Grass Burrs in the Carpet
Gen 3:17 -18, Num 33:53-55, Prov 22:2-5, Mat 7:15-16, Job 36:26 , Psa 139:7-10, Mat 27:46
January 27, 2003
I. Long ago in the throne room of heaven a plan was originated. It was a plan that came from the thought processes of God.
A. God who was love wanted to have someone to love so he laid out a plan where a world would be created, and in that world he was going to create humans.
B. Those humans were going to be the objects of God’s love, and they were going to be created to those whom God could have a love relationship with.
C. God wanted someone to love and he wanted someone to love him because that is what relationships are about.
D. The bible says that were we created in God’s image, and that means a lot of things, and one of the things it sheds some light on is the reason that one of the greatest desires in human beings is to have someone to love, and someone to love them.
E. That is the way that God is. God wanted someone to love, and he wanted a love relationship. One of the greatest desires in every human being is the need to love and be loved and that is because we were created in the image of God, and that is the way God is.
F. So God created a man and a woman, and he put them in a perfect place. He put them in a garden, but it was not a garden like we know them today. It was a garden that had no weeds. It was a garden that had no thorns.
G. More importantly to those of us who live in Texas it was a garden in which there were GRASS BURRS!
H. It was perfect! And everyday that I have to go out and try to make a living I am a little aggravated at Adam, because when man was first created his only job was to tend a garden that had no weeds and make babies.
I. But Adam blew it, and mankind has struggled to provide ever since.
J. Adam, Eve, and the earth were cursed, which validates something that I have thought since I moved to Texas, which is Grass Burrs are from satan.
II. A part of the result of sin was thorns. Since Adam thorns have represented sin. Thorns have represented the fall of man. Thorns have represented the division in the relationship between man and God.
(Gen 3:17 - 18 NIV) To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ’You must not eat of it,’ "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the
A. What God had created perfect, man’s rebellion tainted, and man had to live with the thorns in life that sin created.
B. In the beginning God didn’t create thorns. Thorns were the result of sin. If Adam and Eve had just trusted God there would have been no grass burrs!
C. I know that in heaven there will be no sin, but if it were not that way I am sure that I would have to give Adam a dirty look if he was there.
D. Since earth is not a place of no sin, I have had some bad thoughts toward Adam when I have stepped on a grass burr in the carpet at three in the morning when I got up to go to the bathroom. Which is further evidence that thorns represent sin, because I have had some sinful thoughts toward Adam at three in the morning, because of grass burrs.
E. But thorns in a way don’t really represent sin, they represent the consequences of sin. The thorns that grew up out of the ground represent that consequences of mans rebellion against God.
F. They represent the pain that comes from sin and they represent the problem that sin creates in our relationship with God.
G. Disobedience results in difficulty. The presence of sin always creates problems. When the Israelites were going in to take the land that God had promised to Abraham God made it clear that the presence of sin among them would cause problems and he used thorns to makes his point.
(Num 33:53 - 55 NIV) Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess. Distribute the land by lot, according to your clans. To a larger group give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group a smaller one. Whatever falls to them by lot will be theirs. Distribute it according to your ancestral tribes. "’But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live.
H. Rebellion against God always results in thorns..
(Prov 22:2 - 5 NIV) Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all. A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. Humility and the fear of the LORD bring wealth and honor and life. In the paths of the wicked lie thorns and snares, but he who guards his soul stays far from them.
I. When Jesus was speaking about false prophets he even compared the lives of evil people to a thorn bush.
(Mat 7:15 -16 NIV) "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
J. Thorns always represent the consequences of sin,
III. Now let me shift gears for a minute. I want to ask you a question. What is the coolest thing about Jesus coming to Earth?
A. That is a tough question that could create a long list of answers. One of them could be that Jesus traded eternity, where there is no such thing as time, for being human where everything is bound by time.
B. The bible says that there is no way to measure time where God is concerned. (Job 36:26 NIV) How great is God--beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out.
C. One day we might be able to determine through science the first day that a wave ever hit a shore or the first time a star ever lit the sky, but we will never be able to tell the time when God was, because there was never a time when God was not.
D. But when Jesus came to Earth all that changed. When God became a man in Jesus he heard a statement that was never used in heaven, Your time is up.
1. As a child Jesus had to leave the temple because his time was up.
2. As a man he had to leave Nazareth because his time was up.
3. And as a savior he had to die because his time was up.
4. For roughly 34 years God was bound to the constraint of time, and that is pretty remarkable , but there is something even more remarkable.
E. I mean it is unbelievable that God confined himself to a body when before he was bound to nothing.
F. King David reminds us of that in (Psa 139:7 -10) Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
G. Asking where God is, is like asking a fish where is water, or a bird where is air. God is everywhere. He is just as much in Texas, as he is in Jerusalem.
H. We can’t find a place where God isn’t. But when he became a man he was imprisoned in a body. He was subject to tired muscles and sagging eyelids.
I. For more than thirty years he whose reached could span the universe was limited to the reach of a human arm.
J. Have you ever wondered if he was ever tempted to use his being God to deal with being human?
K. Have you ever wondered if in the middle of a long tiring trip if he thought about telling his disciples "Hey, lets take a short cut, and zapping them to where they ere going instead of making the long walk there?
L. Have you ever wondered if he thought about changing the weather when a cold rain was chilling his bones?
M. When the Summer heat was parching him have you ever wondered if thought about taking a ministerial retreat to the Carribean.
N. If he thought about it he never did. In the entire time that God was a man he never used his supernatural powers for personal comfort.
O. When the soldiers were beating him and spitting on him he could have thrown the spit back in their faces with a thought.
P. And, when the soldier was weaving the crown of thorns that he would wear, when the soldier was making the thing that represented the consequences of mans sin to crush down on his head he could have crippled his hands, but he didn’t.
Q. The very thing that had since the garden of Eden represented that consequences of sin, God subjected himself to wearing to the Cross.
IV. Thorns are the result of sin. Thorns represent the consequences of man rebelling against God.
A. Maybe you have never thought about it, but didn’t the crown of thorns that Jesus wore to the Cross represent the consequences of sin.
B. Didn’t the thorns that he wore dug into his head represent the consequences of our sin that dug into his heart?
C. What are the consequences of sin? Well, we describe them with words like shame, fear, disgrace, discouragement, pain, hurt, anxiety, and anguish.
D. Do you realize that those things that we face daily Jesus had never experienced.
E. Jesus never felt anxiety. He never worried. He never felt guilt, because he was never guilty! He never felt fear because he was always in the presence of God.
F. He never knew what it was like to feel the consequences of sin, that is until be felt the thorns cut into his head when he carried the consequence of our sin to die on a Cross.
G. And, when he did not only did the thorns that represent sin cut into his head, but all the emotions that accompany sin cut into his heart.
H. In one moment all the shame, fear, disgrace, discouragement, pain, hurt, anxiety, and anguish of every sin that had been or will be committed crashed down on him, and he felt the emotion of every sin that you will ever commit multiplied by the number of people that will ever live on the earth at once.
I. If you wonder what that felt like listen to his prayer. (Mat 27:46 NIV) About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
J. But that prayer was not the most remarkable thing about Jesus becoming a man,
K. And the most remarkable thing wasn’t that the one that played marbles with stars gave all that up to play marbles with marbles.
L. The coolest thing about Jesus becoming a man wasn’t that the one that hung the stars gave all that up to hang door jams for a cranky customer that wanted everything today but never could pay til tomorrow.
M. The coolest thing about Jesus coming to earth wasn’t that jesus went form needing nothing to needing air, or food, or hot water for tired muscles.
N. The coolest thing about Jesus becoming a man wasn’t that he resisted the temptation to that bunch of two-bit "Holier than thous" that tried to claim that he was doing the work of Satan.
O. It wasn’t that he kept his cool while all his friends ran out on him.
P. The coolest thing about Jesus becoming a man wasn’t that after three days in the grave that he didn’t step out on the first Easter morning and ask satan was the best punch you’ve got.
Q. The coolest thing about the one that gave up the crown of heaven for a crown of thorns was that he did it all for you!
R. The most remarkable, unbelievable, coolest thing about Jesus becoming a man and carrying the consequences of your sin to the Cross to die with Him in the form of a crown of thorns was that he did it all just for you.
V. And the only thing more remarkable than that might be that we take it for granted, and don’t live our lives in a way that honors him.
A. We don’t show our gratitude fro what he has done by being obedient.
B. We blow off coming to worship him, because we want to seel in.
C. We don’t make a point of being a witness of what he has done for us like he said we should.
D. Or maybe the most remarkable thing is that he carried even the consequences of those things to the Cross too.
E. And, maybe what we should do is the next time that we step on a grass burr in the carpet at three in the morning on the way to the bathroom is instead of cursing Adam we should praise God that he carried our thorns to the Cross, and he did it just for us.
