Increasing Your Quality Of Life - Genesis 3:7-24 Series

Today I want to talk to you about quality of life. Quality of life is an issue that we mention a lot in life. If you are struggling with a terminal disease, for example, and you’re trying to wrestle with trying a treatment like chemotherapy or something, one of the questions asked is it’s a quality of life issue. What do we do in this situation.

If you’re working on economic development or in third world countries or things to help them, you’re trying to improve their quality of life. Three things you’re looking for is healthcare, you’re looking for economic opportunity, and you’re looking for education. Those are three things designed to improve quality of life in a third world country.

When it comes to quality of life in the United States, all the states are listed according to their rank of quality of life to see where your state fits into the picture. The one on the top, number one, is Washington State. So apparently living in Washington State offers the best quality of life. I know you’re wondering where New Jersey is. New Jersey is number twelve. That’s not too bad considering there’s fifty states, so that’s encouraging.

But I want to talk specifically about personal quality of life and your quality of life because you can increase your quality of life today and I want to show you how to do that. In fact the Bible has a lot to say about quality of life. The Bible is about quality of life. So we’re going to look at some scriptures and try to understand a little bit more about what that means and what that looks like in very practical ways.

In fact in order to understand quality of life in the Bible, there’s two words that are going to help you – the word ‘life’ and the word ‘death’. Now we usually think of those as living and dying. But in the Bible they are often used to refer to a quality of life that is living or a quality of life that is death. So you can choose a quality of life that’s death or a quality of life that’s living while you’re still alive. So the Bible talks a lot about that. And when the serpent comes to Eve and says, “Oh you won’t certainly die,” that is a big statement that the serpent is making trying to question Eve. And every time we question sin we think we’re increasing our quality of life, but in reality we’re doing great damage to ourselves in decreasing that quality of life. I want you to see that. In fact let me show you some verses from God’s word that use the word quality of life in this sense when it talks about life and death.

In John 10:10 it says (Jesus is speaking) – I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. So He’s talking about a quality of life.

Proverbs 18:21 and most of the time in the book of Proverbs when the word life and death are used, they’re used to describe a quality of life. In other words, if you’re wise, he’s saying in Proverbs, your quality of life is going to increase. So he says in Proverbs 18:21 – The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. The tongue is this power of life and death. That doesn’t mean you’re going to lick someone to death. What it means is that you’re going to have these words that come out of your mouth that can either bring life to someone or it can bring death to them. It’s a quality of life issue.

Deuteronomy 30:15 Moses is saying to the people – See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. So the word life and death are used for this quality of life. A significant way to understand and look at these ideas as we’re trying to understand a personal quality of life ourselves.

Now last week we talked about the temptation of Eve and what that temptation looked like. I called that sermon “Never Have a Discussion with a Talking Snake.” So just talk about how the temptations take place. This week the title of the sermon is “Increase Your Quality of Life.” Now we’re going to do that by understanding a little bit more about life and death and what actually takes place when Eve and Adam sinned.

So go with me into the Bible in Genesis 3:7. Let’s read this and we’ll take this verse by verse and understand what’s happening. Because the first thing that happens is spiritual death. That’s what takes place. Notice what it says there. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 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.