Adam & Eve
Transcript
We're really excited about this new series. I'm Matt. I'm one of the pastors of Mill City Church. And so I hope you enjoyed the video. If you came in late and you weren't able to see the whole thing, we will be putting it up on Facebook and we'll send it out through Twitter so that you can view that. And you've got the handout, so you want to keep that handy.
You can stick it in your Bible. Or again, we've got the paper copies for you over there on that table. For most of us, we grew up with some type of familiarity with the main stories of the Bible, right? So whether you grew up in church or you didn't, these stories are not even unfamiliar to our culture. So even in our culture, there's TV shows, there's movies that are made, there are even musicals.
So an example of that would be Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you've seen that, I'm sorry. If you haven't, don't Google it. It's interesting. And then they just made a movie about Noah starring Russell Crowe, who was the main actor in Gladiator, which I've heard that's an amazing movie, but about the only thing it has in common with the story of the Bible is that there's a guy named Noah. There's a flood and a boat.
And then we're all kind of familiar with the story of David and Goliath, which I love that story because I played defensive line in college, and I'm kind of short. And so I was always going up against guys who were like 6'4", 6'5", and so it was always like, I've got a channel on my inner David, and I can take all of these guys down. But that's what we're going to be covering in this series are some of the main stories of the Bible. And most of you know this, but I grew up as a part of a church, and so I heard these stories all the time. I heard them in different places. One of the places I heard them was in Sunday school.
Some of you might have grown up in Sunday school, which is the worst name ever. Like, kids don't like going to Monday through Friday school. I don't know how Sunday school is going to make it any better. And then you had the week-long adventure during the summer called Vacation Bible School. Again, words mean things, so I don't know who got to come up with all of these names. But one of my favorite places to study the Bible and to learn Bible stories was on Wednesday night, and this group met in the gym, and it was called the RAs.
Oh, some of you are nodding your head. Yes, the RAs. That stands for Royal Ambassadors. Fancy, I know. No, for real, we had a pledge. You look at me like this isn't fancy.
As a royal ambassador, I will do my part to help old ladies with liberty and justice for all. See, I even remember the pledge from when I was in the RAs. So I heard these Bible stories in all kinds of different places, and I don't think this is going to surprise any of you, but growing up, I was referred to as a husky child. And so there was always some kind of incentive to pay attention when the teacher was talking. And in fourth grade, I had a Sunday school teacher that had this big brown bag full of flavored Tootsie Rolls. Let's just say I learned a lot in that class, got a lot of questions right, and my fourth grade picture tells the tale.
I mean, it's just... And even in RAs, the best one in RAs was, if you guys will listen for 10 minutes, we'll go outside and we'll play football. Deal. I'll listen for 10 minutes if we get to go outside and play football. And most of the time, we were studying the main stories from the Bible. So basically, the teacher would begin.
He would tell the story, or we'd read the story from the scripture. And then he would ask us questions, and the aim of the questions was to take us towards some kind of moral application. So you may be familiar with the story of Job and all the terrible things to happen to Job. Well, the moral of the story in Job is that we just have to have patience and wait on God no matter what's going on. Or maybe you've heard the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These three guys were thrown into a fire because they refused to bow down to a statue.
And they walk around in the fire, and they aren't hurt by it, and they come out. And so, of course, the moral of that story is you need to keep your faith in God no matter who picks on you. That's kind of the moral application. And then the one you're probably most familiar with is Jonah and the whale. And so the moral of that story is if God calls you to do something, you better do it or you can get swallowed by a fish. And nobody wants to get swallowed by a fish.
And so I grew up hearing these stories, and here's how I was taught to process them. What's the story? What's the application? And so I get in conversations with people sometimes, and they ask me, How am I supposed to read the Bible? Am I supposed to glean some kind of moral truth from it? Or am I just supposed to be kind of learning the facts?
Am I supposed to insert myself into the story? Or am I supposed to kind of like step out and be a third person and just learn stuff? How am I supposed to read the Bible? And the aim of all of those questions is what leads us to what we'll be addressing in this series, which is how do we properly read and understand the Bible, especially when it comes to some of these big stories. So we're going to be beginning, if you want to grab a Bible, we're going to be beginning in Genesis chapter 3, which is on page 2 in the Bibles that we have for you on the seats.
But before we do, I just want to pray that God would speak to us during our time. Let's pray together. God, thank you that we don't have to wing this, that our faith is not dependent on our ability to somehow figure out who you are, but you've actually chosen to reveal yourself to us through your word. And God, we praise you for that, and we thank you for that. And what we ask for this morning is that your Holy Spirit would open us up to understanding who you are and how we relate to you as it comes from the story of Adam and Eve. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. So again, our story is going to be in Genesis chapter 3, which is on page 2. But since we're at the beginning of the Bible, I want to give you a quick back story of chapters 1 and 2 to kind of get us to the main story that we'll be talking about today. So you can kind of follow along in your Bible if you want to. But what we see in Genesis chapter 1 is that God speaks and things begin to happen.
God says, let there be light. The God of the universe speaks and creation begins to happen so that light separates from darkness and land separates from water and he creates plants and animals and ultimately humanity. And he does it over the course of six days. And at the end of six days, he says that it's very good. And then on the seventh day, God rested. And as it moves into chapter 2, what we get is just a zoomed-in picture of part of God's creation.
So in chapter 1, we see that God speaks creation into existence. But when it comes to humanity, we get a much different picture. As you can kind of see in verse 7, it says that God with his hands takes dust and he forms man and he breathes the breath of life into him. And I want you to get that because it's really cool. God speaks creation into existence except for humanity. God sets the stage for the intimate relationship he desires with humanity, even in creation.
It's just a really cool picture. And Adam exists in relationship with God. And God takes Adam and he puts him in the midst of a paradise in a garden called Eden. And Adam gets to live in relationship with God. God gives him things to do. He has dominion over creation and he's to work in the garden.
There's even parameters to how he relates to God and the things that he does within the garden. God says you can eat the fruit of any tree in the garden except for one, just the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat that or you'll die. And Adam's like, that's a sweet deal. I can do that. I can handle that.
And in relating to God, God wants to find a helper suitable for Adam. He doesn't want Adam to be alone. It's not good for Adam to be alone. And so God gives Adam the responsibility of naming all of the animals. I mean, you got to picture that for a second. The Adam gets the responsibility of naming all the Adam.
So go with me there for a second. First animal. Adam's ready. Okay. First animal comes in. Rhinoceros.
Sweet. Got it. Nailed it. Next one. Keep them coming. Flamingo.
Next one. What in the duck-billed platypus? We'll call this one. And I guess Adam got bored after a while. There's so many. It's just kind of like cat.
Next. Dog. Next. How many of these things are there, really? I mean, how many animals? And obviously, Adam was speaking English.
Duh. So that's what he called those things. So just erase all of that from your memory. Because obviously, he wasn't speaking English. But at the end of naming all of the animals, there's not a helper found suitable for Adam.
No helper is found among the animals that's suitable for Adam. And so what we see in 21, if you've got your Bibles, it's the same page that you're on. So we might as well read it. Starting in verse 21. It says this. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. And they shall become one flesh.
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. So what happens is that God puts Adam to sleep, takes the rib, with it creates a woman. And he brings the woman to Adam. And in the original language, Adam sings. That's what that is. Adam is so pumped up about the creation that God had just brought to him that he, homeboy, sings.
He's so excited. And it says that they became one flesh together and they existed in this garden. And I love that God paints the picture from creation of what biblical marriage gets to look like. One man and one woman joined together in covenant relationship with God and with each other. And it was perfect. In the midst of a paradise, there's Adam and Eve enjoying each other, enjoying God's creation.
And they were naked and not ashamed. Amen. Let's pray. I think that's the end, right? That's where we want the story to stop. It's like, oh, don't go further.
But the problem is we actually have to go further because the Bible does. So while we want to stay in paradise where everything's good, we're going to move on to chapter 3. So now I want you to go ahead and grab your Bible. The verses are not going to be on the screen. So I want you to have it in your hands.
It's looking at Genesis chapter 3, verse 1. I'll give you a second to flip there. Verse number 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. All right, it's already getting weird.
We've got talking snakes. Hang on to that. We're coming back to it. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 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.
But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, we don't get this right off the bat. We don't, but we should have known something was up when Eve starts talking to a snake. And what we find out from context is that this is Satan in the form of a snake. And what we see in scripture is that Satan was a created being who rebelled against God.
And it's going to use descriptors like the father of lies, deception, schemes, tricks. And so we shouldn't be surprised that when Satan shows up in the garden, he does so in the form of a disguise to talk to Eve. And he comes to Eve and he says, did God say that you couldn't eat of any tree that's in the garden? And Eve responds, no, just not the one that's in the middle, because if we eat of that one, we'll die. And Satan deceptively says, you won't surely die. At least not immediately.
And the reason that God doesn't want you to eat of the fruit is because you'll be like God. You'll be like God. And God doesn't want that. He doesn't want you to be like him. So, so yeah, yeah. It's just the knowledge of good and evil.
He just wants you to be like him. It's really not that big a deal. It seems like Eve takes the bait. Okay. Verse six. 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 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. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And see, now you understand the reason why I wanted to stop at the end of chapter two, because humanity made it two chapters and then blew it. That's what we see in this story is that Eve falls for the deception of Satan and takes the fruit and she eats. And then she gives some to her husband who is standing passively by while she's talking to a snake. That's another sermon for another day.
And he eats of it. And it says immediately their eyes were opened to the fact that they were naked and ashamed. Have you ever had that dream where everything's going good? And then all of a sudden you look down, you're no longer wearing clothes and you're in front of all your friends and families. You ever had some of you are squirming in your seat like, no, that's the worst dream ever. However, they feel that shame for the first time.
And here's why. Because when they, God had commanded Adam, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So that when he ate, he knew the difference between good and evil. And for the first time, humanity felt the weight of rebellion against God. Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. It wasn't just that they were naked and ashamed.
They knew the depth of their depravity at that moment because they had rebelled against God. And so they made loincloths for themselves. Pick it up in verse 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. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you?
And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit. 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?
The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So God shows up again. He walks in perfect relationship with his creation and God's looking for his creation. And he calls out to them. And Adam says that he's hiding because he was afraid because he was naked. And God says, who told you?
Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to? And Adam just dodges the question. In fact, Adam has the audacity to say, the woman that you, the woman that you put here to be with me, she gave me the fruit. So Adam actually blames God and he blames the woman.
And then God turns to the woman and he says, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. And what we're going to look at in the rest of this story is that because there has been sin, because there was disobedience to what God commanded, there's ultimately discipline and punishment. And so what we're going to see in successive order is the punishment that's handed down to the serpent, that's handed down to Satan, that's handed to Eve, and then it's handed to Adam. Jump back with me to verse 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. 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. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.
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. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. 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.
So there is punishment. Because there is disobedience to God's word, there is punishment. And the punishment for the serpent is that it would be the lowest of all creation. And we see that with Satan. That he is cast away from God. The furthest from God.
The woman would have pain in childbearing. Yes, ladies, you get to thank Eve for that. That she would have pain in childbearing. And ultimately there would be struggle within the marriage relationship. Where the man would abdicate his God-given role of leading in the family. And the woman would fight him for it.
There would be struggle within the marriage relationship. And for men the curse is that he would work his entire life toiling, struggling by the sweat of his face. And very little would be yielded from it. And what we see in the rest of the story is that God makes clothing for Adam and Eve. And he walks them out of the garden. And that's the end of the story.
Now, I want us to time out for a second. And just zoom out. Take a breath. Because the room got heavy. Because we feel the weight of the story. I want you to take a breath for a second.
Remember, the point of this series is to figure out, What am I supposed to take away from this story? So growing up, again, the way that I began to read the Bible was this. What's the story? And what's the moral application? And more often than not, whether it be in Sunday school or RAs or even hearing it preached, This is the way I was taught this passage. Here's the moral application.
The first part is this. The way that we exist in relationship with God is by our actions. The things that we do. That's how we relate. Our actions. The second part is the actions that we can choose.
So we can, God has rules. The second part is we can either choose to obey those rules or rebel against those rules. And the third part is this. If you accept God's commands and you follow his rules, you'll be blessed. And if you rebel against his commands, you will be punished. So let me break it down just a little bit shorter.
God has rules. We obey them. Or there are consequences. And so in the story of Adam and Eve, what we see is that God has rules. They disobeyed God. And so there were consequences.
Everything was going good until they screwed up. And then after they sinned, it was never the same again. And so the application for me was that God has rules. And I have to do good. And I have to be good to exist in relationship with God. Because it's on me to do what I have to do to be in relationship with God.
That's what I got from the story. And so I grew up scared. Scared that I was going, that not if, but when. When was I going to screw up? Scared that I had to earn God's favor or to face his punishment. That in the end, God actually cared more about my behavior than he did about me.
So I started looking at life like it was all a series of tests. Tests to see that if I would honor God. And so that if I was doing well, if I was doing the things that I was supposed to do as a Christian, that God would be blessing me and that I would have an overall good life. But when I screwed up, when I messed up, there would be punishment. And life as I know it would begin to diminish more and more each time. That in the end, I was going to let God down.
And some of us feel that. Some of you, that's the way you understand Christianity to be. So that you feel this burden that you'll never be able to achieve what God has set forth for you. That you're going to screw up. You're going to mess up. You think that the way that you relate to God can only be through your actions.
And if you sin and you're disobedient, that ultimately, you're just going to be punished and cast out. And the truth is, if we read the Bible like it's about us, that's what we'll get out of it. But here's something that's absolutely beautiful about the Bible that we get to see this morning. The Bible is ultimately to reveal God to us. So that the aim of Scripture is ultimately to point us towards Jesus.
The truth that can set us free this morning is that the Bible is about Jesus, not about us. And so from the very first story in the Bible, God's going to set the stage for how we understand Him. And understand how we relate to Him. And I know you're thinking, yeah, but what we just saw was that it's based off of our action. That's how we relate to God, right? So if we're doing good, we're in good stead with God.
If we're doing bad, we're not. I want us to jump back into the story and see the good news that's actually here. So grab your Bibles again. We're going back to the story, to verse 14 and verse 15. Now what we're about to look at is referred to by theologians.
This actually has a name. It's called the Proto-Evangelion. All right, I know, big word. Proto meaning first, like prototype. Evangelion meaning good news. So theologians, guys that study the Bible refer to this as the first good news.
And I know you're already looking at it going, wait, wait, wait. This is the curse of Satan. This is the curse to the serpent. How in the world is this good news for us? How does this teach us about how we relate to God? Jump back there with me.
Verse 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. 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. So again, this is the curse of the serpent.
It starts off, it says you're going to be cursed. You're going to crawl around on your belly. Dust you're going to eat all the days of your life. So in comparison to Satan, the lowest of all creation. And then in verse 15, it begins to take a turn. Look at it again.
It says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. So it says enmity. Enmity between you and the woman, between the serpent and the woman. Enmity, another word for that would be hostility. Yeah, we would agree with that. We would agree that there's hostility between us and Satan, the offspring of Eve.
But it seems, if you keep reading, that it's being a little more specific here. Look at the last little bit. It says, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Who's he? I thought we were talking about the serpent and Eve. But now all of a sudden, there's this he.
And if you jump back in the verse, it says that there's going to be enmity between you and the woman. Okay? Between your offspring and hers. And what we begin to realize is that it's not just talking about any offspring of Eve. It's actually pointing towards a very specific descendant of Eve. And if you think about this, what it's saying, it says, you will bruise his heel, but he will bruise your head.
And if you think about it, if a snake were to strike at the heel of a man, it could hurt. But the heel of a man to the head of a serpent would kill it. And what we see is that this very specific descendant of Eve is going to do this thing. And here's what's cool about the Bible. It works together. It connects.
And what we see in Luke's gospel in chapter 3, he's given us a little family history of Jesus. And he's tracing Jesus' line back and back and back. And this is how it finishes. Son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. So it traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to being a descendant of Adam and Eve.
A very specific descendant of Adam and Eve. And what we see in Isaiah chapter 53 is this. When Isaiah is writing about what he sees, what is to come with the Messiah, the one who would save, the one who would redeem, it says this, he would be bruised for our iniquities. It says he would be bruised for our sins. And as we begin to put the story together, it's like, wait, no, no, this isn't just a curse. God is setting the stage for what he's ultimately going to do.
That Jesus would go to the cross carrying our sin and carrying our shame. And Satan thought he had won when Jesus went to the cross. He thought he had killed him. But Jesus would walk out of the grave three days later conquering sin, death, hell, and Satan stomping the head of the serpent. And what we see is from the very beginning, from the first rebellion of man, that God is setting the stage for what he is ultimately going to do. That this story is not ultimately about the fact that we're going to screw up, that we're going to mess up, we're going to be punished and cast out.
It is ultimately pointing us towards what's true about what Jesus is going to do. This story tells us that it's not about our action. It's not ultimately about our action. It's ultimately about what Jesus would do on our behalf. And it sets the stage for the whole scope of the Bible to be able to point us towards what's true about Jesus and the gospel. And since that's true, that becomes the lens by which we read the entire Old Testament.
It's not what is this story, where do I find myself in the story? It is what does this story ultimately teach me about Jesus and the gospel. It's not how do I need to act, behave, respond, work it out on my own to earn God's favor. It is how do I grow in understanding what Jesus has already accomplished for me and how does that impact the rest of my life as I live with him. Because if we read the Bible without Jesus as the main character, we'll miss the point. And as Christians, we get the benefit of knowing the end of the story before we ever start reading the beginning of it.
And that's a little bit of what we're starting to see in this story. I want you to think for a moment about the movie Titanic. Okay? We all know about the story from history, and you've probably all seen the movie before. You cannot watch the movie Titanic without knowing that the ship at the end is going to sink. Think about it.
So you're watching Jack in one of the opening scenes. Jack's sitting there. He's playing cards. He's playing cards, and they're all throwing in their bets and stuff. And then two White Star Line tickets hit the table. And you're watching.
You're going, oh, no. Uh-uh. That's not good. Jack wins, snatches the tickets, throws everything into a bag, and heads out the door. And you're like, oh, man. Oh, no.
No, that's ain't good. Maybe he'll trip. I don't know. Maybe he'll get hit by a car. Oh, maybe he won't make it to the ship. Maybe the ship will pull away.
Ship, go. Go, Titanic. Go. Oh, he's on the ship. Okay. Great.
Because we know the end of the story. And all along the way, as Jack saves Rose, as Jack and Rose fall in love, as there's betrayal, as the ship strikes the iceberg, all along the way, you know the end of the story. And it informs how you watch the beginning of it. And you know that ultimately, Jack and Rose are going to end up in the water. And Rose is going to say, I'll never let go, even though she does let go. And really, Rose was super selfish.
Because if you watch the movie, there was room for both of them on the door. It's absolutely ridiculous. A little selfish. Right, Rose? I mean, maybe both of you could have made it. But you can't.
You can't watch that movie without knowing the end of the story. The same thing is true of the movie The Sixth Sense. When you've watched the movie The Sixth Sense, you realize that the character that Bruce Willis was playing the entire time was dead. He was dead the whole time. And if you've never seen The Sixth Sense, I'm sorry. I just blew that for you.
But you can't watch it the same again. And the same thing is true for us as Christians. And I want you, let that seep in for a minute. You cannot read the Old Testament without knowing ultimately what Jesus is going to accomplish on our behalf. And we get a picture of it, even in this story. A story where we think that it's all about our action and what we've done in condemnation.
And we get this beautiful picture of ultimately what Jesus is going to accomplish on our behalf. And so as we flip the moral on its head, what we see is this story isn't. This story isn't about the fact that God has rules. And that Adam and Eve sinned. Therefore, they had to be punished. And even though there was this vague forgiveness type thing, that life was never the same.
Chapter 3, verse 15 tells us that the ultimate idea of Scripture is this. In the end, Jesus is the hero. Jesus steps in and through his life and death and resurrection forgives us of our sins. Takes away the debt of our sin and offers us a way back into relationship with God. In fact, it's his perfect relationship that's applied to our account. Paul's going to pick up on this in the New Testament.
When he's writing to the church in Corinth and to the church in Rome, he's going to draw this comparison between Adam and Christ. This comparison between Adam and Jesus. And he's going to say that through one man came sin. Through Jesus came grace. Through one man came death. Through Jesus came life.
So much so that when you begin to think about it, you begin to understand that Adam's disobedience in the garden led to sin entering the world through a tree. And that Jesus ultimately would accept his father's will in the garden and would take our sins with him to a tree. And there he would pay for them. And what we begin to see is that the grand narrative of scripture is to point us towards God's redemptive act that he accomplishes through Jesus. Raz and Josh and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to spend some time responding and thinking about what we've heard this morning. If your understanding of Christianity has been that it's about your action, that the way that you relate to God is through your action, whether good or bad.
So whether that's you doing really good things, really moral things to earn God's favor, or sinning and rebelling against God, therefore facing his punishment. My encouragement to you this morning is to let the truth of what we've talked about set you free from that. Realize that the story of Adam and Eve isn't ultimately about our behavior and God's punishment. It's about the fact that though we are sinful and rebel, Jesus steps in and saves us. And it's not about our ability to do good things or to act right. And so my invitation to you this morning is to surrender.
To stop. To realize that you have a God that loves you so much that he would send Jesus to take your sin to a cross to die for you so that that could be the way that you get to relate to God. So the invitation this morning is to realize that you get to place your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and for salvation. And so I'm going to pray for us and we're going to stand and sing and respond. Let's pray together.
God, thank you that that's true. Thank you that ultimately it's not about us. God, knowing, you knowing that we were going to rebel, that we wouldn't be able to follow your commandments, you step in and save the day. And so that when we stand before you, we're not pleading our case, we're not pleading our morality or our ability to do things well, we're not condemned because of our actions. But this morning we get to stand and we get to place our faith in you for the forgiveness of our sins and for salvation.
God, and I know in this room people come with all kinds of different backgrounds and experience. And so God, while we may know that the gospel is true, that Jesus saves, that even we live our lives in a way where we don't believe that to be true, where we still think we've got to earn it, or when we mess up we feel condemned. But God, ultimately, we are brought into relationship with you by Jesus. And we thank you. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
Amen.