The Oldest Game In The World Series

The Oldest Game in the World

Genesis 3:11-13

Rev. Brian Bill

March 4-5, 2023

Do you know what the most popular game is right now? Could it be World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Warzone, or Fortnite?

Or for another generation, maybe your guesses would be Monopoly? Risk? Bunco? Scrabble? Battleship? Chutes and Ladders? Perhaps it’s fantasy baseball with the Cubs winning the World Series? Oh, that is a fantasy, isn’t it?

Actually, it’s none of those. The most popular game in the world is also the oldest game, and it has been played by every human being ever born – it’s called the Blame Game, and most of us are experts at it. The problem is that this is not just a game – it has ruptured relationships and fractured countless families. The Blame Game lives in our spiritual DNA.

After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, sin’s first consequence was shame, so they tried to cover up by sewing some itchy fig leaves together. After this, they heard the Lord God walking in the garden, so they cowered and ran for cover. The shame of their sin caused them to hide from God’s holiness. Just a short time earlier they enjoyed intimate fellowship with God but now the fruit of disobedience brought distance and dissonance between them and the Creator.

After covering up and attempting to conceal themselves, in verse 9 we see God’s searching heart as He called out to Adam, “Where are you?” Don’t you love how the Good Shepherd always looks for lost sheep? God comes to the guilty couple and instead of driving them away, He drew them out with grace and mercy. Last weekend we celebrated how God loves to seek sinners and longs to save them.

This is a good place to pause and explain how we understand preaching at Edgewood. In short, we allow the Scripture text to determine what is preached. Our preferred method is expository preaching, which presents the meaning and intent of a biblical text through the study of grammar, context, and the historical setting to provide commentary and examples which make the passage clear and understandable. I want to know what the Bible means before I focus on what it means to me. Our aim is to preach the Word and apply it to our world, trusting the Holy Spirit to change lives. Or, as we say on our “On Mission” radio program on Moody Radio, “Go deep in God’s Word and keep applying it to your world.”

Because we’re going through the first chapters of Genesis, we’ve addressed the existence of God, creationism, the sanctity of life, gender issues, marriage, the historicity of Adam and Eve, how temptation works, the slippery slope of sin, and the seeking heart of God. This weekend our focus is on how we often evade responsibility by blaming everyone but ourselves when we sin. If last weekend was about God’s grace, this weekend is about God’s truth.

That leads to our text for today. Please turn to Genesis 3:11-13: “He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”

After reflecting on this Scripture, I wrote down this summary: The shame of our sin often leads us to shift the blame. Don’t play the blame game; own it by name and avoid the shame.

God continues to draw Adam and Eve out of hiding with two questions in verse 11. The first was indirect and was designed to stir up Adam’s conscience to elicit a confession: “Who told you that you were naked?” This is a rhetorical question designed to help Adam link the shame of being naked with the guilt that comes from disobeying God. Our culture is so quick to demean guilt but true guilt from God is a gift which prepares us for God’s grace.

The second question follows immediately and is more direct: “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The word order in Hebrew intensifies the question: “Did you, from the tree, which I commanded you not to eat from, eat?” God was inviting Adam to acknowledge that his shame was a direct result of his sin so he would confess.

God was reminding Adam that when he ate of the tree, he was deliberately disobeying the one clear command given in Genesis 2:17: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” As we will see, Adam was very uncomfortable answering these questions. He’d rather shift the blame, minimize what he did, and make himself out to be a victim. Instead of running behind a tree, they hid behind five excuses, which are still very common today.