Genesis 3:1-24

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 LordGod 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.” 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.”

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.”

16 To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
    and he shall rule over you.”

17 And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

20 The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Sermon Recap

God created a good world. But it didn’t take long for everything to go wrong. Though we humans were created to worship God, we rebelled against him instead. We had everything we needed but believed the lie that God was holding out on us and we sought to take matters into our own hands. The result is the broken world we experience today.

The serpent (from now on referred to as “The Enemy”) has a strategy: to make God seem harsh and sin seem harmless. He exaggerates God’s restrictions and understates the damage that can be done by sin. If you’ve ever thought, “God want’s to take away my freedom,” or, “I’m not hurting anybody,” than you know the Enemy’s strategy all too well.

There are three lies that Eve believed and we believe that result in us giving into sin:

Lie 1: My view > God’s view. Eve saw the fruit and though God said it was bad for her, she saw it as good. She failed, like we fail, to trust God’s perspective on reality over our own.

Lie 2: My desires > God’s Word. Eve wanted the fruit, like we all want sinful things. But where Eve failed, and where we fail, is that we equate our desires with truth. God’s Word is always true. Our desires are often misleading. We must trust God’s Word over how we feel.

Lie 3: God is holding out on me. Eve believed the Enemy’s lie that God was motivated by some secret self interest and that she didn’t have everything she needed in him. When we believe this lie we give into the same pattern of sin that Eve did. That pattern is as follows:

She saw. She took. She gave.

She saw the fruit, trusted her view over God’s and, instead of receiving all that God had given her, she took the fruit. Then she gave it to Adam and sin spread, like it always does. This pattern repeats itself over and over again in the Bible and in our lives. We see the thing that tempts us, we trust our view over God’s, we believe that God is holding out on us so we take, and sin always spreads.

But God, in this story, pursues the sinners, promises the One who will crush the head of the snake, and covers their sin with a sacrifice.

Our pattern is to see, take, and give sin. God’s pattern is to see us in our sin, give his Son, who takes away the sins of the world.

Application Questions