The Creation (and the Fall)
The Story - How the Bible Explains Everything

Transcript

Good evening, church. I've been practicing that saying, “Good evening.” It's good to see all of you here. You know, this is a great church.

It's a great church when you can just put out the word the day before and say, you know, it looks like weather's coming. Why don't we have church on Friday night? And people get excited about being here. And I'm just really thankful for you. And as we just watched the video of 34 years, it's hard to get 34 years of blessings in four minutes and 30 seconds.

That's how long the video was that I worked on this afternoon. And I wish I could have taken two hours; it’s the hardest thing putting a video like that together of highlights of what God has done. The hundreds of people that have come to Christ and been baptized and followed Jesus, the many marriages that have been healed. The stories I could tell, on and on. But someday we'll have time, won't we?

But here it is. It's a Friday night. I promised you last week I was going to give you cupcakes, but we canceled them when the weather kept getting bad. I was like, I don't know what we're going to do with 350 cupcakes if we don't have church. And I probably should have kept a few of those.

We could have eaten them tonight, but we didn't know what we were doing. But maybe later I'll get you cupcakes. Okay, well, we're beginning. You'll be all right. But we hear some people saying, they'll be okay.

Some of the rest. Okay, I'm sorry, Randy. I'll get you a cupcake. The only reason Randy came was for the cupcakes. Okay.

Well, I hope the word of God's sufficient. Okay. I love you back, by the way. We're videotaping this for the people who are gonna watch it on Sunday. So, Randy, you'll be a hero in that story.

Speaking of stories, that's the title of this message series. Over the next 12 weeks, we're going to look at the metanarrative of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. We're going to go through the whole Bible and dip down on the major themes each week to show you how God's Word is one big story, 66 books written by over 40 human authors over a period of 1600 years. There's no other book like it.

And we're calling it, “The Story.” This story is a sweeping story. It runs from the first spark of creation to the final glory of consummation. We'll see the Bible as one unified story that has these major themes of creation, fall, redemption and restoration. And this story explains so much in our lives

if we really dig in and get to know the word of God. It explains why the world is the way it is, why there is pain and suffering in the world and why there is beauty in the world, and why there is love and why there is purpose, and why there are often seasons of discouragement, and why we can have hope. Maybe you've heard of this theory or maybe you haven't, but scientists call it by an acronym. T. O. E.

It stands for Theory On Everything. Physicists for decades have been searching for what they call a unified equation that explains the whole universe in one equation. This equation would be superior to Einstein's
EC equals M squared or whatever. I might have got it backwards. I didn't memorize it.

E something. Einstein's theory on relativity. I should have put that in my notes.

But this theory would be superior to that. But let me say this, here's the problem. Even if they find this equation, which I doubt they ever will, it still couldn't tell you why you exist. It still couldn't tell you or explain to you why creation is so beautiful that it sometimes moves you to tears.

It can't explain to you why love and hurt and loss can cut you so deeply. It can't tell you why the world feels so glorious one moment and why it's so terribly broken the next. It can't tell you where history is headed. See, science can describe mechanisms, but only a story can give meaning. And the Bible isn't just a story.

It's the story. And today we begin where every good story begins. Not with once upon a time, but “In the beginning.” Today we have a story that doesn't begin as we think it might with humanity. It doesn't begin with trouble or problems.

No, this story begins with God. “In the beginning, God.” Because if we don't understand the beginning of the story, we will misunderstand everything that comes after.

We won't understand who we really are. We won't understand why the world is so broken. We won't understand why Jesus even had to come. Genesis chapters one through three is not just the start of the Bible. It's the foundation of all reality.

If we get the beginning wrong, the rest of the story won't make any sense. But if we get it right, suddenly the beauty we long for and the brokenness we live with have an explanation, and so does our hope. From creation to consummation, the Bible tells one great story of a good and holy God rescuing his broken world through Jesus. The story begins in the book of Genesis where Moses recorded the story of how God created the heavens and the earth, creating humanity in his own image, calling it very good. Yet after humanity's rebellion, he promised them a coming offspring who would defeat the serpent who tempted them to fall.

And I believe that we can understand this story and how this redemption that God promises gives us the basis for all reality. As we look, we'll look for three foundational realities that explain our story and God's saving plan. Now, I'm not going to read all three chapters, but I'm going to take it in three bites. Okay, we'll read a little bit and then we'll talk about it and so forth. It begins like this.

1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. … (Gary Combs commentary - In the Hebrew, Bereshit, Baraah elohim et hashemyim vet ha eretz. He created, God, the heavens and the earth. B'reisheet is the name in the Hebrew Bible. If you look, it says Genesis in my Bible.

But if you open up a Hebrew Bible, it says Bereshit. In the beginning is the name of the book.) Then we go over to verse 26, Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female

he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.

You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. … 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

This is God's word. Let's talk about the three realities that this story explains, how it explains our story and how it explains God's saving plan. The first explanation, the first reality is:

1. We can recognize the beauty we long for from the creation.

He looked at what he had made, and because he had no one else to ask, he looked at it and he said, I did very well. I've created some beautiful things. But he says on the sixth day that he's made humanity. That's when he says it.

He said it was very good. You see, that's the part that we have to remember that it began as a very good world, a perfect world, a perfect creation. Notice how the story begins, “In the beginning God…” He's the first mover.

He's the primary cause. He existed before anything existed. He's the eternal one without beginning or end. He created it.
“In the beginning, God…” You might note this, that the Bible is primarily a book about God.

The Greek word, or, excuse me, the Hebrew word that we find here in this very beginning is “B'reishit bara Elohim.” This is the first name of God that's revealed to us in God's word, “Elohim.” Notice that if you were a student of Hebrew, you would notice that it has a plural ending.

Many would say from maybe the Jewish background or some other background that's the plural of sovereignty or the plural of dominion. But we believe as Christians, it's a clue of the Trinity. In fact, we move forward and we see that he speaks a certain way. In verse 26, Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

We believe we see an early revelation of the Trinity here. In fact, that's how he made the whole universe. “God said;” it's a repetitive phrase over and over again.

And God said…let there be light and let there be. And God said… he spoke the universe into existence by the power of his word. The apostle John meditates on it. And opens his gospel like this, John 1:1-3 (ESV) 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” He equates Jesus as the living Word with the Word that spoke the universe into existence.

Make no mistake, Christ has always been. There never was a time when Christ was not. He was present at creation with the Father. The Father is the authority, but Christ is the movement. He's the Word; He's the one that causes the universe to come into existence.

The book of Colossians tells us he made it for Himself.

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” You might say that image denotes representation, that we are ambassadors of God to this creation. You might say that likeness represents resemblance. That we were made to resemble him in character and in dignity.

To say likeness is to say a child looks like his Father. So we were, as the Latin says, we were “imago dei;” we were made in the image of God under him to be over the planet as stewards of his good world, with him being the king and we being the stewards under Him. We were made in his image and in his likeness to have dominion over all.

And then he gets detailed in verse 27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

And that clears up a lot, doesn't it?

And I didn't mean that as a joke. I know it came across that way, but it does clear up a lot. If we just get back to that, we can have all kinds of questions about a lot of things. But I never thought when I was a young man we would have questions about that. But we do today.

Because we are so far away from God's plan for humanity. And we continue to move farther and farther away. And so he created them. And then it says, 28 “And God blessed them.”

And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And he had this wonderful purpose for us. 31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”
And then we get to chapter two, and he says, in chapter 2, “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done,”

He finished the whole thing. And he's made mankind as the crown of creation. He's finished the heavens and the earth and all the animals and all the plants and all the fish in the sea. And the birds in the air. It's all finished.

“, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.” That rest word is “Shabbat.”

On the seventh day he held a Shabbat, a Sabbath, and there's no evening and morning here. For six days it was evening and it was morning. On the sixth day, it was evening, it was morning. But there's no evening and morning on the seventh day, because the seventh day was meant to be an eternal day. Living with God in communion in a perfect world.

A day that went on and on and on.

God has placed this longing for beauty and eternity in our hearts, yet we cannot obtain it. We desire for something that we can't seem to have. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon meditates on this and he writes, Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV) “He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” There's something inside of us that longs for something that will last.

And we seem small in our own eyes, yet God has made us the crown of his creation. It says in Psalms, David was looking at the sky and maybe you've done this. He says, Psalm 8:3-5 (ESV) 3 “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

So he made us beautiful with eternity set in our hearts. Have you ever stood looking out at a beautiful ocean or at the mountains? Some of us love the ocean, some of us love the mountains, some of us love both. I just like getting somewhere where your eyes can look all the way out, where they're not limited by something too close, too nearsighted, just where you could just relax your vision, look at God's creation, and you have a sense of awe, but also a sense of ache.

What's the ache? I wish this moment could just last forever. This evening, you know, sitting here with my wife on a deck, maybe at the beach or maybe in the mountains with a cup of coffee in our hands after a nice dinner, watching the sunset, saying could we just bottle that?

The sense of awe, the sense of ache, knowing that tomorrow we have to pack up and come back to the real world. Perhaps this is what C.S. Lewis was thinking when he said,“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Your identity and purpose are not determined by you. You don't look inward. We don't look inward to find out who we are. “Navel gazing” will not help you find who you are. Neither do we look around us to the world around us to find out who we are and what our purpose is.

We can try. That's better than looking inward, I think. But not much better. Your identity and purpose were settled at creation when the Creator of the universe said, “let us make man in our image, in our likeness.”

You want to find out who you are? Look up. Not in, not out. Up. Let's keep reading. 13 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.”

Let's find out what happened to God's good world. Genesis 3:1-13 (ESV) 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 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. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 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? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

2. We can understand the brokenness we live with in the Fall.

We can understand the brokenness we live with in the Fall. Why is this world both beautiful and broken at the same time? Note the anatomy of the first sin. It didn't start with a deed.

It started with a doubt. Just trusting God's word. Did God actually say this? That's still Satan's favorite question. He whispers it in our ear.

Is this really the word of God? Did God actually say this?

A little whisper in the ear. Did God actually say, you shall not eat? And then when she answers, if you read the whole text, you'll discover this. She adds a little bit to it. He says, you can't even touch it.

He never said that. He said you can't eat it. He never said you couldn't touch it. But she threw that in there. I'm guessing this is just me.

Sidebar. Okay. God told Adam, and then Adam told her, and he threw that extra in because he was thinking, she's going around here touching everything. It would be better if she didn't touch that. Because then if she touches it, she might be tempted to eat it.

That's just me guessing. I don't know.

God did say not to eat of it, because on that very day you'll die. Well, the serpent says in verse four. He says, you will not surely die. You want to hear a direct translation from Hebrew? Here's what the Hebrews would do to modify a word, to intensify it rather than giving it, like, an “ly” word, like surely die.

They just say the same word twice. And I like how that sounds. You will not “die, die.”

You'll die, but you won't “die, die.” And he's right. He's telling her the truth. Because the very moment they ate of the fruit, they died spiritually. And they passed on their sin gene to every one of us across the ages till today, so that we're all born spiritually dead and can only be made spiritually alive by being born again spiritually through Christ Jesus our Lord.

He told her the truth. You will not die, die. Oh, you'll die. Because the very moment that they ate of the fruit, they did see the difference. They were no longer innocent.

They were aware of good and evil, and they tried to cover their shame through human effort. And we still try that. We call it religion, we call it ritual, we call it good works. These are good things. And I guess loincloths, well, they come close to covering well, but they fall short.

That's what they did. But the worst of it is they hid. It says it in verse eight. It says they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. They had never done that.

Because sin and shame go together. And when you're broken, spiritually, when you're dead, spiritually, there's a separation between you and God. Like a chasm. And they hid themselves from God.

I like verse nine, “But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” He knew what they did.

He knew what had happened. He knows. He's omniscient. He knows all things. He knew.

He knows what we do. But he calls. We hide, we cover up. We make excuses.

But he comes looking. In verse 11, He said, “Who told you that you were naked?” Why did you hide?

He's still doing that. He's still calling us, isn't he? Have you eaten of the tree? He calls us to repentance. You need to fess up.

Just fess up. Tell me. You did it, didn't you?

Well, we see what the man does. He does what a lot of husbands still do today. In verse 12, The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me…” He's actually not blaming her, if you think about it. Let's think about that.

That woman that you gave me. Wow. Well, God, if you hadn't given me these urges, I wouldn't be acting on them. If you hadn't made me this way.

Wait a minute.

Sin is what made me this way. My rebellion is what made me this way. But I like to put a loincloth on it and call it something else and blame someone else for it.

But he calls us to repentance and truth telling so that we actually say, no, I sinned. I sinned against you. God.

That's where he's trying to bring them to now. Who is this serpent? He's crafty. He certainly is.

The more amazing thing is that he talks. Did any of the other animals talk? I don't know. You know, Eve is innocent. She's not been alive long.

Maybe she thinks all the animals talk. I don't know. I was thinking about it. I was studying this again, very closely, thinking, maybe Adam knew better. But he doesn't break in.

I don't know what he's doing. It says he's here. He hadn't said a word. That's a problem right there.

A talking serpent. He's crafty. Who is this? Well, the book of Revelation, chapter 20, verse 2, tells us, Revelation 20:2 (ESV) “And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan.”

It's a possessed member of the creation, the fallen angel, Satan. Lucifer has possessed this serpent and he's speaking. Can demons possess animals? Remember Jesus casting the demon out of the demoniac and he cast them into the swine and they ran off the cliff.

Yeah, that's what's happening here.

We see it again in the book of Revelation, referred to in the book of Revelation. We also see something here very familiar of how she responds to temptation. We have this with the original Adam and then we'll see it again with the second Adam, who is Jesus. But it says, as they were looking and they saw this food, verse 6 says,
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes,

and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,” Some have referred to this as the trilogy of temptation. If you look at Matthew 4, when Jesus went out into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, fasting, he was tempted three times by Satan. And if you think about it, the first one, it was good for food. Did you notice that?

First thing is, if you're really the son of God, turn these stones into bread. Take a close look at that. What's Jesus doing? He is the image of God. He comes and does the very thing that Adam failed at.

What Adam failed at what I failed at, what you failed at. We failed the test of temptation. We failed. Jesus passes the three part test with flying colors. And in 1 John, John talks about it.

He says, it's still out there. Satan doesn't have any new tricks. He's still got the same bag of three. Here's what he says in 1 John 2:16 (ESV) “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” First John, chapter two, “For all that is in the world,” the desires of the flesh, it's good for food.

”and the desires of the eyes,” it looks good. “and pride of life,” you'll be like God.

It's not from the Father, but it's from the world.

Now this thing is kind of strange if you think about it, because they were made in the image of God, in the likeness of God, they are already like God. But that's not what Satan was offering them. He was offering them equality with God.

And he was also saying one other thing, kind of look at it. It's really nasty what he's doing here. You will not surely die. And then verse five, you will not die.

For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you'll be like God. God's purposely keeping this from you. He's not a good God.

He's keeping you from having fun. He's keeping you from being you. He's holding back.

That's Satan's temptation.

And he hasn't changed. He was a liar from the beginning, he's the father of lies.

In Romans, chapter five, we read that sin and death are in our DNA through Adam, we are all born in sin and destined for death. Romans 5:12 (ESV) “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” We see it right there in chapter three. Now we know what the whole rest of the book's going to be working on.

In 1956, a man threw a rock at the Mona Lisa. Did you know that? Mona Lisa, this famous painting painted by Leonardo da Vinci. He threw a rock and it was before they put it in glass, they have it in glass now. And chipped her left elbow.

The pigment fell off. They had to do a touch up. Now that didn't change the fact that the Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, but it did mar its perfection. We are made in the image of God, but the image has been warped by sin. We retain the dignity that God imbued to us and we deserve to give that respect to one another, the respect of human life, and to love one another.

But to be aware, fully aware, that the image of God is marred. The pigment has been chipped.

We are masterpieces that have been vandalized by sin and rebellion.

So why do you hide parts of yourself? What are you keeping in the closet? Why do you fear being fully known?

Genesis 3 explains your life better than any therapist or self help book could.

We don't just do simple things. We are sinners, we are bent.

We doubt God's goodness. We want his gifts without his rule. And the result is exactly what we see in Eden. We hide from God. We cover ourselves in shame.

We blame everyone else. The brokenness in the world out there is real, but the brokenness is actually starting here in each of us, apart from God.

That's the deeper problem. I'm broken and so are you. And so we need a savior. And we're not finished with Genesis 1:3 yet because he's going to tell us about him too. Let's keep reading.

Genesis 3:14-15, 21 (ESV) 14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” … 21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” That leads us to our third reality:

3. We can trust in the certainty of redemption in the Savior.

In the middle of the wreckage, in the middle of the fall, in the middle of the disaster, God, in the middle of the curse on the serpent, he reveals what theologians call the proto evangelium, the first Gospel. Do you see it in verse 15? Did you see it? The first Gospel.

It's there. Verse 15, “I will put enmity (I will put hatred and hostility) between your offspring (Satan's and the woman's.) Literally, in the Hebrew, it doesn't say offspring. Offspring is a nice friendly word for modern readers.

It literally says “seed.” I will put enmity between your seed and her seed.

He's speaking of that one to come, and he says that he's a male. He says he shall bruise your head. The word bruise could have been translated as crush.

You shall bruise his heel. It also has the flexibility to say bruise or strike or crush. You will crush his head, but he's going to strike your heel. He's already speaking of the crucifixion. He's already speaking of the victory of Jesus over Satan at the cross.

He's already speaking of the virgin birth, if you will. Because if you've studied biology at all, you know that women don't have seed.

Wow. In one verse, we see the Gospel already being laid out. If you think about what the Bible is doing from the very beginning, God knows what the story is that he's writing, but it's going to be progressively unfolding until we get to the big moment when Jesus comes.

And so then we see verse 21. Well, Gary, why'd you skip over? Wow, that's like the big ending, almost. Verse 15.

No, 21. Don't miss it. 21 seems like it would just go by. But. But he says, 21 “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”

Remember, they had clothed themselves. They had covered their nakedness with fig leaves.

They had never seen death. Nothing died, no animals. I don't think they ever saw blood. Here's Eve that went from innocence like a child to now having knowledge of good and evil. And I believe the first sacrifice was performed by God in the garden when he slew a lamb.

And Eve and Adam saw blood for the first time. And they saw the cost of their sin. And they also saw the foreshadowing of a lamb that was to come, whom Satan would strike his heel, but he would crush his head.

And so we read In Hebrews 9:22 “…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” This is why you only turn a few chapters over. And we know that Abel somehow knows this and offers a better sacrifice than his brother Cain.

In 1 Peter 1:18-19 (NLT) 18 “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.”

If we only had the first three chapters, we would have a lot.

But we have so much more. And I hope you'll join us over the next few weeks as we try to follow this thread, this theme, because ultimately this book is about God, and specifically it's about Jesus.

And I look for him, and I hope you'll learn to do it as well. I look for him on every page.

You cannot sow enough fig leaves together to cover your guilt. Success won't cover it. Religion won't cover it. Being a good person won't cover it. But what God required, God provided.

Just as he clothed Adam and Eve, he now clothes all of us with Christ, and we are clothed as believers with his righteousness. And so when the Father looks at me, he does not see me as a sinner, he sees the righteousness of Christ in me, which has been imputed to my account.

In fact, it's the great exchange that on the cross, Christ took my sin and your sin, and he offered his righteousness. He took my separation from the Father. I was hiding from him in shame, covering myself, blaming others. He took my separation and said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And he took my distance from God, that I was in rebellion, that I was an enemy. And he offers his sonship so that I have the right to become a child of God. This is the great exchange that he offers his righteousness, his togetherness, his fellowship with the Father, and that we're children of God. The Bible is the story that I think explains everything. It tells us that we are more flawed than we ever dared believe, but more loved than we ever dared hope.

It's not a theory on everything, but it is a true story and God is its author. It's not even a theory, but an explanation that answers all the most important questions. It explains why we long for beauty and meaning, because we were made for another world. It explains why we experience brokenness and suffering. It's because we rebelled and we brought sin into this world so that even creation itself groans and it explains why we still have hope.

Because God's already provided a savior. Jesus Christ. You are not an accident.

Your pain is not without meaning and your sin is not beyond redemption. If you find yourself today hiding, hear the voice of God walking in the garden calling you, where are you?

It's not because he doesn't know where you are. It's because he's come to seek you and to find you and to save you.

Let's pray.

Lord, speak to hearts.

We live in a broken world, but the brokenness starts inside of each of us.

Lord, I pray for that one today that you're hiding. You've been covering up. Would you admit it today? I need a savior. I'm a sinner.

I admit it. I need help. I believe Jesus died on the cross for me, that he was raised from the grave and that he lives today. Lord Jesus, come and save me. Make me a child of God.

Come and live in me. By your spirit. I want to follow you as my Lord and savior all the days of my life. If you're praying that prayer, believing that's why He came and others are here today, maybe you're hiding something else or there's some area you're struggling with. Maybe it's your identity.

Maybe you're struggling as many do in this generation, with gender dysphoria, with some sort of sexual dysphoria. Maybe you're struggling with finding purpose for your life.

Come to Jesus. Admit your brokenness. We all are apart from him. Come to him for healing and wholeness and salvation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.