OPEN: A mother was telling about her 7-year-old daughter, named Jessica. She said they were re-reading the story of Adam and Eve and how sin came into the world and that led them to discuss why bad things happen sometimes, Later in the week, Jessica became ill and had to stay home from school. She was feeling miserable and she said to her mother "If only Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the fruit, I wouldn’t be sick."
Before her mother could answer her, Jessica quickly added, "But, of course, if they didn’t eat it, we’d be sitting here naked!"
INTRODUCTION: When I was back in Bible College, they taught me a principle of sermon preparation that I’ve never used. They said you should:
1. Tell people what you plan to tell them.
2. Tell them what you’re gonna tell them.
3. THEN Retell them what you’ve already told them.
Like I said, I’ve never used that technique.
It doesn’t appeal to me.
But the more I worked with this text and what I was learning from it, I realized that’s precisely what I needed to do with this sermon.
So, let me tell you what I’m going to tell you:
The theme of this series of sermons has been the stewardship of things God has entrusted to us, and the focus of this sermon had to do with stewardship God has given us of the relationships we have with one another.
One of the most significant messages out of the story of Adam and Eve is that there were consequences for sinful decisions. And one of the consequences of their eating of the forbidden fruit has been the poison that meal had on our relationships with one another. Their eating of that fruit poisoned their sin relationship with each other. But the thing that led to that damaging of their relationships with each other was the damage their sin had on their relationship with God.
My point is this: our relationships with others in this world have been broken because of what Adam and Eve did. But that damage will never be fixed until we repair our relationship with God.
ILLUS: Now, I recently read a few things recently that have helped me understand that principle. I was reading about a man who had died a couple months ago named Steve Jobs.
Does anybody know what Steve Jobs was?
That’s right, he was the founder of Apple Computer and the creator of iPads/iPods/etc.. He was a gifted creator, and much of what we’re able to do with computers and phones these days can be directly tied back to his genius.
Walter Isaacson recently wrote an authorized biography about the life of Steve Jobs where he described much of the background of the life of this computer giant. But one of the things Issacson talked about caught my attention.
According to Isaacson: Jobs gave up on Christianity at the age of 13.
Why? Because he’d seen a picture of starving children on the cover of Life magazine. Disturbed by what he’d seen, he asked his Sunday School teacher, “does God know about this?”
And the teacher responded said, “Steve I know you don’t understand, but God knows everything.”
And that’s all that teacher apparently told him.
Steve said, “Well I don’t want to have anything to do with that God.”
And he left... and never went back to church.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/steve-jobss-journey-for-enlightenment/2011/11/16/gIQAkx2BSN_blog.html
Now, why did Jobs walk away from God?
He walked away because – He blamed God
He looked at all those starving children and he asked “does God know about this?
He thought to himself: If God knew about this it shouldn’t have happned.
I God were good, this wouldn’t have happened.
He was rightly disturbed by the injustices of life.
He was rightly angry about the pain and suffering in the world.
In his young mind it was obvious: If there’s a god… why is there evil?
And so He blamed God and left the church, all because there were hungry children.
Now, fast forward 20 or 30 years. Steve Jobs became the founder and head of Apple Computer. Over the years he showed himself to be highly gifted and creative pioneer of the computer age. Last year Apple Inc. Made a net profit of $14 billion.
So, here was Steve Jobs – a wealthy and powerful industrial giant. He has power and money at his disposal to take care of any of the world’s ills he chooses to. So, now is his chance to deal with the injustices and unfairnesses of life!
And what did he do about that?
Nothing!
As far as we can tell, once he left the church he didn’t do anything to feed the poor or help the helpless!
According to a New York Times (published August 2011)
“there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity. Nor is there a hospital wing or an academic building with his name on it.”
That doesn’t mean that Steve Jobs wasn’t religious.
Jobs embraced Zen Buddhism (a religion that fittingly doesn’t worship a god, since Jobs had rejected God) and that godless religion taught him how to deal with the suffering in this world.
It taught him to ignore it.
Buddhism believes:
1. Those who suffer are only recieving what they deserve. (Karma). Those children that were hungry were only working off sins from previous life.
2. That to help the poor is good... but not too much because suffering is directly tied to desire, and if you gave too much money to the poor, you would increase their desire, which could only be disappointed because eventually the money would run out and that would increase their suffer (which is one of the greatest evils to Buddhism). Thus, the only way to reduce suffering in people’s lives is to reduce desire by not giving too much money that would increase their expectations. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me, but it does to them.
3. According to Buddhist teaching if you gave TOO much money to the poor that would NOT be a good.thing... because once you realized how little your gift would accomplish – that would lead you to suffer (bad thing) and it really wouldn’t deal with the root problem of the poor which is - their bad Karma.
So Jobs embraced a godless religion that helped him to ignore suffering.
Now, my point is this:
Steve Jobs damaged his relationship with God - walked away from Him.
And when he walked away from God he damaged his ability and motivation to help those he had once cared for. Granted, he was a gifted inventor and CEO... but the poor no longer mattered to him.
Now let’s see what our text can teach us about this concept
Reread with me Genesis 3:6-12
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I HID."
And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
The man said, "The woman you put here with me— she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
When Adam ate of the fruit of that tree, he damaged HIS relationship with God.
So what did Adam do next?
He hid from God.
His sin stood between him and God and made it so Adam was uncomfortable in God’s presence. He he walked away from God. Literally he HID from God.
Have you ever tried to hide from God?
Have you ever just not prayed because you didn’t think He’d listen to you because of some sin that you’d committed?
Or have not spent time in devotions because you uncomfortable being in His presence?
Or just ignored God in the hopes that He wouldn’t bring judgment down on you.
We wouldn’t think of “walking away from God” like Steve Jobs did, but we might try hiding.
You know, of course, that’s foolish.
You can’t hide from God’ no matter what you do or don’t do.
Proverbs 15:3 tells us “The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.”
And Hebrews 4:13 echoes that: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
So you can’t hide from God.
But even if you could hide from God... why would you want to?
ILLUS: Now, I have to admit... I have done that. I’ve tried to hide from God. At one point in my life I was struggling with a sin I wasn’t sure I wanted to confess to God. I reasoned in my mind: If I confess this sin, He may bring it up again at the judgment.
But if I DIDN’T – maybe He wouldn’t know.
Now, that’s absurd for all kinds of reasons.
I mean, after all, one SURE way to make sure God brings it up later is NOT to confess it.
But God says He doesn’t want us to hide from Him.
He wants us to come to Him and confess our sins...
He wants to forgive us and allow us start over again..
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”
Why does God want us to confess our sins?
Because God wants us to set our lives right with Him.
He knows that – until we get our lives right with Him – every other relationship we have is going to be out of whack.
But Adam didn’t do that.
He didn’t confess his sins.
He hid from God, and thus damaged the most important relationship he would ever have in this world. And the wall that his sin created between himself and God caused him to damage the relationship he had with the only woman he’d ever known.
Adam said: “It’s the woman’s fault – she gave me the fruit and I ate.”
Now, why would he do that?
Why would he blame Eve?
I mean, it was obvious he had made a personal decision to eat the fruit.
She didn’t force him to do that.
So why blame her?
I believe Adam blamed her because - once he’d shut himself off from God, God was no longer in charge of him life. And now that God was no longer God in his life... someone else had to be.
But if God wasn’t God in his life, who would be the next candidate?
Why, Adam of course.
Adam was now the final authority of his life.
One person described it this way. He said people will draw a ring around their lives and declare themselves “Lord of the Ring.”
And that’s what Adam did.
But the problem with us being “God” is that you can’t be God in your life if you’ve got faults and have sins. You can’t be God if you’re imperfect.
Now there’s only two ways to be “Perfect” in that case.
1. You can get forgiveness from God (which Adam didn’t do)
2. OR just refuse to accept the idea you’ve done anything wrong.
So, if there’s something wrong in your life it isn’t YOUR fault
It’s someone elses.
· A person who’s just thrown a fit and cursed like a sailor will say: “I wouldn’t have cursed if that person hadn’t been so mean to me “
· A student who fails in one of their classes will explain: "It was my teacher’s fault because he wasn’t a very good teacher.” Or “She expected too much of me."
· A married man who has an affair with a co-worker tells his wife will tell her "If you had been a better wife to me, it never would have happened."
Translation: It’s NOT my fault... it’s your’s. It’s theirs. It’s anybody’s fault but mine!
ILLUS:: One poem I read summed up this kind of thinking:
“I went to my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed
To find out why I killed the cat and blacked my husband’s eyes
He laid me on a downy couch to see what he could find
And here is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind:
When I was one, my mommie hid my dollie in a trunk
And so it follows naturally that I am always drunk
When I was two, I saw my father kiss the maid one day
And that is why I suffer now from kleptomania
At 3, I had the feeling of ambivalence toward my brothers
And so it follows naturally that I poison all my lovers.
But I am happy now I’ve learned the lesson this has taught –
That everything I do that’s wrong is someone else’s fault.”
Laura Schlessinger has noted: “The modern day excuse for (bad) behaviors is this:
"Considering my hurts, disappointments and traumas, I CAN’T be responsible for the havoc I wreak in the lives of others or the mess I’ve made of my own life."
People try to do this all the time.
You’ve done it... I’ve done it.
We’ve all tried to maintain our “sinlessness” by shifting the blame to someone else.
And we’ve all tried – in our own little way - to be God.
But we’re not.
We’re not qualified.
We DO sin.
It IS our fault. It is your fault. It is my fault.
And that’s what is what lies at the heart of what the real problem is in this world – SIN.
ILLUS: M.R. DeHaan II told of watching TV coverage of an earthquake in Mexico City
He said “ I remember sitting in front of our television set stunned by the extent of the damage.
Mountains of broken concrete filled the screen.
Rescue workers dug frantically.
Fires raged. Smoke and dust filled the air.
Then suddenly in the lower left-hand corner of the screen appeared the words "Courtesy: SIN." The letters S-I-N actually stood for Spanish International Network, but for a moment it meant something different to me. It reminded me that in some way all trouble, pain, and suffering can be traced back to the problem of sin.”
And most specifically to the sin of Adam and Eve.
That little 7 year old girl we talked about at the beginning of the sermon had it right. There were consequences to Adam and Eve’s choice. They had been placed in a perfect world filled with life and joy and when they chose to disobey God they brought despair and destruction and death down upon themselves and upon all the rest of us.
The problem in this world is SIN.
That sin has damaged our relationship with God.
And that, in turn, has led to the damage that has taken place in our relations with everyone else in this world. And until we deal with sin, we’re never going to heal our own suffering... or that of others.
In Genesis 3, God showed us how we start dealing with sin.
We begin by dealing with our own sin.
We deal with it by having God forgive us of our sins.
You see, once Adam and Eve sinned, God didn’t turn His back on them.
Granted, He punished them for their sin, but Genesis 3:21 tells us God covered their sin. God covered the nakedness that resulted from their sin
It says “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
God covered their nakedness.
And what did He use to cover that nakedness?
Animal skins.
Where did God get those animal skins? Did the animal just volunteer their skin?
No, an animal had to die.
God offered the first sacrifice for man’s sins there in the garden.
And the Bible tells us that God offered last sacrifice on Calvary for OUR sins (yours & mine)
It’s only when we accept that sacrifice and allow God to mend the damage sin has done to our relationship with Him that we can begin to fix the damage sin has done to all our other relationships.
But that still doesn’t answer Steve Jobs original question.
If I had been Steve Jobs Sunday School teacher I’m hoping I would have been wise enough to answer his question in a way that would have changed his life for the better. I’m hoping that maybe I could have said something like this:
Steve would ask “Doesn’t God see these children?”
“Yes, Steve, God sees those children. And He hurts for them. I don’t know why these children are hungry. I don’t know why they suffer like this. Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble. He told us the poor will always be with us. So, I don’t know why this is happening. But Steve – this much I do know: If we who believe in Jesus Christ make it our goal to be God’s hands and feet we could make a difference for these hungry children. I believe the reason this picture troubles you so much is because God wants YOU to do something about it. If we belong to Jesus, God wants us to help these children. Will you do that with me Steven?
I tell you what let’s do. I want us to start a fund to send money to missionaries there in Africa. They can feed the children AND they can talk to them about Jesus and the hope they can find in Him. Will you do that with me?
I would hope that I would have been smart enough to talk to him that way. Because the only way Steve Jobs would have been able to help solve the injustices in this life would have been for him to first solve his relationship with God.
Once God changes us, then we will have the ability to change the world.
CLOSE: A bone-weary father dragged into his home dog tired late one evening. It had been one of those unbelievable days of pressure, deadlines, and demands. He looked forward to a time of relaxation and quietness. Exhausted, he picked up the evening paper and headed for his favorite easy chair by the fireplace. About the time he got his shoes untied, plop! into his lap dropped his five-year-old son with an excited grin on his face.
"Hi, Dad. Let’s play!"
He loved his boy dearly, but his need for a little time all alone to repair and think was, for the moment, a greater need than time with Junior. But how could he maneuver it?
There had been a recent moon probe and the newspaper carried a huge picture of earth. With a flash of much-needed insight, the dad asked his boy to bring a pair of scissors and some transparent tape. Quickly, he cut the picture of earth into various shapes and sizes, then handed the pile of homemade jigsaw puzzle pieces to him.
"You’ll tape it all back together, Danny, then come on back and we’ll play, okay?"
Off scampered the child to his room as dad breathed a sigh of relief. But in less than ten minutes the boy bounded back with everything taped perfectly in place. Stunned, the father asked: "How’d you do it so fast, Son?"
"Aw, it was easy, Daddy. You see, there is this picture of a man on the back of the sheet. And when you put the man together, the world comes together."
(Charles Swindoll, “Strengthening Your Grip”)
