Is life just a random mixture of good and bad things? Is there an explanation for the bad stuff?
Genesis 3 describes Adam and Eve taking the fruit as they decided to disobey God and take charge of things. There are immediate consequences as they feel shame & fear, and want to blame anyone but themselves.
We’re all still hiding. But God seeks us out In verses 14-24 it's mostly God who does the speaking, because of course He's the only one who can say how it's going to be from now. He describes our world.
He speaks to the serpent about an epic conflict - the battle between humans and Satan, in a sense it's the battle between good and evil. It's a battle that will continue throughout history. We know evil but we can't defeat it.
God speaks to the woman about pain in family life. What should be love and cherish becomes desire and dominate. Family life still has great joys but from now on it will also have pain - rejections; absent fathers, angry mothers, unwanted children and cruel and violent husbands.
God speaks to the man about hard work. There's a change in man's relationship to creation. Every achievement will be costly. All the paths will be uphill.
God talks to himself about excluding man from the garden (20-23).
The ultimate curse is the separation of man from God and from the blessing of God through the tree of life. Now they would die, returning to the dust from which they were created.
You are experiencing just these things every day of your short uncertain life.
But the curse was not the end of the story
Through Jesus there is victory over evil
One man descended from Eve will crush the devil and win the victory. Jesus will be that man
Through Jesus there is an end to the pain of relationships
We get a foretaste of that in the church family.
Through Jesus' sacrifice there is a way back to the presence of God
When Jesus died it's like He opens a doorway back to the presence of God. That's why the temple curtain was ripped in two. Just like God makes Adam and Eve clothes to cover their shame, God sends Jesus to deal with our shame at the cross and now we can know God without fear or shame.
Through Jesus the earth will be restored
All the imbalance - the things that cause inconvenience and devastation will be restored in the new heavens and new earth
You can listen to the Genesis series of sermons here
Monday 19 July 2010
Friday 9 July 2010
Misdirected Love (2 Timothy 3:1-9)
A song by Marillion had these lines
Now when you climb into your bed tonight, And when you lock and bolt the door, Just think about those out in the cold and dark, 'cause there's not enough love to go 'round, No there's not enough love to go 'round.
But Paul explains to Timothy that the reason for bad things in the world between people is not a lack of love. It’s just that love is pointing in the wrong direction.
If we direct our love away from God and towards ourselves (mostly) and just a few others (slightly), then all relationships go wrong and people are boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unforgiving, slanderous, without self control, brutal, treacherous, rash and conceited.
It all starts with misdirected love. It’s the explanation for all that’s wrong in the world. We love ourselves and pleasing ourselves more than God and that’s just not natural! I so need the gospel, because self love threatens my relationships every day. I need forgiveness for my failure to love right, and instruction how to love right.
Sadly this same attitude can creep into the church. Some leaders have a “form of godliness. They are religious but it’s just an outer coating. They don’t really believe and depend on the power of God.
Beware religious gurus – teaching and preaching for the buzz of it. Beware becoming a religious groupie. Beware becoming just religious. Maybe you talk a good religion but in your heart you the deny power so you don’t pray to express dependence and you rely too much on the strength of intellectual argument.
We need the good news of Jesus Christ to tell us who to love, how to love, how to call others to love and when we fall flat on our faces He still loves us.
You can hear the full sermon here...
Now when you climb into your bed tonight, And when you lock and bolt the door, Just think about those out in the cold and dark, 'cause there's not enough love to go 'round, No there's not enough love to go 'round.
But Paul explains to Timothy that the reason for bad things in the world between people is not a lack of love. It’s just that love is pointing in the wrong direction.
If we direct our love away from God and towards ourselves (mostly) and just a few others (slightly), then all relationships go wrong and people are boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unforgiving, slanderous, without self control, brutal, treacherous, rash and conceited.
It all starts with misdirected love. It’s the explanation for all that’s wrong in the world. We love ourselves and pleasing ourselves more than God and that’s just not natural! I so need the gospel, because self love threatens my relationships every day. I need forgiveness for my failure to love right, and instruction how to love right.
Sadly this same attitude can creep into the church. Some leaders have a “form of godliness. They are religious but it’s just an outer coating. They don’t really believe and depend on the power of God.
Beware religious gurus – teaching and preaching for the buzz of it. Beware becoming a religious groupie. Beware becoming just religious. Maybe you talk a good religion but in your heart you the deny power so you don’t pray to express dependence and you rely too much on the strength of intellectual argument.
We need the good news of Jesus Christ to tell us who to love, how to love, how to call others to love and when we fall flat on our faces He still loves us.
You can hear the full sermon here...
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