6-9-24 Grace-Tucson Sermon

Page 1

Genesis 3:8-15

Third Sunday After Pentecost

Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, June 9, 2024

“He Will Crush the Serpent’s Head”

Have you ever tried to hide from God? You may not have thought about it that way, but I am guessing you have. Hiding from God looks a lot like hiding from the people around you when you’re doing something you know you should not do. You glance around when you want to steal the cookie out of the cookie jar. You hide in a quiet room when you want to look at or watch something that is inappropriate. Before you gossip about a friend, you double-check that the friend is not within earshot and that no one who might let the message get back to that friend is either. And then you speak or you watch or you take. Now maybe when that is going on, you just don’t think about the fact that even if other people may not see what you are doing, God always sees.

But what happens next? Do you, as soon as you think about what you have done in relation to the expectations of your heavenly Father, do you repent? Do you whisper a prayer that acknowledges the sin? “I have sinned against you, Lord. I have done the things that you warn me about.” Or do you just pretend that God’s not going to worry about it? Do you avoid places like church that might bring on feelings of guilt? Do you deny that you have a problem while pointing out everyone else’s struggles, or at least the struggles of those you think are most likely to realize what you have done? Do you just sort of assume that you have gotten away with what you have done? Do you suppose you could come up with a time that you have tried to hide from God?

Sinners have been trying to hide from God since the very beginning of sin. Earlier in our service you heard the account of Adam and Eve, the first people, hiding from God after their fall. They were not successful. They learned how futile and foolish it was to hide from God, but then they heard the most amazing promise that God could give them.

Our verses begin with the man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, hearing God walking through the garden. The Bible doesn’t tell us a whole lot about what life was like for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but we get the impression that they knew this sound. They may well have been used to walking with God and talking with God. After all, he had created them perfect. The whole garden had been perfect and had met all their needs. They had a perfectly harmonious relationship with each other and with God.

But this visit from God was very different. Adam and Eve heard, and they hid. And that is exactly as foolish as it sounds. The almighty God, the all-knowing God, the God who had created them and everything that they had and knew and saw, was coming into the garden, and they hid. My kids are old enough now that this doesn’t really apply, but when they were younger, we played some games of hide-and-seek. The little ones weren’t necessarily the best at hiding. They would laugh or talk or have significant portions visible in spite of their hiding places. I didn’t have any trouble finding them. I didn’t need any special skills or abilities. How much more for God when Adam and Eve hid?

But God didn’t say, “There you are” immediately. He called out to Adam and asked, “Where are you?” That’s like me searching for those hiding kids and saying, “I wonder where they could be?” to extend the excitement of the game. But God was not playing a game. God was giving Adam a chance to stop hiding and to come clean about what had happened.

What had happened was Adam along with his wife Eve were tempted when Satan in the form of a serpent came to them and told them that it would be OK to eat the fruit of the one tree about which God had told them not to eat. They knew that the whole garden was theirs. There were many fruit trees. They had everything they needed and more. But Satan’s whispers got the better of them. They began to wonder whether God was withholding from them something good. They listened to Satan instead of God, and they ate.

And everything changed. Satan had done his worst, and his worst was really bad. Adam and Eve realized to their shame that they were naked. They had never been concerned about it before because their thoughts were pure. No longer. From then on, they did not have their perfect relationship, a point that comes across

loudly and clearly once God starts speaking with them. They hide from God because now they are scared of him instead of happy to be with him. And when he confronts them, they pass the blame: Adam to Eve, and Eve to the serpent. And behind it all is a suggestion that really God is to blame. After all, he gave Eve to Adam, and he created the serpent.

So, have you ever tried to hide from God like Adam and Eve did? Have you acted foolishly like them? Have you blamed others instead of taking responsibility for the wrongs you have done? Have you felt the shame and frustration of a broken relationship? If so, you have seen the results of that first sin passed down from generation to generation. It has affected and infected mankind in a powerful way. The same enemy of God continues to whisper in ears and to oppose God’s plan and his Word and his people. The devil does his worst. He does his worst on us, just as he did on Adam and Eve in the garden.

But Jesus always wins. That was the amazing message God brought to Adam and Eve after their ever-so-fast round of hide-and-seek. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent, so God started there. He announced how sin’s consequences would show themselves in the creature and how God planned to deal with the enemy that had used the serpent’s form. God would send an offspring, a seed of the woman, who would crush the serpent’s head. A final, decisive victory.

In that moment of helplessness and futility, when Adam and Eve had tried to hide their nakedness with leaf coverings and had tried to hide from God in the garden he created, they heard that God would set things right. He would take the hostility that had now been misplaced. He would take the hostility that existed between Adam and Eve and the hostility that existed between people and himself. He would reorient that hostility in the proper way. Hostility would be between God’s people and God’s enemy.

And a champion would win the day. You, devilish serpent, will crush his foot, his heel. You will do your worst even when that champion appears. But your worst will fall short. The champion will not. He will crush your head.

Dear Christian, rejoice! You have heard today this first Gospel-promise of God. And you know that it is true. In the garden God called Adam and Eve to believe that though the devil had done his worst on them, God was more powerful. He had a solution. He would handle things. They could trust that Jesus would win. They were the first in a long line of believers who trusted in the Savior who was to come, the one who would crush the serpent’s head.

And Jesus did come. And he had his heel crushed. He felt the temptations that the serpent whispered in his ear, but he never gave in. He felt the frustration of people rejecting his teaching and his signs and his wonders, but he never gave up. He felt the lashes and the scourges across his back, but he never backed down. He felt the crown of thorns pressed into his head and the nails into his hands and feet to hold him to the cross. And he faced the wrath of God over all the sins of all the people in all the world. The devil had done his worst. But Jesus won. He handed his soul over to his heavenly Father in the confidence that he would take up his life again. And that is exactly what he did. His coming to life again proved that he had won. He had crushed the head of the serpent.

And he continues to win. We heard in Revelation the amazing promise given to people who were at that time facing persecution and suffering themselves. They were feeling Satan’s attacks renewed against God’s people. And what did God show John that he could share with them? That the devil was chained. Jesus was in control. Satan could try his best to do his worst, but Jesus would always win.

And he shows you that same vision. He gives you that same promise. It’s not easy when the devil does his worst. It hurts. It frustrates. But don’t hide from God. Don’t aim hostility at him. Instead, rejoice that Jesus would call you his brother, or sister, or mother.

When the devil did his worst on Jesus, Jesus won. When the devil did his worst on Adam and Eve, the promise of Jesus held the day. When the devil does his worst, you have one who already crushed his head. Jesus is your brother forever. Jesus always wins.

The Text: Genesis 3:8–15 (EHV)

8They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

9The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.”

11God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

12The man said, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

13The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14The Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the livestock, and more than every wild animal. You shall crawl on your belly, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.