are clever
and crafty. They're masters of timing. They'll often wait in ambushes. That's why so many snakes
just wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. So one of the predatory characteristics of snakes
is that they observe their prey. They don't necessarily rush right in, but when they strike,
they strike to kill. They strike to kill. Now, with that said, here we have a serpent.
Here we have a serpent in the garden. Now, what options did this serpent have? You got the serpent,
you got Eve. What options did the serpent have to cause harm to Eve? Well, if you and I wander,
I don't know, 200 yards in that tree line, we're bound to find a snake there somewhere.
And when snakes want to mess with you, typically they do one of two things. They'll either just
bite you, they'll bite you, and they'll sink their fangs into you. Or if the snake is bigger,
they'll attempt to wrap themselves around you, cut off your life flow, and kill you that way.
With that said, this serpent does neither of those things.
This serpent does something worse.
This serpent does something far more deadly.
Rather than strike, rather than bite into the calf of Eve,
rather than attempt to wrap himself around the neck of Eve, what does he do?
He spoke.
The serpent opened its mouth, and words tumbled out.
And from the very first word, we see a lie.
Look what the serpent asks there in verse 1.
The serpent says to the woman,
Has God indeed said that you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Now, was that true? Was that true?
Think about this.
Every tree in the garden, God had made all manner of good trees.
God had made the apple tree and the orange tree and fill in the blank.
All the trees that you love, they were there.
And Adam and Eve could eat from any of them.
So no, serpent, that's not what God said.
God said we could eat from the trees, and Eve corrects him.
you'll notice that Eve corrects him. She says, no, we can eat from the trees, but there is that one,
that one tree, that one we're not supposed to eat from. Well, that says the serpent right from the
get-go, he uses his words, it'll be no different when he comes for you. When the serpent, the snake,
the devil, evil, whatever you fill in the blank, whatever you call that spiritual rim of darkness,
when it approaches you or when it approaches your children, it comes not with a clown with a red
balloon in a sewer, not with a scary monster under the bed, not with those things. Evil will come to
you with words from smiling faces. Evil will come to you with words. Evil will come to you telling
you something that differs from what God has said. Evil will come to you with probing questions that
are intended to lead you off on the path of that which is right. When evil comes for you, it will
come with statements that directly contradict what God hath said. When evil comes for us, it comes
for us with words. In this particular case, the serpent's words are a competing hypothesis.
God has said, you shall not eat from the tree, otherwise there are consequences, and the serpent
says, nope, nope, nope, nope, not so much. You see, here's the thing, Eve, come here, come here.
Here's the thing. If you eat from this, it's not going to be what God has said. See, he just doesn't
want what's best for you. If you eat from this tree, oh, it's going to be great. You're going to know
some things you don't know now. You want to know things, right? You're going to know things you
don't currently know. You'll know good and evil and the like, but you'll also, you're going to
be like God. And that's the reason he doesn't want you to eat. That's what he says here. You will be
like God. God doesn't want that. He can't have that. So he tells you don't do it. But between
you and I, what do you think you should do? Well, let's see how that turns out. So Eve corrected
him, verses one through three. Let's see how the serpent continues to spin his yarn. Verses four
through seven. Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. You will not. For God
knows in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open. That sounds good, doesn't it? Your eyes will
be open and you will be like God. She must have gone, oh, that sounds good. You will be like God,
knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that was pleasant to
the eyes, newsflash, most sin looks pleasant to the eyes. Most sin is things that you're going to
want to do. When she looked at this, and it was desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit
and she ate. And she also gave it to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of
them were opened. The serpent was right about that. They were open, and they knew that they
were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together, and they made for themselves covering. All right,
as I said before, in verse 4, we see the pattern of attack that the devil continues to use to this
day. The devil continues to attack that which is true, that which God has said, and says the exact
opposite, or something that perverts or poisons that which has been given to us by God himself.
That will not change in the time yet to come. If there are old heresies, there are heresies because
they violate what God has spoken. If new heresies should come, there are also heresies because they
violate what God has spoken. In either case, that's the primary tool that the devil likes to use. He
attacks the veracity, the truth of what God has said, and he also, in this case, attacked the
motivation by which God had said it. You see that? It wasn't enough for him simply to critique the
truth claims of God and offer a competing hypothesis like one scientist and another
scientist. No, no, no, no, no. What did he do? He critiques the motivation by which God said it.
God doesn't want you to have this. God doesn't want you to have what's good for you. Oh, he's
a skinflint, that God. He doesn't want you to know these things because if you partake, you'll be
like him, and he can't have that. So he not only critiques truth, but he critiques the motivations
of God here. Now, in verses four through seven, we can learn a few things about sin that are helpful
for us. Number one, sin causes us to think that good outcomes can exist outside of God's will.
How many times have you done something, partook in something, thinking that would be good for you,
even though you know, strictly speaking, it's not God's plan, right? How many people are
cohabitating? They know they shouldn't. They know that's not the way God has said, that's not the
way it's supposed to work, but they say, you know what, but the benefits, the benefits, the benefits.
How many times do we do that? Fill in the blank. There's all manner of sins we could just point
out right now. We could spend the whole time just pointing out sins and saying, look how we do this.
God says X, Y, Z, but we look at our world, we look at our own lives, our own circumstances,
and we say, I know what God has said, but if I just do this, I can achieve a greater outcome
than if I was to, strictly speaking, do what God has said. That's the root of every sin. That's
clearly the root of this sin in Genesis 3. The idea when we sin is that we'll get something that's
good for us or that we want over and against what God wants for us. Why? Because oftentimes we think
we know better, at least in our own circumstances. We think that this applies in the big picture
to all y'all, to all of us. But we think in my circumstances, you know, my circumstances are so
unique. If God only knew this relationship, this thing I want. If he only understood that he'd see
it's okay. So that's what we do. We think good outcomes exist outside of God's will. Sin also
causes us to think that God withholds something good from us. That somehow maybe God is just a
skinflint or a prude or a cheapskate or whatever, fill in the blank. We think God's withholding
something that we want or need and that we could take it, we should take it. The fruit was right
there. It wasn't hard for her to grab it. It wasn't hard for Adam to bite it. The only thing
standing in the way of them doing so was God had spoken. But sin causes us to think that when God
speaks, sometimes he was withholding something that would otherwise benefit us. Sin also causes
us to trust our judgment rather than his. To look at his truth claims, to look at his commandments,
and then to look at our circumstances and go, okay, I think I can cherry pick which is a better
fit for me. For me, this is where the concept of carnal Christianity comes from. People don't mind
the idea of being saved. They don't mind the idea of a genie God being up there that answers prayers
sometimes. They don't mind Christianity in the way abstract. What they do mind is when this God
gives them laws, and they look at those laws, they say, those laws conflict with how I want to live
my life. Therefore, I will do laws 2, 4, and 10, but these other ones, maybe not so much. Again,
and that's what Eve did. There's no sign here that she ran through the garden doing all manner
of other things wrong. She cherry-picked, but she cherry-picked the one thing that God had told her
don't do. So sin causes us to trust our own judgment. Finally, we see in these verses,
sin leaves us in a worse position than when we started. Every sin that you've ever committed
has left you worse off for having committed it. Now, does that mean that sin can't be pleasurable,
enjoyable? Well, of course not. Sin can be pleasurable. Sin can be enjoyable. However,
if you could only look at the pleasures and the enjoyments and the benefits, so to speak,
from those sins and compare that with the costs, some of which you'll never understand on this side
of glory, or the ways in which that sin impacts or harms not only you, but still others, some of
which you'll never understand on this side of glory, if you truly did a risk-reward ratio,
if you looked at it through spiritual eyes, you would run from every sin you've ever committed.
But sin causes us to think that we know what we're doing, even though it leaves us in a far
worse state than when we began. All right, so let's look in this case, what happens next? What's the
response? They partook. God said, don't do it. The serpent says, go for it. They gave in. What happens
next? Let's look at verses 8 through 13. And so they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in
the garden in the cool of the day. Let me stop there for one second. How did they know the sound
of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day? How did they know that was the sound? Because
he'd done it before, right? If a kid is misbehaving upstairs in the bedroom, and then they hear the
floorboards creaking, and there's a sound coming down the hallway, they know what's coming.
Well, here, they knew the sound. They knew he was coming. So they heard the sound, verse 8,
of the Lord God walking in the garden of the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. That's the first time they'd ever
done that. Verse 9, then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? God knew,
but he still asked. Verse 10. So Adam said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid
because I was naked. And so I hid myself. And God said, who told you that you were naked? Where'd
you come by this knowledge? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you? Not suggested.
It's not the 10 suggestions, but have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat
from? Verse 12. Then the man said, the woman. Oh, look what he does. He throws Eve under the bus
immediately. The woman, the woman, the woman you gave to be with me, it's not only her fault. You're
the one who put her here. Look what happened next. He throws her under the bus and he sort of throws
God under the bus too. The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and so I ate.
In verse 13, and so the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done?
And the woman said, the serpent, the serpent, the serpent deceived me and so I ate.
All right, as we said a moment ago, in verse 8, Adam and Eve hear this familiar sound,
a familiar sound, but they respond in an unusual way. They hear the familiar sound, a sound in the
past that they would have run to. Hey, God's coming. Let's go meet him. Let's talk with him.
Let's spend some time with him. But this time when they hear him coming, they don't respond in that
way. They respond in an unusual fashion, a fashion that they'd never responded in the past. They hide.
Right from the get-go, you see sin that doesn't help you out a whole lot. If sin's first reaction
after you sin is to prompt you to be shamed and not feel like you deserve or should engage in
proximity with your maker, that should be a hint that sin is bad. If you do something at home on
your computer, in your discussions, whatever, and your reaction is shame, that reaction is the
equivalent of Adam hiding in the garden. You feel that searing flash of, I've done something wrong
and God's going to be angry.
Well, let's look at what happens from this.
In verse 8, Adam and Eve, they hear the sound,
they respond by hiding.
As a side note, this is the first time
Adam had ever experienced fear in God's presence.
There was a whole wave of emotions that hit Adam
that he didn't know about in the past.
And as we said last week,
something that's interesting here
is sometimes when this tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
when it's discussed or depicted,
sometimes it's discussed or depicted
as if this tree contained like this magical elixir,
like you bite into the fruit
and it's like there's this, you know, poisonous arsenic that starts winding its way through your
system. I don't think that's the case of this tree at all. I don't think they knew good and evil
because of some magic potion in the fruit itself. I think they knew good and evil experientially.
They had known good before, but now, now through rebellion, they knew evil. Now through rebellion,
they knew what evil was because they'd experienced it firsthand, and their response is to run,
to hide. As a note for you and I, don't know evil. Let me dive into that just briefly.
There's a lot of things in media and culture, there's a lot of sin opportunities out there
that if you partake in, you will know some things that you didn't previously know,
but they are not things that are good for your soul. There's things that if you watch,
you may receive entertainment out of it. You may learn some things you didn't otherwise know,
data sets you didn't otherwise have by engaging in certain things, but there's certain things
God doesn't want you to know. There are certain experiences God doesn't want you to have.
And you have to have the wisdom to say, this experience, this choice, this thing,
do I desire my eyeballs and my ears to process it, or would I be better off if I didn't?
The short answer is you're better off abstaining from sin rather than indulging in it. Whatever
of the cases, these two, Adam and Eve, their reaction when God calls them on this, they
experientially, they finally knew what evil was because they'd experienced it and they were written
head as a result. When God found them, their first reaction was to blame anyone but themselves,
to blame others for the sin. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent. So that was number one.
We tend to do that too. But that was the first thing they did. The second thing, well, the thing
they didn't do was they didn't repent. There's no sign here that they were like, oh, mercy me.
We've messed up. I sure hope you have a plan to save us. Nothing like that. There was no repentance.
There was simply casting the blame on others. All right, let's look at verses 14 through 21.
So now we have the verdict. Now we have the verdict. They know they're guilty. God knows
they're guilty. The guilt is established. We get the verdict in verse 14. So then the Lord said to
the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, more than every beast
of the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I
will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. And depending which
translation you're using, you'll notice that seed is capitalized there, and there's a reason.
So he says, I'll put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed,
he shall bruise your head. It's a reference to someone specific. Your seed and her seed. Not
just mankind as a whole but there is one he is established in the next verse he shall bruise
your head and you shall bruise his heel god tells the serpent you will strike at this one you will
strike at the seed you will strike at him the one who is coming you'll strike at this one you'll
nick his heel but your head will be crushed beneath it this is the curse we see here then
verse 16 he talks to the woman to woman he says i will greatly multiply your sorrow and your
conception. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband. He shall
rule over you. Then to Adam he said, because you've heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from
the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for
your sake, and toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you
shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are,
and to dust you shall return.
So Adam called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them.
All right, in verses 14 through 21, Adam learned two new words.
Two new words that he didn't know before.
Two new words that meant nothing to him, previous.
He learned the word curse, and he learned the word pain.
Again, there's some things you don't want to know.
Adam learned.
The devil was not wrong about that.
Adam did learn some new stuff as a result of biting this tree, but these are not things
that he wanted to know. He now would know the word curse. He would now know the word pain.
Now, what would be cursed? Well, you've seen this, everything. Everything would be cursed as a result
of Adam's first sin. So, sometimes we think that, well, the sin affected just Adam. You know, Adam
paid the price for his own sin, and the rest of us are kind of on our own with God. Well, if you
think that, that's not historically the understanding of Scripture. Scripture and the church have long
taught that Adam was the federal head, the representative for the rest of us. He was the
first Adam. I sure hope a better Adam comes along, as we'll see in the pages of Scripture. But he was
the first Adam. And his sin, his sin, his choices, they're passed on to us. So we're affected through
the fall of Adam. But it isn't just we that were affected. It's everything we see in the world
around us. Why do you think there's COVID? Why do you think there's pandemics? Why do you think
there's hurricanes that wipe people off the face of the map? Why are these things here?
There's no sign of him in Genesis 2.
There's no sign of that stuff, diseases and cancers and these sorts of hardships.
There wasn't even thorns and thistles in Genesis 2.
But in Genesis 3, God says, now, your sin is so significant,
this one sin, which functionally was just the biting of a piece of fruit,
this one sin, this one rebellion is so significant
that not only are you cursed, Adam, but the whole of the created cosmos
will bear the effect of what you did.
And that's why not only the evils that we see in mankind,
but also the brokenness we see in creation itself,
it's why it all exists, because of one sin.
That's why all of creation groans, Paul wrote,
all of creation groans for the day of redemption.
All of creation, the entire universe, groans for the day
when that which is wrong will be made right.
But that which is wrong happened here.
In Genesis 3, you don't think sin's a big deal?
Dear heavens, look at its fruit.
Look at what has happened as a result of one sin.
and then stop and remember how many times you've sinned.
The greater you understand your problem by rightly understanding Genesis 3,
the greater you will long for this seed, for one to come to fix things,
for one to come to crush the serpent, for one to come to restore that which is right,
for one to bring us back into the garden, for one has the means to part the sword
that blocks the way and to usher us in.
The more you understand the problem, the more you'll desire the solution,
which is why we're honest about the gospel with both.
We share the problem.
So in sharing the problem, we can greater magnify the solution,
the personal work of Christ.
All right, let's look at the last three verses, and then we'll wrap up.
Verses 22 through 24.
Then the Lord God said,
Behold, the man has become like one of us.
That's also capitalized, at least in the New King James.
It's a trinity.
The man has become like one of us to no good and evil.
And now, lest he put out his hand, take from the tree of life,
and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him
out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken.
And so he drove out the man, and he placed cherubim
at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword
that turned every which way to guard the way to the tree of life.
If you were to look back at the last verse in chapter 2,
everything was going great.
But by the last verse in chapter 3, it couldn't be worse.
Mankind is now thrust out from the garden that held the tree of life.
Now, in the book of Revelation, we understand that the tree of life still exists.
Where is it?
It's in heaven.
You see in Revelation, the tree of life is there.
With that said, how can we approach it?
How can we approach it?
How can we approach this tree?
What are the options?
Let me close this morning by reminding us of our hope.
You know, the best two words in the English language,
at least when strung together,
the best two words in the English language
when utilized together are these two words,
Genesis 4.
Now, why?
Why is that?
Well, here's the thing.
Your story could have ended in Genesis 3.
In fact, not just your story, but all of humanity,
all of existence, everything.
God could have rolled up the cosmos like a scroll
right then and right there,
and he would have been just to do so.
You understand this? He said, I gave you one shot at this, and you didn't even go one chapter before
you ate from the very tree I told you not to, and I told you the consequences, and here they are,
death and expulsion. That's it, and that's all. That could have been it. The Bible could have
been a three-chapter book. It wouldn't have had anyone to read it, but that could have been it.
Genesis 3. However, the good news for you, and for I, and for Adam, and Eve, and all that followed
are these two words, Genesis 4. You see, God looked down at Adam's fallenness, and he's looked
at your fallenness. He's looked at your sin, just as he's looked at Adam's sin, and he says,
I have a plan. I have a plan to fix this. I have a plan to make things right.
And that plan is this, that although you have sinned, I will send one. I will send one to pay
the penalty to die the death, to suffer under the curse in your stead. You have a problem. God looks
down on mankind and says, you have a problem, but I have a solution. That solution, which was
determined for the foundation of the cosmos itself, that solution was that God would send his only
begotten son. His son would come down. He would live the perfect life. He would live the life that
you and I should have lived. He would not fall to the temptation. When Jesus was tempted in Matthew
you for. When the serpent came for him, what did Jesus do? Jesus stood firm. Jesus did what Adam
didn't do. The second Adam is better than the first. The second Adam is also better than us.
Jesus never once gave in to all the temptations that were thrown at his door. Not once. He lived
the perfect life, and then after living the life that you and I should have lived, he died the
death that we should have died under the wrath of God. However, because God saw his only begotten
son paying the penalty that was due for you and I, he now accounts you and I as righteous. The two
imputations, your sin was placed upon Jesus, but also his righteousness was placed upon you. And
because of that, when God looks at you, when God looks at you in spite of all your sinfulness,
in spite of all your errors and failings and flaws, when God looks at you, he now sees you
through the prism of the robe of his own son, the white robe of righteousness. He now sees Jesus
in you, so to speak. This morning, we've said before, whenever we talk about the gospel,
if you were to go to heaven, and you got to the gate, it won't happen this way, but let's say it
did. Let's say you get to the gate, and someone stops you there and says, why do you deserve to
go in? Tell me why do you deserve to go in? You know, some traditions say, you know, St. Peter's
there guarding the door. I don't think it works that way, but let's say someone asked you,
why do you deserve to go in? What's the right answer? We start with the premise that I don't.
Peter, you got the wrong question.
I don't deserve to go in.
I know who I am.
I know what I've done.
And as I look through the sliver into heaven itself,
I know I don't belong there.
I don't deserve to go there.
I haven't merited it.
Dear heavens, I merit the exact opposite.
But, and you point around Peter,
but you see that one on the throne?
He died in my place.
My faith is in him.
And I'm not saved because of anything I've done.
I deserve death and condemnation because of what I've done.
But, like the thief on the cross, I present my faith to my king.
Faith is the singular means by which we have hope.
Faith is the singular means by which we're saved.
We're not saved by our works.
You're not going to offset your good deeds from your bad.
You're not judged on a curve, by which as long as you do more things that are right in God's eyes, he'll let you in.
In Genesis 3, we've seen it doesn't work that way.
One sin was enough to cancel the whole project, so to speak.
One sin was enough to throw the whole universe into chaos.
You and I have sinned far more times than that.
So our hope is not that we'll offset things
on the ledger of heaven.
Our hope is not somehow I'm gonna appease God
by doing something right tomorrow
and then he'll have to let me in.
Our hope is not that.
Our hope is to point to the one on the throne
and say because of who he is
and because my savior lives, I have hope.
My faith is in him.
My faith is in who he is
and my faith is what he has done on Calvary.
And because of that, I can not only enter in,
but I can enter in boldly.
That's what Hebrews says.
This morning, if you're a sinner,
I guess join the club.
From Adam Ford, we all are.
But our hope is not in Adam.
Our hope is in the second Adam.
This morning, my invitation, my encouragement to you
is to turn to this one, not through your works,
not through this ledger sheet of balances, but through faith.
Turn to the person and work of Jesus Christ through your faith,
and you'll find that is the singular means
by which you will one day grace his golden shores.
Let's pray.