Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
How you feeling? Well, I'm glad you feel that way
because I want to welcome you to Debbie Downer Sunday.
Everybody clap your hands. Yeah, Debbie Downer, if you're
not familiar with this wonderful human being, everyone's having a
great time. And then Debbie Downer shows up
and brings everybody right down into cringe, like, you know what
I'm talking about. Like, you're at a gender reveal
party, which is all the rage. I guess we just had kids.
But what? Not kidding.
So the pink, pink confetti flies out of the balloon.
And Debbie Downer, you can hear off to the side.
You're like, well, it's a girl. One day she'll experience the
pain of childbirth and stretch marks.
I'm trying to do the Debbie down her face, but I'm smiling too
much or you're at a wedding. We were at a wedding yesterday.
A bunch of us here. We went over to north of
Brooksville, saw Camille Turner get married to Ryan Hughes, now
Mr. and Missus Hughes. That was fun, beautiful,
wonderful. Praise God and Debbie Downer
would stand up and like, well, here we are at the toast time
and I'd like to tell you that 43% of marriages end in divorce.
So good luck with that everybody.
Let's raise a glass, right? Well, just at the height of
something good, Debbie Downer brings it all down.
Genesis chapter 3 is the Debbie Downer chapter of Scripture.
It's just the truth where we ended last week in understanding
the book of Genesis where faith begins.
There are first facts and faith found in Genesis.
If you want an answer to any question in life, you can find
it in Genesis. And where we ended last week is
saying that all of created life, especially humanity, all of the
creation of the earth, fits together with God in this one
sentence. This is the plan from the
beginning. If you missed last week's
message, go watch it. But this is the plan.
God's intent is to dwell, to rest with humanity here on the
earth. It's his created temple.
He spent seven days creating this inglorious place that he's
then put us in the center of. And he also put Eden, which is
like his throne room. And he said, hey, we're going to
hang out here forever. This is where our story begins.
He set up the perfect place. Then he gives us the keys and
the instructions and says, hey, don't wreck it.
And it was beautiful, it was peaceful, it was good.
We ended last week Genesis chapter 2, verse 25, where Adam
and Eve are naked and unashamed in front of God.
And it's not about physical nudity as much as it's just
about being present without any cares with the Lord, with each
other, no sin, no shame, no condemnation.
It was perfect. The entire meta narrative, which
is this overarching story, the thread of the entire Bible, is
this plan fulfilled. God wants to see this plan.
His intent to dwell with us here on the earth fulfilled.
God with us, us with God in perfect union, in a perfect
place. This is the plan, right?
Yeah. But Houston, we have a problem.
Debbie Downer's about to arrive. 3 chapters into the Bible, the
devil appears. But note this for later and for
a Hallelujah later. 3 chapters from the end of the Bible, the
devil disappears forever. Amen.
Three from the beginning, three from the end.
Genesis chapter 3 is where we're going to be today.
If it's not apparent to you, if you need a Bible, raise your
hand. If you got a Bible, flip quickly
to Genesis 3. It's the second book in the
Bible. First you have table of
contents, then Genesis. Just making sure you're paying
attention. Genesis chapter 3.
Anyone else need a Bible? We'll get those to you right
now. We're going to read the first 13
verses aloud here. And faith comes by hearing in
that of God's words. So soak it in, John, you got it.
Here we go. Verse one.
Now the serpent, which to be clear is the devil was more
crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.
The devil said to the woman, Did God really say, that's how I
picture him speaking, You must not eat from any tree in the
garden. The woman said to the serpent,
Well, we may eat from the fruit trees in the garden, But God did
say, you must not eat from this one tree that is in the middle
of the garden, and you must not even touch it, or when you eat
from it, your eyes will be opened.
And oh, I skipped a line, didn't I?
Must not touch it or you will die.
Verse four Look at what the devil says.
God makes a promise. If you eat of it, you will die.
And the devil says you will not certainly die.
The serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat
from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like
God, knowing good and evil. Verse 6 The turning point of all
of humanity. When the woman saw that the
fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye,
and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate
it. She also gave it some to her
husband who was with her, and he also ate it.
Then the eyes of both of them were open and they realized they
were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and make
coverings for themselves. The man and his wife heard the
sound of the Lord as he was walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God, which you
can't do among the trees of the garden.
But the Lord God called to the man.
Where are you? And as you probably heard in the
message that Pastor Preston preached here months ago, he
said this isn't a location question.
Where is your location, but where is your heart?
God knows where they are. He's omnipotent and omniscient
and omnipresent. He knows everything.
Verse 10 Adam answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was
afraid because I was naked, so I hid and he said, Who told you
that you were naked, that you now know the knowledge of good
and evil? Have you eaten from the tree
that I commanded you not to eat from?
The man said the woman, You put me here, she made me do it.
She gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.
And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you've done?
And the woman said, he, the serpent made me do it and I ate.
Specifically, the serpent deceived me and I ate it.
That's why to this day we know of the serpent Satan as the
great deceiver in Genesis chapter 3.
We've moved from creation to corruption.
We've moved from ruling, caring for the earth to rebelling
against God, and everything that flows from this moment is a
disruption to the plan. The plan was God, his intent to
dwell and to rest with humanity here on earth.
Now the image of God has been distorted and sin and all of its
outflow, death has entered the picture.
Don't raise your hand, but is anybody here hurting today?
You feel broken. It all goes back to this moment.
But here's the good news. And the title of today's message
is we. We're broken.
But as you see in Genesis chapter 3, we're not abandoned.
And this is the good news of the gospel.
We are broken, but we are not abandoned.
Somebody say Amen. So how did Adam and Eve get
there? And to put it into proper
perspective, how are we still getting there today?
They got to a certain decision that brought in corruption and
death. And we are still making
decisions today that bring in corruption and death.
How'd they do it? How do we do it?
Let us add to our learning today.
Let us seek God for wisdom. For in Genesis 3, we will see
what people call the sin cycle. We see it in Genesis.
If you read to the Old Testament, you'll see it
repeatedly in the people of God who are supposed to be following
after the Lord. This repeated sin cycle, we see
it still in our hearts today, if we're being honest. 5 steps in
the sun cycle. That all begins with doubt.
Everyone say doubt. Yeah.
The opposite of faith is not fear.
The opposite of faith is doubt, disbelief.
And here is the most cunning and crafty of all the animals, who
is a schemer and a deceiver, and he's come to plant seeds of
doubt in our mind about three things.
First of all, he gets us, wants us, like you did with Eve, to
doubt the word he says. Did God say basically saying to
Eve? Did he say it right or did you
hear it right? And did you notice that the
devil made God's command more restrictive than God made it?
God said don't eat from one tree.
The devil said don't eat from any of the trees.
Trying to make God sound worse than he is, and he isn't bad at
all. Do not eat from any tree in the
garden. What he is getting us to doubt
here by doubting the word is to doubt the authority of God.
This is where the devil begins. Is God really the ruler?
Is God really the king? Did God really say, does his
word stand up in the garden and in Central Florida?
Then he gets us to doubt the wisdom.
To doubt the wisdom is to doubt the why behind the word.
There is a reason that God has said to not eat from the tree,
the from the fruit of this one tree.
I shared it last week. I'll share it briefly here.
God says don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, for when you do that, you will think that you're God
because you have all the information, the knowledge of
good and evil. The problem is your knowledge
comes with limited power, limited ability, meaning humans
make great humans but make terrible gods.
And when you think that you can take the place of God, it's when
things begin to unravel. God essentially saying don't eat
this from this tree. Let me be God and you be you.
It's a perfect relationship. All of His commands have
reasons. All of the rules of God,
including the one here in the garden, were to keep the plan,
The plan I want to be with you. Perfect union in a perfect
place. God's intent to dwell with us is
kept by keeping the rules. And by the way, they're not
rules. They're standards by which to
care for the earth and care for one another and to care for the
Lord. Doubt the word, doubt the
wisdom. And the third thing he gets us
to doubt is God's way. He says you certainly will not
die. Note this from the beginning.
What got what the devil is trying to teach us is that God
doesn't keep his promises. God doesn't stick to his word.
God doesn't stick to his way. It's the devil's message from
the start. The devil wants you to believe
that God is not holding you up, but he's holding you back.
I'm just going to kind of convince you that what God's up
to is not right, and what he even said is not going to
happen. Don't believe it.
I don't know if you ever consider the consequences of
what you're about to do. And it's the devil always
sitting there saying, well, it won't be as bad.
They won't hurt that much or even blind you to the outcomes
of what might happen based on a decision.
This is all the work of the enemy that's happened since the
beginning. God's not really going to do
that. They'll be real.
No consequences. Doubt leads us to the second
part of the sin cycle, Deception.
Everyone say deception. Yep.
They're all going to be DS because that's what preachers
do. Alliteration.
It's one of the classes at seminary.
Everything must. Yeah, whatever.
Deceived because of our appetites, because of the things
that we lust for. Philippians chapter 3 says that
this way, their destiny is destruction, Their God is their
stomach, and their glory is in their shame.
Their mind is set on earthly things.
We see 3 appetites with Eve, which means we see 3 appetites
with all humanity. The appetite for the flesh, our
physical desire. The serpent convinces Eve that
the fruit is good for food, appealing to her physical
hunger, seeking to satisfy her with something other than God.
This will take care of your flesh.
That's what you need. Appetite of the eyes.
This is visual allure. This is beauty.
We saw that the fruit was a delight to the eyes.
Fanciful. It draws her in because of its
appealing appearance and the worldly pleasure that it
promises. Like, whoa, look at that.
Looks good. Mm.
Hmm. Anybody you ever feel this way?
Last night, I'm staring at all the desserts on the wedding
reception table. They were all appealing.
Yeah, appetite of the flesh, appetite of the eyes, and
finally appetite of pride. The serpent promised Eve that
eating the fruit would make her like God, knowing good and evil,
appealing to her pride, appealing to all of our pride.
The desire for self governing, wisdom and independence from
God. Believe this.
The devil wants us to act independent from God.
That's his deception. You don't need him.
You can become like him. You are able just eat of the
fruit. This is the devil's folly from
the beginning. In heaven, before the earth was
created, Satan tried to become like God, and God cast him down
like lightning. There's only one God.
Pastor Kim said it earlier. There might be a lot of Lords
and kings, but there's only one Lord of Lords and one king of
kings. Amen.
I just stole what you said, Pastor Kim.
Yeah, they only clap like 5%. So I want you to know that Satan
used these same 3 avenues of temptation against Eve, later
against Jesus. Matthew chapter 4, Luke chapter
4 look a lot like Genesis chapter 3.
Satan, after Jesus has gone to the wilderness, led by the
Spirit, by the way, the Holy Spirit putting Jesus through a
season of testing. And if the Holy Spirit will lead
Jesus to a season of testing, what might that mean for us?
Yeah, we're going to talk about Abraham a little bit later in
the series. He also was led to a season of
testing. So here goes, Jesus into the
wilderness. And the wilderness there is like
desert, no food, no water for 40 days.
And then along comes the devil. Here comes the serpent again,
and the first thing he does is temps hungry Jesus in the
wilderness saying, if you are the Son of God, tell these
stones to become bread. Just eat the fruit.
Go ahead. Next, Satan, show Jesus all the
kingdoms. This is Matthew chapter 4.
All the kingdoms of the world and their glory in this dazzling
vision right before Jesus's eyes.
Look at all of that. And he offered them all of this
dazzling vision right before Jesus's eyes.
He says you can have all of it, Just bow down and worship me.
Appetite of the flesh, appetite of the eyes.
And finally, Satan tempts Jesus with the misuse of his divine
identity, saying if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down
off the pinnacle of this temple. He's twisting the scripture
Jesus of the Bible when he does it.
But he also is trying to suggest to Jesus, why don't you do this
spectacular self exulting display?
Throw yourself off here and live.
It's pride, flesh eyes, pride, the same old devil, the same old
tricks. Look with me at first, John
chapter 2, verse 16, because to this day is still the same.
Go ahead for everything in the world.
Look at these three. The lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life comes not from the Father,
but from the world. We see it in the Old Testament,
in Genesis from the beginning. We see it in the temptation of
Jesus in the New Testament, and we see it in Illuminate Church
in 2026. Lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, the pride of life. Eve with Adam, they yielded to
the devil's deception, bringing both sin and death to bear.
We following suit in our carnal thinking, we earn the same
reward. But Jesus fully resisted
securing victory and righteousness for His people.
Somebody say glory to God. Deception born of doubt leads to
Part 3. Disobedience.
Everyone say disobedience, deception will drive us forward
from desire to decision. When the devil has deceived us
or we've deceived ourselves, a desire rises on us that causes
us to decide to go against the plan.
James chapter one verse 14. But each person is tempted when
they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin
when it is full grown, gives birth to death.
Starts is just a thought, just a seed planted by the deceiver,
just enough doubt, just enough deception, just a little Ting.
This is why we are encouraged by Scripture to take every thought
captive. For a tempting thought is like a
wildfire set a blaze and a wandering heart.
And before you know it, and against your better judgement
and even against what you really want to do, like Paul states in
the Bible, I have done the thing I do not want to do and based in
doubt and deception. Now I am disobeying, which means
I'm not following God's best plan.
Which often leads to our next stop on the sin cycle, disgust.
In this moment, our eyes are opened, as God points out.
We realize that we're naked. We're exposed.
They're shame, disgust over having disobeyed.
It's in this part of the cycle that the enemy moves from
seducing us to shaming us. How dare you do the thing I
seduced you to do. Now God really is mad at you.
God really, really thinks poorly over what you just done.
You low down dirty shame. No good.
How dare you and step into a church.
My, my, my. And then in verse 7 we see the
first act of religion. I don't mean religion as in
adhering to a dogma or doctrine of a faith.
I mean religion in man's attempt to appease the wrath of God by
their own methods, Man's attempt to manage the sin, man's attempt
to cover the sin. Fig leaves and hiding.
This is man's attempt to fix the problem.
It's not going to work. It doesn't work.
God still sees their sin though they're covered in fig leaves
and hiding. He sees it all.
And disgust finally leads us to the last part of the sin cycle,
destruction. This is where shame turns into
sabotage and leads us, drives us back to did it?
Was it up there, there? Doubt.
That's why it's a cycle and not a linear with a stop.
After we doubt and we're deceived, we disobey.
We feel terrible. And then in our terrible feeling
the shame, the whole process starts again.
God, why can't I beat this? I doubt that you exist.
I doubt that I'll ever get well. I doubt that something's ever
going to change and I'm hurting and I need to fix.
So I stopped hurting, deceived. And the next thing you know,
right back to Step 3 over and over and over.
If you've ever dealt with this sin cycle in your life, I'm
going to count to 3 and I want you to stand on your chair.
OK, We won't do that, But I'm just saying we look at this and
we see ourselves. Let me I look at this and I see
myself and the results of the sin cycle are quick and
devastating. In Genesis 3, we read of the
curse and I'm not going to read the entire section of the curse.
I'm just going to summarize it here.
But God says to them, where are you?
The truth is Adam and Eve are lost.
That's where they are. They're lost.
The plan has been disrupted. They are off course of what has
been intended for the snake. God says you're going to eat the
dust, you're going to crawl on the ground for all of your
existence, which is incredible because the devil was trying to
exalt himself high and God put him low for the woman.
He said that you will have pain in childbirth.
Any ladies ever had a baby. Have you experienced this part
of the curse. It's still a blessing to have
children and he also says and your desire will be for your
husband. A lot of husbands are like
sounds like a blessing. What God is saying is here is
your desire will be for your husband's position and the
husband's position if you read in Ephesians is to be the leader
in the home that serves the home the same way that Jesus Christ
served the church, not driving it and domineering, but giving
his life and servant and service of his family.
Jesus for the church husbands, dads for their families.
And what we see in the American church, or maybe the church
worldwide, is men abdicating this position and women leading
the home because the men won't or don't.
It's not an order. It's part of the curse.
And to the men, he says, you will have thorns and thistles
and work the ground. In other words, you will toil
and it will be painful. All of the thorns and thistles,
reminders of the costs of sin. In fact, the pain that we feel
on the earth, any pain that we feel on the earth, it's
represented here in the curse, but it's also truly experienced
by Adam and Eve and us to this day.
All of it are meant to be helpful reminders that outside
the plan there is brokenness. This is why Jesus weeps at
Lazarus's tomb, for no human was supposed to die and now one of
his closest friends is dead and in the tomb and he even knows
I'm about to raise him from the dead.
So why would he be crying about a dead man he's about to raise?
He'd be like, hey, I'll watch this.
Instead he's weeping because it's never meant to be that any
human we ended up in a hole in the ground.
Pain is always a reminder that our current situation was not
supposed to be how it is, but thankfully there is a cure.
We are broken but not abandoned. We are hurting, but we are not
without hope. Somebody say Amen, here's the
cure. Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 we
read of the first messianic prophecy in all of scripture.
Messianic meaning savior deliver prophecy meaning forth telling
one day a Messiah is coming. Messiah.
Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, God is speaking to the snake and he
says I will put enmity, warring, fighting between you and the
woman, between your offspring, devil and her offspring, which
will be of course Jesus. He Jesus will crush your head
and you will strike his heel. Don't know if you've seen the
movie The Untouchables. It's an old movie now.
I guess it used to be old movies were John Wayne movies.
Now, old movies are Sean Connery movies.
And Sean Connery is sitting in a church speaking to a government
official about how to attack Al Capone and the fight that's
happening with the gangs and and the prohibition, all this stuff.
And he says this famous line, he says they bring a knife, you
bring a gun, meaning they're going to wound you, but you're
going to end them. And Jesus said it first before
Sean Connery and his beautiful Irish accent, so yummy.
God said it first. He said, hey, the devil's going
to bring a knife. But Jesus, he's going to end the
devil. Amen.
Go ahead. All of this is played out in
Revelation chapter 12 and following.
But the war begins and earnest between the dragon and the
woman. Go read it, Meditate on it.
The prophecy fulfilled. You can know that this story,
this prophecy, is true based on the history that we have
available to us. Actual factual history.
What nationality has been warned against?
Has genocide been spoken over more than any other nationality
on the earth? Now obviously we think of the
Holocaust, we think of recent wars, seven day war.
But I'm talking even before Jesus was on the earth, a spirit
went out from the enemy that says, whoa, I've heard the plan
from the Godhead himself that one day the seed of a woman, the
heir, the child, the offspring of a woman will destroy me.
So now my plan is I'm going to destroy the people so that that
possibility is cut off, snuffed out.
Read also the Old Testament where there are attempts to
eradicate the Israelites, the Jewish people from the earth
before Jesus was born. It's why David and Goliath
happens. Maybe heard the story.
What's going on? The Philistines are standing on
one side of the valley, the Israelites on the other, and the
Philistines are massive people and the Israelites are standing
there. The scripture says they're
shaking because they know they're about to get wiped out.
That's the plan. The spirit from the enemy goes
out, says destroy them. Of course David beats Goliath
and yay. Same thing with Esther.
Haman had plotted to have all the Jews killed on one day, all
of them and Esther and Mordecai will the Lord God intervened.
Herod, he wanted them all dead. Pharaoh in Egypt, he wanted them
all dead. Over and over the spirit goes
out seeking to destroy the race that would bring Messiah.
The spirit has a name by the way, I did a message on this
back in the high school. That spirits name is Hamas.
That'll get your attention. This spirit has gone out from
the devil seeking to destroy the Jews so that the offspring, the
Messiah, would not have opportunity to come.
It's proof of the plan. The evidence is before us.
It's so obvious that something is trying to destroy the Jews.
Someone why first John chapter 3 verse 8.
The one who does what is sinful is of the devil because the
devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the
devil's work. The devil ain't dumb, not as
dumb as we think. He knows this is the plan.
Jesus is coming to stop his work so he is attempting to stuff out
the line of the Messiah. And the last thing that we get
in Genesis chapter 3 is a foreshadowing of how the
offspring of the woman will destroy the offspring of the
snake. Look at Genesis chapter 3, verse
21. The Lord God made garments of
skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Remember, they were wearing fig leaves, Scott said.
I'm making something else. Verse 22.
And the Lord God said, the man has now become like one of us,
knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach
out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and
live forever. So the Lord of God banished him
from the garden to work the ground from which he had been
taken. After he drove the man out, he
placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim with a
flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the
tree of life. First of all, let's look at the
coverings. Humans try to cover themselves
in an act of religion. This is how we are going to
manage the sin. Cover the sin, and God said it's
not covered. I see it.
You're naked and ashamed. God knew it wasn't enough.
So what do you do? First look at Hebrews Chapter 9
to understand what he's doing here.
Hebrews Chapter 9 verse 22 says, In fact, the law requires that
nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the
shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
God said in the garden when you eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, you will certainly die.
And when God says you will, it's a promise, and God keeps his
promises. And so the sentence over Adam
and Eve immediately when they took of the fruit and ate it is
death. And so God stands in front of
them, knowing his promises. Well, you, you have to die.
But he also knows his plan is to dwell with humanity on the
earth. So he's not going to wipe out
humanity. And instead, in mercy and grace
he brings a substitute that will shed its blood in place of the
humans. And these two animals are
sacrificed. Adam and Eve are covered in
their skins and atonement. The blood is shed for Adam and
Eve. Do you see the foreshadowing?
Do you see the picture? It also foreshadows A
sacrificial system that we see all throughout the Old Testament
in the era of the temple, because the breaking of the law,
blood must be shed, a price must be paid, and God was also
merciful to the people of the Old Testament, allowing them to
sacrifice animals in their place.
That's sacrificial ram. This the sacrificial bull, the
sacrificial goat birds even, which culminates one day in the
once and for all sacrifice for the Lamb of God.
John the Baptist when he first sees Jesus on the sea and he
says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world. The shedding of blood.
Religion gets replaced by sacrifice.
Fig leaves get replaced by skins, sin gets replaced by the
shed blood of the Savior. That's why I can say we're
broken but we are not abandoned in Jesus name.
Somebody say Hallelujah. I want to finish with this last
part. It may be surprising to you.
It was to me and my study. Banished from the garden is not
part of the curse. We think this is bad news.
I think God thinks of it as good news or better news.
The best news is for us to be in the garden with Him forever,
with no sin, no shame, perfect union.
That's the plan. Now that the plan is distorted,
God makes a change so that it's still good for us because He
loves us. Being banished from the garden
is a blessing, not a curse. By casting us out of the garden,
away from the tree of life, we do not live forever in our
brokenness. It's as if God is saying dying
is not the worst thing that can happen to Adam and Eve.
Living perpetually under the serpent's dominion, separated
from God as his enemy, is far worse than physical death.
We don't want to live forever broken.
By removing us temporarily from the tree of life, God is
limiting the potential that the suffering brings, the length of
the suffering, by removing us from the Garden.
And he does so by placing cherubim with flaming sword
between them on the east side. You cannot come back in exiled
from the garden, not allowed fully in the presence of God.
He's cherubim, flaming sword. I don't know if you're aware,
you probably are, but when they built the temple where God would
come and rest his presence, there was a holy place where the
priests were allowed. And then there was the Most Holy
Place, where the Ark of God was in the Bema seat, the throne of
God, where he would come down and meet with the high priest
once a year. This beautiful encounter between
them, between the holy place and the Most Holy Place was a
gigantic curtain called the veil.
And the veil separated humanity from the presence of God, almost
as if we're on this side. And in the Holy Place is back in
the garden, the Eden separation by the veil.
You following anyone? Say yes, Teresa, you got it.
Second Chronicles 314. Look what's on the veil.
He made the curtain of blue, purple and Crimson yarn and fine
linen with cherubim worked into it from the garden to the
temple. The cherubim standing his guards
saying You don't want to come in here in a broken state, you
don't want to live forever. Is your spirit dying?
Matthew chapter 27, verse 51. The moment Jesus makes his
sacrifice, the good stuff happens.
The veil is torn from top to bottom.
Access to the presence of God is restored.
Access to Jesus, who is the tree of life is restored.
We were broken, but we are not abandoned because God made a
way, and that way is Jesus. Amen.
So hold the sin cycle in your mind and hold the reality of
Jesus in your mind. How do we go from this to this?
How do we move from this infuriating falling over
ourselves constantly to back connected to the tree of life?
Doubt begins the disruption. It's faith that ends it.
You want to move from this cycle of sin.
How can I in the Israelites we talk about we keep circling
Sinai and God says I'm moving you to Mount Zion and this move
from this cycle of death to the tree of life happens by faith
belief, believe this God created the first Eden to dwell with us
forever. Sin disrupted that plan, but God
promises us a new Eden in the Book of Revelation.
We read it last week and in the middle between 1 Eden and the
next. The bridge absolutely is Jesus
Christ himself. The exit from the first Eden is
sin and the entrance to the second Eden is Savior.
Glory to God in the highest one last scripture for you this
morning, Colossians chapter 3 verse 3.
For you died and you're not. Life is now hidden with Christ
in God. I hope you can feel this.
As an actual reality for yourself.
But at some point we were Adam and Eve, hiding in the trees
from God, worried, shameful, fearful, and we can stay in this
hidden place or by faith and the sweet offering of the Lord Jesus
Christ be found hidden in him. I guess the only question is
when God comes walking to the garden tonight, you be hiding
there or you be hiding here. It's a personal question.
No one else can answer it for you, and no one else can take
your place except Jesus. Will you be found in Him?
That's the offer this morning. Would you pray with me?
Lord God, we started this message just praying that your
word would counsel us, just believing that you had something
to say to us. And God, I believe that what you
have in your heart for us is to move from a place of hiding to a
place of freedom, from a place of defeat to a place of victory,
from doubt to faith. And you made that way through
your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the sacrifice,
the resurrection, and the glorious ascension to His place
next to your throne. We thank you for Jesus.
Maybe you're here today and you're still hiding in the trees
church, just as have your heads bowed, heads bowed, eyes closed.
I just want you to consider where am I?
Am I hiding in the trees or am I hidden in Christ?
Want to give you an offer? It's not an offer for me, it's
an offer from the Lord. If you confess with your mouth
and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be
saved. You'll move from the hidden
trees of fear to hiding in the tree of life just by confessing
and believing that he's Lord. So church, pray this with me,
would you? And give it some oomph in your
voice saying, Father, in the name of Jesus.
I recognize that I've been hiding in the sin and the shame
in the garden of my trees of fear.
Yeah, a lot of words, sorry, but I confess and I believe that I
can be hidden in Christ, that he is Lord, that he is Savior.
And I receive him into my heart into my life today here and now.
Hallelujah. Yeah, Church, I'm just going to
ask you if you've made this prayer today, you saying I'm
moving from the trees of sin and fear and shame into the life
giving tree of Jesus Christ. I'm going to it's going to ask
you to boldly on the when I count the three raise your hand
up really high. Maybe one person here, maybe 50.
I have no idea. The Lord knows he called you
here today to save your life and to move you from doubt and
destruction and disobedience and disgust to a life of faith.
If that's you in the count of three, raise your hand. 123
Anyone believing on Jesus today, come on, it's OK.
Be bold. We see we're coming to you.
They're making their way to you. Our ushers have something they
want to give you as you are receiving right here and now the
salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ caught up with him
forever and ever. And church, I'm going to count
to 3 now and you're going to stand and we are going to
rejoice. 123 Amen and Hallelujah.
Thanks for joining us today. We hope God is speaking to your
heart through this message. If you'd like to connect with
us, you can text connect to 407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate
dot church. Have a great week.