The Seed Of The Woman Series

A Sunday school was putting on a Christmas pageant which included the story of Mary and Joseph coming to the inn. One boy wanted very much to be Joseph; but when the parts were handed out, a boy he didn’t like was given the part, and he was assigned to be the innkeeper instead. He was pretty upset but didn’t say anything to the director.

During the rehearsals he thought about what he might do the night of the performance to get even with his rival. Then, on the night of the performance, Mary and Joseph came walking across the stage. They knocked on the door of the inn, and the innkeeper opened the door and asked them gruffly what they wanted. Joseph answered, “We’d like to have a room for the night.”

Suddenly the innkeeper threw the door open wide and said, “Great come on in and I’ll give you the best room in the house!” For a few seconds poor Joseph didn’t know what to do.

Thinking quickly, he looked inside the door past the inn-keeper then said, “No wife of mine is going to stay in a dump like this. Come on Mary, let’s go to the barn.”

And the play was back on-track. (Brian Harvison, May 29, 2008, www.SermonCentral.com)

Wow! That young actor knew how to recover from what could have been a real disaster.

Sometimes, life surprises you and you are faced with certain disaster. So how do you recover from such surprises? How do you recover even if the disaster is a result of your own failure and sin? How do you recover from a fall?

Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 3, Genesis 3, where we see how God invites the first human beings to recover from their fall. Their original sin brought ruin to themselves and to the entire human family, but God offers hope for recovery, not only for them, but for all their descendants, even for you and me!

Genesis 3:8 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 (ESV).

They had sinned against God and now they are scared.

Genesis 3:9-11 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (ESV)

Tell me: Do you think God asks these questions, because He doesn’t know the answer? No, of course not! God knows exactly where Adam is. God knows exactly what Adam did. Why then does He ask? It’s because God wants Adam to openly confess his sin. Does Adam do it?

Genesis 3:12-13 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.”

Do they openly confess their sin? No. They both play the blame game. In fact, Adam has the audacity to blame God Himself. In verse 12 he says, “The woman whom YOU gave to be with me” – she did it to me. Then Eve blames the serpent.

Now, that is NOT the way to handle it when you mess up! Yet that is what a lot of people do. They blame others for their failures, or they make excuses.

According to a recent (2018) Career Builder survey of more than 1,000 HR managers, excuses for being late to work are essentially the same in every industry. The most common excuses are traffic (51 percent), oversleeping (31 percent), and weather (28 percent).

However, the most unique excuses include: “I was here but fell asleep in the parking lot;” or “my fake eyelashes were stuck together;” and “an astrologer warned me of a car accident on a major highway, so I took all back roads.”

Perhaps, the most unique excuse was from a person who said, “I had morning sickness.” The only problem was that excuse came from a male employee. The Washington Post article that reported on the survey noted, “One thing is for sure: innovation is not dead in America.” (Gene Marks, “The Boss Has Heard Them All: The Craziest Late-to-work Excuses,” The Washington Post, 3-26-18; www.PreachingToday.com)

People have creative ways of excusing their sin, but it seldom if ever works. No! When you fail, don’t make excuses. Just...