11th December 2023

11th December 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - Genesis 3


Message - Alan Burke


‘First Posted 12th December 2022’


This week we are going to do something a little different, maybe its not for everyone but I know for most people it will be. For what normally happens in the next couple of weeks is that ministers will be in their studies trying to figure out how they can preach one of the usual ‘Christmas’ passages in a way that hasn’t been heard before. I’ve just shelved that attempt and instead I want to this week take you to Three Gardens. Hopefully you will understand the why in all of it by the weeks out for what we celebrate isn’t an isolated message of a coming of baby in a manager it is something far greater In salvation history. So today we go to the ‘Garden of Eden'. 


Not the most typical Christmas message I know, but Christmas was announced in the Garden with the first announcement of the gospel in the book of Genesis. For a manger isn’t where the hope begins, the hope begins in the midst of the fall, where God preached the gospel to the Satan, the gospel was proclaimed and announced in the Garden of Eden. 


I’m going to be selective in what we focus on from this passage, we haven’t got time to work through it in its fullness. But bear in mind the context, how in the beginning God made all that is and it was good, God looked when he had finished his word of creation and said it was very good (1:31). God’s creation was very good. God’s people lived in God’s place under his rule and blessing. There was no death or mourning or crying or pain, these were not in the created order.


Fast forwards to v6 we are told after the interaction between Satan and Eve, she saw took, ate, and then gave some to Adam. It wasn’t that Adam was off somewhere herding up the animals, trying to put a roof up for over their heads, he wasn’t working the ground, he wasn’t being the custodian that he was tasked with by God. No, Adam he was there, v6 and Eve also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Eve ate because she was tempted to do so, Adam just choose to disobey God’s clear command. There sin entered the world, God’s very good world, sin entered and death followed. The relationship between God and man was left in tatters.


Tragic, sin changed everything, shame filled their minds as they looked upon the nakedness of each other, they are filled with shame for they know what they have done. And they hide from the presence of God, they had from Him who had shown them such goodness, they rejected the word of God and in an effort to cover their shame they sow fig leaves together to hide from their sin and from their God. While the man and women are engulfed with sin and shame, God does not abandon His creation or His creatures, nor does He simply bring the judgment that they deserve for rejecting His word. Instead, and this is wonderful, don’t miss it, the Lord, well, He comes, He seeks those out who had rejected His word. In they midst of their sin and shame the Lord God looks for them as they try to hide from His presence because they herd Him coming. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC 
Q12 What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the estate wherein he was created?
When God had created man, he entered into a (covenant of life) with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death. (Gal. 3:12, Gen. 2:17)
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