For God So Loved the World

we'll go ahead and dismiss our kids to little District you will head out and actually go downstairs today all right head out and go downstairs come on don't make me discipline you in front of everybody all right for the rest of us we are week three just over halfway through our Advent SE season and again Advent is just fancy word Adventist which means the arrival of Jesus it was commemorated and celebrated amongst the early church marking the four Sundays that lead up to Christmas um and again they always had hopes of or themes of Hope and peace and joy and love and so uh again

just to be un original that's what we're rolling with is are those exact same things and so each week was kind of marking that idea of what does it look like to have hope for your life what does it look like to have peace in your relationships what does it look like to have joy in your calling which is what we'll talk about today and next week Christmas at the district on December 22nd will be love for the world okay love for the world and we're using John 3:16 as kind of our anchor for this series in Advent God so loved the world that he

gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life um we're using that as our anchor to to help us see how God has seen us in our sin seeing us in our despair seen us in our helplessness and how he initiated love towards us how he moved towards us not because of us but he moved towards us despite us but because of his love for us he moved towards us and so him moving towards us by sending his son is what actually provides hope for your life and it provides peace in your relationships and that's really what we

talked about last week where we kind of combined two weeks in one because I was sick for one of the weeks but we combined two weeks in one and talked about the idea of Hope for your life without God sending his son there's no hope for Humanity and so when we talk about man we want things to get better we want to have a future that looks bright like we we want to have something that we hope in that as we move forward and we wake up tomorrow tomorrow we're not waking up with things are going to get worse we wake up with things are

promised to get better because of Jesus coming to restore and make all things new and so him moving towards us and sending his son provides hope for our life and so I mentioned in that vein that hopeful people are also peaceful people because if you are hopeful in the fact that God has moved towards you to forgive you of your sins and also has moved towards you to help you out in your life and also move move towards you to enhance your life when it comes to Eternity and what he's provided for us those types of people don't have to feel like they need to

take from others or abuse others or hurt others or Rob from others or step over others or use others because they're satisfied in Christ and so those who are satisfied in Jesus alone are able to then be peacemakers because you don't owe me anything I I don't need anything from you rather I get to just love you and be loved by you and so we talked about the idea of love and if God is love then there is a lover there is a beloved and there is love shared and so when we are finding our identity in Christ and hope in that that moves us

to being peacemakers peaceful people who love others just as the father has loved us we are then beloved by others just as the the son was beloved by the father and then we are also able to share love just as the holy spirit is a sharer and helper of all love and good things and so that was what we talked about last week and and crunched it all into one sermon and then moves us into today which is probably an interesting one to talk about in regards to Christmas season and Advent and joy in talking about your calling your calling and and what I mean

by that because calling um can have a lot of different references or definitions to it but for starters when I say calling I'm referring to vocation I'm referring to vocation what you contribute to Society at large and honestly every single one of us fall into that category okay um vocation is literally defined as a strong feeling or suitability for a particular career or occupation some synonyms would be calling or life's work Mission purpose function profession and on and on it's more than just a job um it's also not only a job in the traditional form that we may think of that's why I prefer uh

the term contribution or vocation or as philosopher philosophers might say like purpose like what is what is my purpose in life what am I going to to contribute why am I here well as a vocation you may be a real estate agent you may be a stay-at-home mom you may be a doctor you may be a software engineer you may be a pastor you may be a business owner you may be a teacher and on and on I could go and the reason why I wanted to talk about vocation in light of God sending his son and providing hope and peace and joy for the

world is because I don't know that I've had a conversation with anybody this year who's looked at what they do and said it's easy I never have any problems with it I I I absolutely love it and never have anything about it that like bothers me or stresses me out like I'm never frustrated with it like what I do only brings me happiness and fulfillment and satisfaction like I've never had that conversation with anybody what I have had conversations with is people who may love what they do and studied a lot to be able to do what they do and do what they do successfully

and do it really well but at the same time they say it's the number one stressor in my life it's the number one thing that what I deal with and and a lot of times what I invest in sometimes doesn't turn out the way that I expected I then get frustrated and that begins to overflow into my relationships at home with my my spouse or my children or my friends or because I'm putting so much time into my vocation I don't have enough time to fill in the blank do be able to have hobbies or be able to hang out with other people or to

connect in community to be able to serve in other ways and so what I found is is that the number one thing I believe in a lot of the conversations that robs us of joy is also tied to our vocation and so it's not necessarily family that's robbing us of Joy it's not necessarily hobbies that are robbing us of Joy like I mean one of my biggest hobbies that I like to do is golf it robs me of a lot of Joy but I also find a lot of joy in it because one I'm aware of how not good I am but at the same

time like I I I I know what it is I categorize what it is and I know how to manage and Steward it so that I can enjoy it even when it's not done that great but when it comes to your vocation I think there's so many things tied to it that if you're not successful in it or you don't do it well for example the stay-at-home mom if I don't do it well I'm going to have to put money in a therapy Char for these kids that I'm helping to raise down the road because I feel like I messed up and the weight and

the stress that's then put on them is going to rob them of joy for the person who worked completely off of commission whatever kind of business that might look like if I don't succeed I don't provide for the family I don't help contribute to the family so there's a lot more stressors that are involved in our performance of our purpose and vocation in life that Rob us of joy and so what I wanted to do was talk about calling talk about vocation in a category of what has God created why has he called us to whatever the vocation is that he has called us to

why is it so hard and what has him sending Jesus to the world done to be able to provide for us joy in our calling to where it also becomes a part of our sanctification to where we are progressively finding more joy in it as we get better in it as we become more successful in it whatever it might be how does God work out all of that so that again where vocation flourishes Society flourishes where vocation breaks down Society breaks down and you can honestly again in all the examples that I gave you fill in the blank like if you have real estate agents

who don't do their job well to the Excellence of of to the glory of God well then you're going to have so many people who have issues buying homes or get um worked over or don't get the best deals like if you don't do it well people have people will suffer from that if stay-at-home moms or stay-at home like if if the family unit breaks down Society breaks down because you're not raising mature people who are able to contribute to society to the flourishing of society if teachers don't do their job well no one reads anymore it's just true like if we don't do a

good job if we don't work well then the seeking the welfare of the city will not be a reality in other words you were designed by God to work to work which doesn't seem exciting um for most that excites you and for others you may think that's a punishment but similar to telling kids it's time to clean up their rooms it's a work but there's also a joy that we can find in it and that's my hope for us today we were designed by God to work and actually if you if you go look at the start which we will hear in a moment as

we dive into Genesis 1 um if you look at the start we were designed to work six days out of the week and rest one day of the week now you're thinking that's punishment and I'm not advocating for that but there was a reason why God created it this way and designed it this way because again they found enjoyment in their work now they Al needed a rest and I'll show you why but they also found enjoyment and pleasure in what God called them to so what I want to do is do a quick fly over of Genesis 1 through3 to establish a foundation for

work and how we find joy in our calling and so beginning with Genesis 1 verse one it says in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth now follow me here this is when things are still good good all right they're still good look down at verse 27 so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female and created them and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heav heavens

and over every living thing that moves on the earth so for starters what's important to notice is that God made us male and female In His Image we call that the IMO day the image of God we are the only created beings in all of creation that were made in God's image period and what that means is that as we are created in God's image we reflect we image we mirror characteristics of God attributes of God creative abilities of God will relationship rationale and on and on I could go it's why we long to be purposeful in our life it's why we long to be

productive and proactive it's also why we contemplate life and death morality right and wrong good and evil it's why when a lion rips a gazelle apart it doesn't sit there wondering whether or not what it did was right or wrong it's surviving it's surviving but it's not contemplating whether or not what it's doing is thriving and vibrant and purposeful it's not wondering in the moment how can I change the world there's a different level of creation bestowed to God's image bearers that does give us dominion and authority over all of the rest of creation and so what we do with that Dominion or how we

exercise our Dominion is our vocation that's our vocation he's given you dominion and authority to manage and Steward your little corner of all of creation for the flourishment of society rather than the decay of society the best way to explain it is what God did with Eden he has then given a mandate to mankind male and female to then do in all of the rest of the world what he created and planted and cultivated he then gives them the exact same mandate to then go out and create culture cultivate culture cultivate Society and see whether or not it flourishes so if we were created by

God to subdue the world and exercise Dominion then what does that look like look at chapter two chapter two is is honestly an elaboration of chapter one chapter two is is in a way Moses saying here's what I just kind of flew over and said God did now I'm going to give you a commentary on kind of the finer points of that creation and so chapter 2 verse1 says this thus the heavens and the Earth were finished and all the host of them and on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done and he rested on the seventh day from his work

that he had done so God blessed the seventh day and he made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation That's the basis for why we work and why we Sabbath why we work and why we rest from that work because God works and then God built in rest therefore God calls us to work and also calls us to rest it's all based on what God has done not just some fancy thing that we have created and said let's have this work life balance no God created the work life balance he worked and he rested and

he calls us to work and also to rest as we reflect what again he has accomplished look at verse five so looking at God's creation when no Bush of the field was was yet in the land and no small plant on the field had yet sprung up for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground see that so God is already in creation organizing it in such a way that the way God is creating is using mankind to work it to bring about his creation to cultivate his Creation in a way it's

kind of like saying to um well like for example last night Kelsey's making some of her famous caramels um and Ezra hey Ezra you want to help us with this we're going to have you put the butter in we're going to have you put the brown sugar in I'm not going to give you all the details of it because it's a secret but um but he helped out with that as he's helping out with that I'm also like hey buddy the brown sugar goes in the pot not on top of the stove so make sure that as you're pouring it make sure goes this way

so there's a way in which we are taught to work but at the same time Ezra was super excited to be able to participate in what Mommy and Daddy were creating in the moment God is involving Us in the participation of creating and cultivating the society that God is ultimately building and establishing Among Us so the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground so God formed the man of dust from the ground and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the Man became a living creature then the Lord God

planted a garden in Eden in the East and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is Pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil so Moses again is just writing an elaboration of chapter 1 a commentary of it God then created Adam to work the ground and he put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it as you'll see here in verse 15

the Lord God then took the man and he put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it now you got to remember we are still in this moment preall now a lot of times we want to look at work we want to look at calling and we want to look at vocation and be like man this is just something I have to do to make money this is something I have to do to provide this is something I have to do because this is the way our society is created and no it is not a reaction it is not a punishment

this is a joyful calling that God has created and given to Mankind in order to work for enjoyment as a pleasure as a a purposeful design that God has provided for us so working vocation is a good thing that God designed before Eve came along Adam was given dominion and authority to work the garden and protect it that was his vocation that was part of his purpose was to enjoy God as Creator and to Steward work and keep God's creation so if you were to ask why did God create us I'm always going to say two reasons the two reasons why he created us was

to enjoy him as Creator in relationship and to enjoy his creation as we participate in cultivating that creation as an enjoyment and purpose of it so we get to be like God in seeing how he created the world and created us while we also then get to participate in cre creating people as I'll show you here in a moment creating people and creating culture and Society in how we work we get to be like our father and that's a wonderful thing that's something that again God being a sharer of Love who has always existed in the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit the lover

the Beloved and the love shared is now saying let's share what we are with creation and create them in such a way that they are able to create and cultivate just as we have as well now obvious obviously it's done in a different way we are not God I can't just right now make something up here out of nothing now God could put something in my hand and I would be a miracle and I would probably just end the sermon right now but there are things that I am able to create and cultivate in society I can write a sermon I can pray a prayer

we can create children like there's so many things that God gives us the ability to create and cultivate because we are image bearers of his now he's placed Adam in the workplace which was the garden and the Lord God commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat for in it or in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die those are verses 16 and 17 of chapter 2 so he's given him the rules Adam here's the rules now you got to remember

this is before evea is created Adam you get to enjoy anything and everything that you could possibly think of I do have one rule for you the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat of it you shall not eat of it now I'll get to why in a minute as far as what that looks like but the limits and boundaries are put in place for us to always know that obedience to our creator is what leads to life Disobedience from our creator is what leads to death and so how do you know whether or not you are obeying there has

to be some type of limit or boundary there has to be a you can do this you cannot do this and if you do this then you are loving me you are trusting me you obeying me you are responding to me you are um worshiping me you are honoring me you are respecting me and if you do those things because I am your Creator and you are my creation we are then able to be in relationship and you are then able to enjoy all that I have provided for you all that I have provided for you the way that you know you're there is by

me giving you a rule a limit so that you're always saying yes to me and know to something that I have given or am withholding and so he put the tree in the garden to show that joyful obedience to the Lord is always going to lead to life and Pleasures forever more always going to be that way if you play Within the boundaries God has designed for you you'll experience joy in relationship with God and joy in your vocation it's when we start pushing the boundaries and going outside of our designed vocation is when we start robbing oursel of the joy and we start inviting

the stress we start inviting the areas that begin to provide trouble for us we don't rest anymore we're no longer content with what God has given to us we begin believing the LIE from Satan that what we want is more of what we already have but I'll get to that in a minute look at verse 18 then the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone I will make him a helper fit for him so this is the first time in the good preall that God said something is not good something is not good and the reason why it was

not good was because man alone does not fully represent the image of God does not fully represent the image of God now male does represent the image of God female does represent the image of God but male and female combined represents the full image of God is that you tracking with that and here's what he means by that out of the ground the Lord had got or had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called every living creature that was its name the man

gave names to all the livestock and the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him and so something that was kind of interesting in here was God told Adam it's not good for you to be alone then gave him a mandate to be able to go and name all of the creatures to see whether or not he was able to find a helper for him now it would be easy at some point to kind of go through and be like all right um platypus okay I'm going to name you platypus

but you're not really a good helper for me I don't know what you contribute um but maybe when he gets a horse horse I can I can ride you uh you can help me plow Fields like you're a Helper but it wasn't the type of helper that God's really looking at here dog oh I you every time I call your name you come running and you're excited you're flapping your tail you're awesome man you're like my best friend but I just still feel like there's something missing here you're not really the helper that God was designing for me and so as he's working through creation

he's seeing that there's a different level here where I have dominion over all of these things all of these animals and there's not one that is fit for me there's not one that is a helper for me in doing what relating with God and cultivating Society relating with God and cultivating Society so verse 21 because Adam could not go find himself a helper Adam could not name himself a helper Adam could could not create for himself a helper what does God do puts Adam to sleep so the Lord God this verse 21 the Lord God caused the 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 remember he's naming everything God's bringing everything to him he's naming everything and when he sees the woman it the Hebrew um phrasing and wording of this is actually more of a song to where it's like a poetic song where he when he sees the woman Adam bursts out in excitement and joy and sings first song in recorded history this at last is bone of

my bones and Flesh of My Flesh and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man now get this here this is also before there is a physical father and mother present because this is Adam and Eve they're the first right 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 and so you have this beautiful wonderful story that happens in this moment that is preall where God creates and ordains something that Adam could not find in creation

itself so again this is something that God provides for relationship with God and for cultivation of society at large Adam could not do those things by himself self Eve comes in and as Eve comes in Adam and Eve together are able to relate with God in now being able to create and also able to enjoy one another in a union that the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit have been experiencing in a community of one flesh for eternity this is the only time God has ever created this and right now as a society we're trying to butcher it are we not we're trying to

butcher it because we don't in sin we don't like what God creates we want to destroy what God creates but we don't realize that in trying to destroy what God creates in the union of male and female we are actually then committing Society suicide that's what it is it's breaking down the whole system system that God created between male and female that Union is what allows us to be able to be fruitful and multiply and create people and not only that but in the Mandate that that they have been given to exercise dominion and authority and to be able to have one who's working the

ground and a helper who comes alongside of them and then they together cultivate Society that's how Society actually flourishes when you break those things apart and then begin having male become female or female become male you then remove the only thing God created to actually cultivate society and you end up as I just mentioned having a suicide of society the reason why I bring all this up is because this is the foundation for your relationship with God and also your relationship to Creation how we actually Steward our vocation now why is it difficult for us to do it why is it difficult for us to

stay married and why is it difficult for us to actually work in a successful way why are we robbed of Joy Genesis 3 we get two good chap chapters and then the rest of the Bible was fixing it Genesis 3: 1-13 now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made now just to kind of give you a little bit of insight in here I don't want to go deep into this at all but um many people ask if this is preall how come there's a serpent in the Garden of Eden who's tempting Eve to do

something she shouldn't do is that not sin present yes it is sin present somewhere from Genesis 1:1 when it says God created the heavens and the Earth and all the hosts that belong there that includes the Angelic world now theologians and commentaries are all over the place and trying to understand when did this happen for the serpent to be present in the garden and what I will say is in Genesis 3 Adam and Eve are now conjoin are are joined together in holy matrimony they are married they are enjoying one another unashamedly in from that moment to Genesis 1 where it says out of every

out of nothing God created everything there was a cosmic battle in the heavens amongst the host of angels where and and honestly all of the names that are given to him are descriptors we actually don't know what his very specific spefic name is so he's called The Serpent of OD he's called the dragon he's called The Devil he's called Satan and on and on I could go but that morning star that that most beautiful angel created of all of the Angels wanted God's Throne so he wasn't content with his place his position he wasn't content with his limit and his boundary even the angels were

were created with limits and boundaries and Satan at some point was not satisfied with his position his posture and his role in the cosmos and he wanted God's throne and so he convinced a third of the angels to follow him and have this battle in heaven which again I'm always going to say is not a battle it's just not a battle it's like if Ezra were to come up to me right now like in our home and say hey I'm in charge now and I'm going to say it's going to take me two seconds to remind you who's in charge maybe not even two seconds

I always tell them if you want to make an alpha move make the alpha move and the one day that you succeed you're free to move out and Satan moved out all right he didn't really move out he got kicked out okay so he gets kicked out and a third of the Angels get cast down that happen somewhere between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 3:1 somewhere in there that happens and when they get cast down to the Earth Satan is then allowed permission to go to God's creation and wreak havoc he's allowed permission to do that because why once again God is allowing us to have

the opportunity for joy ful obedience so that when Satan comes to Eve and says um did God really say that you can not eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and he's like yeah that's exactly what he said you can't eat of it she actually even adds more to it which again is not a good thing to do but she says he even says that we're not even allowed to touch it I don't remember that in Genesis 1 and2 but here again going past a limit and a boundary allowing Satan to enter in and tempt and this is what's happening all

the time with our marriages did God really say with our vocations did God really say that you can't do this or that you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't make this decision or that you shouldn't make this move or did God really say and what he's trying to do is he's trying to move us past contentment in who we are with and what we are doing that God has provided to us for our joy he wants us to move past that contentment and say that's not enough that's not enough I do want more I want more and what he gets us doing is what we

actually find more in is that relationship with God and if he can pull our eyes away from God and say you can find that more in someone other than your spouse or someone or or more of what you're doing in your vocation then guess what now we have an endless cycle of trying to seek satisfaction and something that was never meant to provide it for us never meant to provide it for us it's only found in God alone so what happens he said to the woman did God actually say you shall not eat of the tree in the garden and the woman said to the

serpent we may eat of the fruit of the tree is 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 servant said to the woman you will not surely die like you see what's happening here is the serpent is saying to Eve well that sounds like God's not very nice is he that sounds like God's not very loving is he that sounds like God's just this big meanie on a chair who wants to keep from you good things and he begins rewriting

the script of creation and unfortunately we as mankind are susceptible to believe it and they do believe it for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil you see what he tempts her with is the exact same thing that he wanted he wanted to be like God he wanted to be God and he's now tempting Eve saying you know what God is like God is someone who has no limits could you imagine that no limits we have clothing companies called No Limits I mean we when we say things like you

could change the world that sounds like you can do whatever you want with no limits how about we stop telling one another change the world and just say man change your block change your family like change your cubicle change where you are not these like Limitless possibilities that then when we do change our block in our lifetime all of a sudden it wasn't a purposeful life it wasn't a successful life it wasn't good enough because it wasn't the world we believe the lie of what we want is more of what we already have and that's exactly what they bought the LIE into was we want

more of what we already have they already had everything except for the one truth tree and bought into the lie that that was going to provide for them 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 then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloth now

I always want to point out here that um if you if you post this passage on Facebook for example and just say thoughts question mark everyone's thrown Eve under the bus that's what the that's what the natural tendency is to say yeah why did she listen to The Serpent and the reality of what's actually going on behind the scenes here is that who was the rule given to in the first place Adam Adam and so Adam in giving the mandate to lead and to teach and to help others understand what God has created for us and what God has allowed for us and and the

limits that God has provided for us he's messed up in the leading to the point to where Eve misunderstood what was going on in the situation and thought that maybe there was a loophole here maybe it's okay for me to listen to this serpent Adam never told me otherwise never let me know anything different not only that but Adam in the garden remember what was he called to to work it and keep it same thing is involved in the relationship what is Adam called to do in the relationship is to work for the relationship and keep it protect it and in this moment where is

Adam with her and she gave to her husband who was with her so it's not like Adam was like gone way off into the forest and like going and chopping wood you know chopping trees down being a manly man and then comes back and he's like hey well what' you do what happened no he's standing there abdicating his responsibility of working and keeping and therefore that's why when G when God enters into the garden who does he speak to First Adam Adam so in this moment I need people to hear and understand that yes Eve sinned and simultaneously at the exact same time Adam sinned

Adam sinned and the responsibility of their sin fell on Adam it fell on Adam so that when God entered in verse 8 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 remember what were we created for relationship with God to enjoy him and cultivation of society what are they now doing hiding themselves from relationship with God now no longer do they view relationship with God as something that they enjoy but they View relationship with God as something that is um that they're terrified

of they're afraid of we don't want to talk to him right now but the Lord God Called To The Man and said to him where are you now God knows where he is this is why it's always an opportunity that God invites us to come and confess this is not open theism where people are like God is like God doesn't know where Adam is like he created such a good Tru that when Adam hid behind it God was like I don't know where he went 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 and then God said well who told you that you were naked have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat again God is giving opportunity for Adam to come clean for Adam to come to him and say uh just so you know God I messed up I really fumbled this situation but sin makes you dumb I know you've heard me say that before what does the man say when God gives him the opportunity to confess the fact that he just abdicated his responsibility and he allowed sin to enter into the world yeah yeah the

woman whom you gave to be with me she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate it God you're not going to believe this but he actually blames two people in this moment not only does he throw his wife under the bus but he throws God under the bus the woman is was her problem that you gave me now he's questioning the generosity of God he's questioning the gift of God he's questioning the creative ability of God he's questioning the wisdom of God the woman you gave me ate of the tree and then she gave the fruit to me as well and I

ate now he does at least confess that he ate then the Lord God said to the woman what is this that you have done does the woman also take responsibility no the serpent deceived me again sin is always You're always going to want to self justify when you're dealing with sin and bringing it to the table you're always well if it was this situation it was this uh the weather was bad it was the work was too hard it was well if you just knew who I was married to you'd understand what I'm having to deal with on a daily basis the serpent deceived me

and I ate again sin makes you avoid responsibility sin also breaks down the relationships God has provided for you God gave the man a helper whom he sang and danced over and now Adam is no longer calling her a Helper but a hindrance this is the beginning of death of the family which is also then the beginning of death of vocation and death of society sin destroys and it decays that's all it does so what does God do this is Christmas this isn't meant to be Doom and Gloom what does God do in dealing with sin let's look at it 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 you you want to know how God deals with the en With the Enemy that tempts us to sin against our good God against our creator against our father against our boss against our provider God kills and crushes that enemy he crushes its

head now sin does also bring a curse upon the man and woman and it's tied not only to their relationship but it's also tied to their vocation and this is the reason why why you are robbed of joy every single day in your relationships and in your vocation is because our sin brought about a curse on our relationships and on our vocation let me show you to the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing in pain you shall bring forth children now remember this doesn't mean that children bearing is the only vocation of the woman but it does mean that the

vocation of the family is bearing children we are called just as God created Adam and Eve we are called to create people and so in the creating of people there is going to be pain in that process not only in the childbearing but that's the introd uction into the fact that raising children is going to be difficult what you're actually raising are little people who hate you like right that's where this comes from there will be pain in your bearing of children until hopefully at some point they come to know Christ and see you as in Namo day and say oh Mom Dad I'm sorry

y'all are actually wonderful the only way that happens is if God sends his son into the world to die for the sins of the world it only happens that way not only is it going to be difficult in the creating of children but your desire shall be contrary to your husband uhoh so now in the marriage a curse that is provided because of our sin a consequence of our sin is the woman says one thing and the man says no the man says one thing and the woman says no I think we should do it this way I think we should go this way I

think we should move here I think you should stop doing this and we're constantly Waring with one another and you you want to make it even worse but he shall rule over you now again when you look at the creative order of Adam and Eve yes Adam was first given dominion and Authority but he was not given it in such a way that he rules over his spouse but that he sacrificially leads when he's not sacrificially leading like Christ did for the church like when you look at the husband wife relationship who's the crazy one the church who's the sacrificial loving generous kind one Christ

in the curse of the relationship between the man and the woman when you take what Adam was created to do and then throw sin involved into it now what it looks like is abusive ruling overbearing husband that's where you get the issue you with why and again these These are difficult terms but Ephesians 5 when it says wives submit to your husbands you want to know why you don't want to want to submit is because you view a husband who wants to rule over you I don't want to submit to someone who's going to abuse me that's a part of the curse of the sin

if we had husbands who were taking their their curse of ruling over and bringing it to the foot to the cross and saying I don't want to rule over but rather I want to sacrifice my life for the flourishment of my wife all of a sudden now we will have wives who look back at that and say I'm willing to submit to that leadership I'm willing to follow that leadership because I see Christ not a sinful man there's a difference in that our world doesn't understand those terms but when you start looking at how God created it and ordained it you start to see the

beauty in what it actually looks like to Adam he then said because you have listen 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 you want to know why work is so hard it's a curse curse is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life and you shall eat of 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 into dust you shall return that just means for the rest of our lives for the man there's going to be two people who want to kill him three if you throw the children inv involved as well the children want to kill the man the wife wants to kill the man and whatever you're doing for a vocation wants to also kill you like this is just the curse of sin and that's why the weight and the responsibility is so hard when it comes to what we are called to lead and cultivate in society then the Lord God said behold the man

has become like one of us and knowing good and evil now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live forever therefore the the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to do what to work the ground from which he was taken so he didn't remove the calling and mandate to go and be fruitful and multiply and subdue the Earth and have dominion over it he said continue to do that just know that um it's no longer safe for you everything is going to try and kill you good luck good luck but Merry

Christmas God sent his son Jesus to restore and make all things new God sent his son Jesus to be the gospel message that what God created in the Garden of Eden to begin with this relationship with the father this relationship with our spouse and this relationship with our children and this relationship to our VOC that is meant to be an an arena that is enjoying God and enjoying what we do the gospel only is the thing that enters into the scene and begins repairing and restoring our relationship with the father our relationship with our spouse our relationship with our children and our relationship with our

work which means when it's restored and being repaired what gets to enter back into it that was no longer there because of sin joy joy which means that there's hope for us it means that our like this is Progressive sanctification that when we hand over our relationship with God our relationship with our spouse our relationship with our children our relationship with our work when we hand it over to God and we say will you through the work of your son Jesus begin restoring and preparing these things and let me help in that process by submitting it to you God begins providing joy in it to

say that it will get better it will mature if you again limits and boundaries do it the way that I have called you to do it stop doing it in your own way stop trusting your own self and here's where I want to close out with just some application for you when it comes to this work is not a curse but but an actual joy we were first created by God to be in relationship as a joy and to work as a joy again Adam named all of the animals because God first named Adam like he's just being like his father God named me so

I'm going to go and name everything else God created Adam and Eve and therefore Adam and Eve are like we want to be like our father and so therefore we want to create and so we are going to be fruitful and multiply we're going to have babies and we're going to have lot of babies that's a good thing that God created and ordained because God first created Adam and Eve work and cultivating Society were preall mandates as a means of enjoying relationship with God and like God enjoying cultivation and stewardship of creation the the second thing I want you to see is that the Excellence

of your work can display the Excellence of God when you hear me say that vocation that you shouldn't go past the limits does not mean that you can't do it with Incredible excellence and incredible success so long as you're not robbing yourselves of other things so for example if your vocation grows and becomes incredibly successful at the sacrifice of relationship with your spouse and your family then you've gone beyond the limits but if you're able to be incredibly successful and also cultivate relationship with with your family and relationship with your God then guess what you're within the boundaries you're within the limits and if you

ever want to know if you're beyond the limits ask the spouse and the children hey do you feel like I'm spending too much time at work do you feel like I'm talking too much about my work do you feel like I'm investing too much in this do you feel like we need a vacation do you feel like we need a Sabbath on a weekly basis where I rest from my work do you feel like you are loved not just as much as I love my vocation because we're not competing here but do you feel like you're loved and you're cherished and you're cultivated just as

I am also cultivating these other things whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do it all for the glory of God Proverbs 22:29 also says do you see a man skillful in his work he will stand before Kings he will not stand before obscure men like you can be skilled you can be really good at what you do why because God created you to be really good at what you do that's how Society flourishes I want to close with this one passage Colossians 3:23 and 24 whatever you do work heartedly as for the Lord and not for men knowing that from the Lord

you will receive the inheritance as your reward your Serv serving the lord Christ in a Ask Pastor John podcast John Piper gives these five encouragements with when it comes to finding joy in your work in regards to Colossians 3 it's not to be done with I Service as men Pleasers so if you're working so that other people just tell you you're doing an awesome job you're not going to find joy in that but if you're working because you want to do it for the Excellence of God like you're working and saying God I'm so I'm so happy that you created to be able to do

this and I want to do it for you you'll find joy in that you'll find joy in that number two the opposite of I service is sincerity he says in other words you really mean the good that your work is aiming to do the work is not to impress others it's for the good of others it's for the good of others so it's for the glory of God and it's for the good of other others and it's done to fear the lord number three in other words fearing displeasing the Lord like there's this reverence that we have where I'm not aiming to please other people

but I'm aiming to please the Lord and there's a fearfulness of I don't want to displease the Lord I don't want to displease the Lord like I I want God just like a like a this is this will sound kind of weird but just like a child who does something and says are you proud of me and I might look at what they do and I'm like dude you colored outside the lines like how dumb are you like no I'm not to do that I'm going to look at them as I'm I'm incredibly proud of you because you imperfectly are executing abilities but you're wondering

whether or not my relationship with you is seeing you begin working in what I have gifted you with God's wanting to do that with us as well he wants to Lavish his love and so that's why he tells us to work hardly literally from the soul that is not half-heartedly so whatever we do we do it to the best of our ability and hope that our ability continues to get better as we continue to work and the last one is we expect a great reward from the Lord even if mankind gives you nothing for it and that's probably the biggest one because again we're still

in the curse you might do the best job you can possibly do as as a stay-at-home mom as a stay-at-home parent as a as a as a doctor as a real estate agent you might do the best job you possibly can do and you don't see any reward this side of Glory someone might not buy the house the software engineer like the the program might not work properly the code was bad who knows like you might not see the payout now but if it's done for the Lord and not for men what can rob you of Joy man I I I I did the best

I could possibly do I know I can get better but I really believe that I did the best I could possibly do I worked hardly for the Lord man God's going to bless that and provide joy in that I promise you he it's because it's what he says I will give you Joy in this I want to close with just I know this is my third closing sorry I want to close with this Charles Dickens story he famously wrote A Christmas Carol many of you know it many of you may not know that Charles Dickens was like a confused Christian um what I mean by

that is he believed that he was a Christian he had Christian values Christian principles he just had a bit of of a issue with organized religion which let's be honest we all do right but he wanted to write it into his stories and when he wrote A Christmas Carol he saw that there was a situation in his Society in his culture where there were people who cared more about their profit than they did people and that they thought that was going to provide them satisfaction and so when you look at this story A Christmas Carol the whole lesson Father Christmas taught Scrooge was that people

do not exist for money rather money exists for people people do not exist for things but rather things exist for them work was the religion of Scrooge he spent his life making profit and to be clear the point of dickens's story was not to refute the idea of profit or hard work but to refute the idea of work and profit as idolatry as idolatry that profitability was his morality with no social meaning Beyond personal just acquisition and multiplication let me just make as much as I can and multiply as much as I can in other words if you only work to build a massive Fortune

outwardly but inwardly you are morally bankrupt then what good really is that because again there is no U-Haul following you on the way to heaven the moral of the story appears when the ghosts appear and they confront Scrooge with the inescapable facts of his social and his spiritual Devastation caused by his misunderstanding of his vocation his attempt to serve money as God and therefore for him Capital was his God versus the Creator as his God and therefore Scrooge found no joy in this whatsoever and Dickens paints this picture of it being a cold dungeon likee lonely reality again if we idolize vocation over the way

that God created us to Steward it then we become like a scrooge and it's only when Scrooge finally realizes that man was not made for Mammon but Mammon for man that for the first time in his long sad life he becomes one of those ancient wise men joyfully and wildly offering extravagant gifts to honor the true God of Christmas and so for us I want joy for us I really do I want joy in our marriages I want joy in our raising of children I want joy in our vocations and the only way that we have joy in those things is if we rightly manage

them in view of what God created and provided for us and that we play Within the limits and boundaries that he's given to us so that we have Pleasures forever more and we don't listen to the LIE of the enemy that what we want is beyond those limits and boundaries thinking that that would actually provide us satisfaction and joy when it was never designed to in the first place let's pray father we thank you so much for your goodness to us this morning and we thank you that you have Prov