Okay. So, uh, that's pretty dramatic. Uh, like, I'm, I'm curious what some of your answers are. Um, somebody from from Mid River said Mount Ara. That's pretty cool. Uh, somebody from, um, Fenton said Everest. There was a, somebody from Youth Crossing at Fenton said, I wanna see Everest. So, or maybe they're saying they climbed Everest. I don't know either way, way to go. Uh, let me say hello to to all of you. Those of you who are here in our overflow at Chesterfield, in overflow, at Fenton, Fenton Grand Trail, mid Rivers around the country, around the world. But like, gimme some of your answers. Anybody, uh, grants Trail said Mo Most Smoky Mountains. So I wanna say that over here. What? Denali? Denali. Yeah. That's come up in each, each one of these. That's a Yes, sir. Fuji, Mount Fuji. All right. Have seen it or want to see it? Have have seen it? Yeah. That's pretty cool, man. Uh, I saw Fuji apple once, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, come on. Grand Tetons. The Grand Tetons. Unbelievable. Right? So we have all of the what? K two. K two. Okay. So everybody's got these mountains. We like, we're fascinated with mountains. They, they, they elicit a kind of awe, don't they? Can I, can I tell you what mountain I wanna see? I mean, thanks for asking. So, uh, here it is. Now, um, what this, um, comes from is a vision that God gave to the, to the disciple John. Um, we call it the Book of Revelation. I'm taking you to the end of the end of the Bible. We're like, maybe second to last page of your Bible. So he, this was an angel, took me in the Spirit to a great high mountain that he showed me, the holy city, Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God. It's shown with the glory of God. And sparkled like a precious stone. This is the end of the Bible. And there's all sorts of powerful imagery here. We studied this, uh, we did a whole series on the book of Revelation, the powerful imagery. And, and there's one who keeps coming up the lamb of God. Some of us, many of us know who the Lamb of God is. We just sang about him. It's Jesus. It's Jesus. And because of Jesus, if you read in this passage, there is no more evil. It's been defeated. There's no more death. It's in this chapter that you read. And he will wipe away all tears. Come on. This is the victory that is awaiting us. This is it. If you read this, this city almost sounds like a garden too. 'cause there's a river running through it. There's a tree of life, and it, and it leaves somehow bring healing to the nations. This is where it is all heading. And some of you're like, Greg, I don't even know if that's a real mountain. Oh, it's real. I don't know what's going on here, but it's real. And then these words, John hears these words. I heard a voice saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people. And he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God Folks, that's the mountain I want to see someday. I I I long for things to be different. I long for them to be healed. We long for answers and, and comfort, and courage and meaning. Hope. I just wanted you to know where the story's headed. Like we won't even get to this passage until, like the last weekend of the series. But I wanted you to know that's where we are heading. Because honestly, I think that vision there is gonna help us at the beginning of this series. In fact, I think it's gonna help us. We, we might notice something that we've never seen before. Because today, in just a second, we're gonna open the word and we will start, like, for those of you who have your Bibles, you can start turning there now. But we will start, this is pretty much the easiest Bible verse you will ever look up. 'cause we're gonna start in Genesis one, one. Like, if you're going, man, I'm not very, I'm, I'm the, the Bible's really new to me. Get to the table of contents, and you're almost there. What we're gonna do is we always do. We're gonna invite God to help us as we open His word. So let me pray for us. Father, we come before you now, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful that we're able to gather together across all of these campuses. I'm grateful that even as in recent weeks, we've been praying for revival, God, for you to show us, for your spirit, to lead us. Lord, you're doing just that. And we're trying to keep up with you. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for people who showed up today. Some of us are all in, some of us are struggling, some of us are barely here. But you are so big and so good that you've invited each of us here for a reason. I pray that today will, each will get a sense of what that reason is. Why, why you brought us here today, on this day of all days. So we ask you to help us now as we read your word. Holy Spirit, please move through our midst. In the name of Jesus, I pray these things. Amen. If you're new here, this is your first time. My name's Greg. I'm one of the pastors. We're really thrilled that you're here after, uh, a, a, a, a difficult, powerful, meaningful, holy Jesus, focused holy Spirit soaked weekend last week. Yes. Where we all brought our hearts, our broken hearts, our longing hearts, our hopeful hearts together. And we put our eyes on Jesus. And if I'm remembering things correctly, 'cause I was catching lots of texts and people from different sites, and y'all were talking back to me. You remember that? Yes. Some. Oh, so it was a different crowd that was here than last week. Uh, but y'all were talking back and we were, we were together going, yes, God, yes. You're not finished with us. In fact, there were places where I said, we are going to continue to chase Jesus into this broken world. We are going. I said, we will not back down from proclaiming the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And people said, yes, let's go. Let's do this. And part of what we said was we're gonna keep, we're gonna keep going back to his word because it's in his word that we will discern how to live this life. I wanna thank so, so many of you who have been so beautifully affirming as we just come into this time together. And like you're showing me your slices, your apples, your aspen slices, and, and like what you wrote on it. And I'm getting texts and emails, and we can't even keep up with all of the emails of people saying we're in. How do we do this? I'm hearing stories of, of of, of teenagers who took their slice and they put it in their locker at school. 'cause they wanna live for Jesus. Come on. I heard, I heard business people saying, it really is my coaster and it's changing how I interact with my, it's messing up how I'm interacting with my clients in a good way. Come on. We think God is up to something. And so we're gonna start this new series now, and it's called Peak Experiences. Are you ready? Yes. We are going to traverse some of the great mountains of scripture. We're gonna look at these. We're gonna explore them. We're gonna learn, uh, a bunch on the way. I hope it's not just information. I hope you've got some things to write down in your journals, some things to talk about in your small groups. It's not too late to get in a small group. But now we are going to learn so much about ourselves and about the God who keeps inviting us to trust him. Just take the next step with me. And I think along the way, we might be surprised, but yes, a lot of these stories will happen around mountains. So how about this? We just start with this, uh, in the ancient, um, imagination. Uh, and I'm talking about around the world. There is something about mountains and you just, you can't hope. But notice it in, in the ancient world, mountains, uh, were were seen as kind of a, kind of the meeting place of heaven and earth. Like, just think about the, the, the pyramids in Egypt or the Mayan temples. Uh, think about those, those Zaras, uh, in ancient Babylonia. I mean, we could just go on. But the point was that, that, that the gods would come down from heaven and people, if they were allowed, would maybe even ascend the mountain. And there would be a place where they would meet right here. Now, of course, we're talking about the one true God. And it doesn't surprise me that the one true God would use this thing that's been rumbling around in history, this, this image of a mountain to say, Hey, I'm right here. I got stuff to say to you. I think it will surprise us how early this image of a mountain reaches into our story. It might help us to understand why throughout all civilization, there has been an ache and a longing to ascend the mountain. Now, some Hebrew, I want you to turn to your neighbors and say the word in Hebrew for mountain, it is the word. Ha. Just turn to them and say, ha. Say it like you made it. Go ahead. Ha ha ha. Yep. Some of you thought I meant sound like a pirate. I'm not saying that. Ha har har No, just horror. Horror. It's a really multipurpose word. It can mean really tall mountains. It can mean not so tall mountains. It can mean hills and high places. This is the longing. We think that somehow does God meet us in these hills and high places? You gotta hear me from the start. God is everywhere. And we're gonna find out that God meets us everywhere. But let's pay attention to these mountains for a second. You see, as we go through this series, if we were to do a little bit of a flyover, part of what we would see is some mountains that we recognize like Mount Sinai in the, uh, Arabian, uh, peninsula. But if we move north, uh, we will get to where we start to encounter some. And this is just a few of them. Some of these you'll know, like you, like Mount Zion and Mount Mariah. Those sound familiar. Truth be told, those are more hills than mountains. You keep moving even further north. And you're in this ridge between the, the Jordan River there to the right and the Mediterranean. And this is where most of the stories will take place. I'm saying all of this, and we showed you this for a reason. I want you to understand, we're not talking about middle earth. We're not talking about Narnia. We're talking about a real place. This story is tucked into real time. And I think we should start at the beginning. So if you have your Bibles, Genesis one, one, All of history is built on those words. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's it. Heavens and the earth. That's a, that's a, that's a Hebrew way of saying, um, everything. So this is the beginning of God, creating everything in the physical universe. This is it. This is it. Now, you probably noticed that I just spoke a little bit more Hebrew. 'cause you're smart that way. Um, this is also the beginning of Torah. The first five books of, of the, what we would call the Old Testament. They would not have called it that, but Torah, which means teaching. So these five books are also called the, the Five Books of Moses. Now, why do we do that? Because traditionally people say that Moses wrote these five books. Now he had help. Of course he had help the story that we're encountering today. He wasn't there. God helped him with that. He assembles all of these histories. He's getting help along the way. I mean, at the end of Deuteronomy, the fifth book, when it says, and Moses died, I'm pretty sure he didn't write that. I do not picture the end of do. I don't picture it being like, oh, this is the one. Hang on one second. And Moses died. I don't think it happened that way. So he got help. The main reason I'm stressing this is because we need to understand who his audience was. The first audience, you always want to think of the first audience. They were the people who had just been rescued from slavery 400 years in Egypt. They were 400 years in a land of many so-called gods. They're rescued and they're about to head to another land of many so-called gods. And I believe the writer here in these books and here at the beginning is saying, let me introduce you to the God, the one true God who rescued you. Now, I think it's really important for us to understand and remember this. This is who they are. And it means by the way, that this is their origin story. It's our origin story. That's what the word genesis means. But what it isn't, and we've spent entire weekends on this, and we won't today. What genesis isn't, isn't a scientific explanation for how and when all of this happened. That is not a cop out. We love geeking out on that stuff around here. Okay? We've done entire weekends, like I said on that. I'll point you to people who love to talk about that stuff. But that first audience does, they didn't think scientifically. I'm pretty sure they weren't going to be too excited about a discussion of, of, uh, DNA sequencing or mitochondrial eve or haplo groups or the Cambrian explosion in the, in the fossil record. I mean, I just don't think they would be any more excited about that. Then you appear to be okay. So it it just, that's not what it is. So if we were really going to kind of, to, to figure out what we think this is going to be and, and how we're gonna get some help here, I want you to think of it's not, it's not how and when. It's more, uh, who and why? Now, let's just take care of the who. Right Now, who did this? The eternal transcendent God of the universe. He did it. He spoke. And the universe left into existence. I want you to understand something. When we say we're not gonna have this scientific conversation, we're not copping out. I am telling you, you do not have to believe the lie that you gotta pick between an anti-science faith and an inter-faith. Science does point us back as best it can to to, to the reality and existence of a God. This is a fine tuned universe. Perfectly suited for life. Y'all aren't an accident. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. There is a God who did all of this. That's the who we clear. We can talk about that. Come to us. We'll, we'll talk about that. But I think a lot of what we're going to spend our time on today is, is, is why. Why would God do something like this? And I think the first word that I would give you that that is, is might surprise you, but I think it's true. He did this. The word is relationship. Now. God didn't need anything. God wasn't lonely God. God wasn't like, oh man, I just need some people to hang out with. That's not what happened. But God did do this out of relationship. If you look at Genesis one, for instance, you don't get a lot of scientific explanations, but you get this almost poetry. It's exalted language. The scholars will say, it's like really big. It's got rhythm to it. They'll tell you it's in the Hebrew. It's almost like a song. It's, it's, it's a, it's, it's like a love song. God is saying, I did all of this 'cause I love you. I I I did all of this for you because I love you. Now, if we were to, to, to keep going into this a little bit, the whole climax of the creation song is, uh, in the image of God. He created them, male and female, he created them. Now we spend a lot of time talking about what it means to be made in the image of God. But I'll just say two things real quickly. It's a statement of human dignity. It is a statement of human dignity. Human life has intrinsic value. Every person you meet bears the image of God Almighty. It's also a statement of human responsibility. We are to reflect God's glory into this creation. We're to care for creation. We're to care for each other because we have this ability like no other creature, to, to connect with God, to long for God, to have a well, a relationship with God. But to do that means we have a freedom. Because without freedom, there really isn't love. You can't program someone to love you. Listen to me. You're gonna hear and see a lot in the coming years where people try to convince you that love can be programmed. In some autobot lies freedom. You need the freedom to say yes or say no. You can't program somebody to love you. So God gives us the freedom to either turn to him or turn away from him, to either trust him or to reject him. God gives us that it's baked into the story. But make no mistake from the beginning. We know that God loves us. God did this out of love. At the end of the whole creation, accountant chapter one, God says, it's not just good, it's very good. Centuries later, the prophets f Aniah says that God exults over his people with singing. Maybe nobody ever told you this, but God delights so much that he sings over you. Come on. It's love. Uh, that, let's write that word down. I really do believe that this comes down to love. God loves us. Now here's the question. When you love someone, what is the best, most powerful way to, to convey and to communicate that love? Well, do you do it like mechanically or do you do it poetically? Let's try it this way. Um, I asked for a couple that is in love, and I believe it's Cameron and Lisa was, was there. Come on down. So, uh, if you guys would, and you got a microphone for me there. Okay. So come on up here. Just stand right here if you would. Alright. Yeah. Um, yeah. Face each other. Okay. Um, I'm going to make the assumption that you guys didn't fight on the way here today. Is that good? We did not. Okay. Good. Good, good. You never know, um, Lisa, I, I wasn't gonna put you on the spot and say, Hey, come up with something. So, uh, here, I've got it for you. Would, would, would, would you just read that to Cameron? I will, I will. I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart. I am never without it. Anywhere I go, you go, my dear. And whatever is done by only me is your doing. My darling. Here is the deepest secret nobody knows. Here is the root of the root of the bud. Of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life, which grows higher than a soul can hope or mind can hide. And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart. Those are really good words. Did you feel that She's feeling it, looking at her face. Eee Cummings, if you want that, you can, you can. Yeah. Okay. You probably ought to say something to her. Don't you think? I, I probably should. Okay. All right. There you go. Okay. The first time I met you, it, I came down with a sudden case of dys Dyspnea. Dyspnea, yeah, Dyspnea. Okay. Not a medical sentence. Go Ahead. Just keep Going. And since then, the central dopamine pathways have certainly been activated as well as vasopressin in the ventral palladium region. Keep going. You're on a Roll. And oxytocin in the nucleus accumbens. Mm-hmm. And the para ventricular nucleus of a hypothalamus. Yes. If I may be so bold, there has been some activity in the meso limbic dopamine pathways. Okay. All right. Now stop. Let's not go too far. So here's the deal. Both of those were true. Mm-hmm. When you said that like the first time you saw her, uh, you, you, you were overtaken with a case of dyspnea. Mm-hmm. That's a way of saying, first time I saw you, you took, you took my breath away. True. But it was technically accurate. And so was the rest of what you were saying that was the mechanics in your brain of what it is like to be attracted to someone. Everything you were saying, there was true question for everyone. Sites everywhere who like expressed that love more powerfully. This person. This person. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly her. I mean, clearly her. Because if you're just gonna say something mechanically, it's true, but like, nah, it doesn't really land that way. Right? Okay. So thank you, thank you, thank you. What's the point we're trying to make? If you, if you read Genesis one, part of what you're going to see is that there is, it's not so much about the mechanics, it is so much more about conveying this love. God is saying, I, I did all of this for you. And if you keep reading, I did all of this for us. Not because he's lonely, not because he's needy, but because God loves. I say, pay attention to the grand beautiful nature of God. Look at all of his creation, but then let it get personal. Psalm eight says, when I, when, when I consider the, the work of your hands, the moon, the stars, God, it's overwhelming. But what is mankind that you have thoughts? For me, it's both. It's both. But in this moment, there is something going on. And by the way, I do believe as we now move into the story, it's a historical Adam and Eve, okay? Again, we're talking about, uh, I can, I can believe this and not be too worried about, uh, the science of it. Some, some of my friends and uh, colleagues will, will say, well, this all happened in a 24 hour day. And okay, God's big enough. He's powerful enough to do that. There are other people that will read some of the words there in the Hebrew in that passage and say, I think he took a lot longer. And it was a different process, but God still did it. The the punchline here is God did it. And then there's like a special act where he created Adam and Eve. And so you can get to the story a bunch of different ways. I'm not gonna argue with anybody about the, the how and the when I'm telling you who did this. But let's keep pushing into the why. Because these next verses are verses that we kind of, honestly we gloss over, but there's something hidden in there that we really want. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east. And there he put the man whom he had formed. It's a garden of delight. Now, the reason I say delight is because that's what that word means in the Hebrew. It's delight, it's paradise, it's lush, it's everything. Couple of things to note. First of all, Eden wasn't the whole world. Please note that. And God places man and obviously woman in the garden, it's lush. All of the trees look great. It's all appropriate for eating everything. Whew. This is a lot. Oh, there's two other trees in the middle. The tree of life. Hmm. We just heard about that in Revelation Tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, these literal trees are these metaphors for, uh, acquiring wisdom and acquiring life. I don't know, it seems like there's something literal about them, but this is it. God has done all of this and he's placed them there so that they can flourish. Now at this point, some of you're going, man, Greg, I think you lost the point. Weren't you supposed to be talking about mountains? Like you just got lost in Eden? Watch how these things connect. Now, there are some scholars when they look at say, uh, uh, places like, uh, Ezekiel 28, where the Garden of Eden and the mountain of God are mentioned. In the same breath, there are some scholars who are now very open to thinking that perhaps the Garden of Eden was on a mountain. There's some really thoughtful scholars like Greg Beal and Desmond Alexander who've done the homework. And they say, yeah, I'm pretty sure Eden, wherever it was, was, was, was on a mountain. Now that's interesting. They'll go to verse 10 in chapter two where it talks about how there was this river that was flowing through Eden and to water the garden, but it divided, it became four rivers. If you keep reading, we don't know two of those rivers, but two of them, we know that Tigris and the Euphrates, if you ever took a geography class in high school, you know those are real rivers that run through the Middle East. What's interesting is, you know where the headwaters of the Tigris and the Euphrates are in the mountains of Eastern Turkey. Huh? So is that where Eden is? We don't know. Nobody knows where Eden is. They, they don't waste your time trying to find it. Some people think it's down south, like near the Persian Gulf in Iraq. Some people think it's up in those mountains in Turkey. The point here is mountains. That's interesting to me. Geologically it makes sense that it would be at a higher place because water flows down, right? Theologically, symbolically it would make sense because if you think about it, Eden was the first place where heaven and earth met. In fact, God created Eden for man and woman to flourish, to thrive. But I'll go even further. He created Eden as a place where he could dwell with him. Hear me now. God doesn't need anything. I've said that twice already. God didn't need a place to stay, but God wanted to dwell with his people. We won't take time today, but I could show you there are some parallels between what's happening in Eden with what we see later in the temple. This is kind of like a sanctuary that God created and he created it for them, but he created it as a place where he could dwell with them. When God rests, you know, you, the famous verse on the seventh day, God rested. He ceased from all creating. But that word resting, that that shabbath is what that word is, doesn't mean that God stopped being. It just means he stopped creating. He rested, he abided. You see, God is now dwelling in this creation with his people. That was the plan all along. And people were to, to to to uh, to, to learn from him and to trust him and to keep facing the the next thing, the next assignment that he gave them. They were to be fruitful and multiply. That means there's now gonna be more and more people. There's more and more stuff to do. It was really a grand and a glorious thing. And I think the implication there is you get enough people, they're not gonna fit like in, in this one spot. So now you take this out to the ends of the earth, man, let's just, let's just expand Eden all the way out. And then we get to the Book of Revelation and it's like, oh yeah, that's exactly what God had planned. We were going to live with him. He was going to dwell with us. You will be our God and we will be your people. That was the plan. What happened Chapter three? Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you can't eat from any of these trees? Now you've got all sorts of questions at this point. 'cause some of you're going, man, I can't believe this part of the story. Are you telling me this is real? I'm telling you, this is describing something that really happened. Trumper Longman says, it is fantastic storytelling to make a theological truth. Do I know like what this serpent looked like or what this sounded like? No, I don't. Was this someone who had like a, like serpentine qualities? Was this the supernaturals involved? Was a serpent like taken? I don't know. I'll tell you what helps me in the Hebrew. It doesn't say a serpent. It says the serpent. Quick show of hands here. Anybody believe in the reality of evil in our world? Yeah. Trace it all the way back. And the Bible tells us he's the evil one. He's the accuser. The destroyer. The father of lies Satan. He's the enemy of God, but he's not the equal of God. Y'all might wanna write that down. He's the enemy of God, but he is not the equal of God. And the serpent in whatever form has now entered the garden. He, he's the intruder and he's beginning to do what he wants to do, which is to tear at this relationship. Your first big clue. If you wanna have some fun, it won't take you five minutes, but go to, uh, go. Like when you, when you, when you leave here, go look at Genesis two and Genesis three and notice how many times you see Lord God, Lord God, Lord God, God is the title for God. It's the God He is the righteous creator. God. Lord, when you see it in all caps in your Bible, is actually the personal name of God. That a long time ago people stopped saying out of reverence. Uh, in the Hebrew it is, um, it's yod. Hey, hey. We would maybe, we think say that Yahweh or Yahweh, but out of reverence, the early translators wouldn't even put that in the translation. So instead, what they would do is every time they saw that, they would substitute it with, with the word Lord Adonai. And so every time you see all caps, that's the personal name of God. So all the way through now, if you look at this, you will see Lord God, Lord God, Lord God, personal name of God relationship. Remember all of that. The serpent enters into it and he drops the relational name of God. Just look at it. It's there. So did God say this to you? There's no personal name of God there. He's already trying to put away, did God say you couldn't eat from any of these trees? 'cause they look delicious. Eve gets into the conversation with him and, and kind of makes the same mistake. And just like, no, God didn't say that. Wait, wait, wait. He's your Lord God. The per you've already dropped the personal name. Yeah, God didn't say that. We couldn't eat from any trees, just that one tree. In fact, we can't even touch it. If we touch it, we'll die. God didn't say any of that. But now they're having the conversation. Now he's saying, no, it's it's not true. It's not true. Now remember, he's a liar. And what he says here in the story is no, you'll just be like, God. Isn't that what you want? Anyway, that's what Satan wanted. That was his mistake. Now he's trying to get her to buy in on it. Just, just do this and you'll be like, God, it's not true. But she, she eats of the fruit. I mean, something happens there. And we have all of these questions about, well wait a minute. I still wanna know what does that mean and, and, and what's going on. And like some of the questions are like, just really practical questions, curious questions like, you know, so was it an apple? 'cause every I'd grown up, everybody said it was an apple. Does it say apple in the text? No, it doesn't. It doesn't, it we don't, it's not an apple. Was it a fig? I dunno, you hear fig leaves mentioned a little bit later that's in the text. I don't know. We don't know. People come up to me and they ask me. So what do you think it was? If you ask me my suggestion, some of you know this, I think it was probably a pear. 'cause I hate pears. Nothing good ever came from eating a pear as far as I'm concerned. So yeah, I know, I know you're gonna come up and give me your best pair jam and you're gonna change my mind. I know. All I know, I know. We don't know. We don't know. Were those trees real? Like were they literally real or was it a metaphor? I don't know. It seems to me that there's something literal that's happening here in the story. Are they magical trees? No. Was it, is this like a fairytale where the fruit was filled with poison? No. Somebody said, uh, well Greg, like somebody in in a previous service came up and said, uh, well if God saw that this train wreck was about to happen, why didn't he stop it? Anybody have that question? God, why didn't you just say Don, he is God? My answer to them was, if God then said about doing that, he'd be doing that for the rest of our days and we would be playing an eternal game of bumper bowl. Do you know what I'm talking about? You put those things in the, in the gutters and that, that way nobody has a gutter ball. I mean, you just keep playing and yay, yay. Look at me. I did it. But you're not really playing, you're not really living, you're not really experiencing anything. If God did that, we're like a half step away from God pre-programming all of this and say, no, I'm nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. What God wants is relationship. What God is, is offering us is a loving relationship, which means you have to have the freedom when you are faced with this moment to go, do I trust God? Do I not trust God? So the big question here really is what's wrong with the knowledge of good and evil? What's up with that? That's a good thing. Shouldn't we wanna know the difference between good and evil? And the answer to that is, of course, the Bible wants us to know the difference between good and evil. Tim Mackey says, this is a riddle that we must solve. I agree. Now what he says is that God is teaching our first parents the difference between good and bad by telling them not to eat from the tree of knowing good from bad. Huh? Let's try it this way. God is teaching them. Trust me. I want you to trust me. I know what's best. I know what's good for you. I'm God, you're not. Trust me, look to me. But if you get to a place where somebody whispers and goes, nah, you don't need God that looks good for your own sake, just do that now. I'll be the one, I'll be the boss of me. I'll be the one that decides what's right and wrong. Now, we've set ourselves up to be God, are you with me? You know, we fall into this trap all the time. Lemme tell you what it sounds like, uh, in my head and sometimes in my words. We all do this in, in our own version of it. And sometimes we won't say it as bluntly as this, but it's like, I know, I know, I know, I know what I'm supposed to do. I know what God says to, I know what God's word says I'm supposed to do, but right. And we all know when everything, when you hear that, but like that, everything that was said right before it really didn't matter. I'm sorry, but you're not sorry. Listen, I know what God's word says, but God doesn't know how complicated the world is. But God doesn't know how badly I need that. But I think I can navigate my way. But this is what I really long for. If we do that, we are setting ourselves up to be a kind of God. I don't need you. I'll determine what's right and wrong. That's why God is saying, here, listen, I wanna protect you. Don't do that. But after all of the warning, nevermind the warnings, nevermind that God wanted their best. Nevermind that these boundaries were to protect them. Nevermind that the evil one is flat out lying. And none of this is true. Nevermind that God is now at this place where, where, where he's gonna have to, to to deal with this. Eve takes the bait. Wait. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. Now the puritans, uh, have a saying, while Adam was away, Eve went astray. They just weren't reading their bibles. It's not true. He was right there. Adam could have in that moment going, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. Don't believe that lie. He stood there passively. I read one scholar once who said, Adam like, heard the warning, wondered that this was really gonna happen, and just stood there to wait and see if she was really gonna keel over and died before he ate it. Man up. Adam, listen to me. Men, if you wanna have a legacy in this world, if you wanna make a difference in this world, then do not stand or exist passively in your homes. Take the lead. Tell your kids about Jesus. Give them a good example of what it means to love him. And by the way, do not use this passage to demean women and say, well, yeah, look what the woman no, that is not honoring God. She has made in the image of God and listen to her when she tells you, you might be drifting a little bit. Women have influence in the home. Your power in the home is, it's unmatched. Keep pointing your kids and your family back to Jesus, but work with your husband. Y'all like, like just listen to each other and submit to each other, as Paul said. And together you keep chasing after Jesus. That's what they could have done. But instead, they both rebelled. They both knew what was going on and they both said, Nope, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna choose this other, other way. And the the effects were immediate. It says that then the, the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked. They hear God approaching. We'll come back to that in just a second. God has these questions for them. Uh, like did you, who's the idea? What are you guys doing? Here's Adam's response. Uh, God, it was that woman you gave me. She's trouble. She gave me the fruit and I ate it again. Take the lead eve. Yeah, the serpent tricked me. No, the no, you knew the truth. God gave you the truth. You have the power and the agency to follow him. Follow him. The whole thing's falling apart, right? They're blaming each other. They're hiding. They're, they're, they're not even telling the truth to God. Their eyes were opened, all right? They thought this is what they wanted and they were dead wrong. Sin has entered the story. Shame has entered the story. When they looked at each other, what they saw were two naked little creatures that were far, far from God. Sin is now in the garden. So what is the way forward? It'll be God's justice and God's mercy. And I'm gonna tell you what, you need 'em both. You will need them both, all the way through the story. You will need his holy righteousness and you will need his love that knows no bounce. It's both. Sometimes some preachers really love to lean on one of these, and they really love to lean on the other one. I'm telling you, you need both. This is the moment when the king is betrayed. It's why he's heartbroken, but he will not be trifled with. He is the Lord God of hosts. He is God. It's relationship. But don't you forget who he is. And to understand his mercy, you need to understand it in the context of his justice. So let's blow up a, a, a myth here. There, there are like sometimes when you'll read. And so God was walking in the, in the cool of the day and, and you know, he's asking where they are. And I'm afraid sometimes people just picture like this old doddering God. It's like, where are you? Where do those cute little human beings I made go? Where are you? Come on kids. Where are you? Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. That's not how it happened. He's the Lord God of the universe. And if you wanna understand how this works, we'll talk about his mercy, but we gotta talk about his holiness because it's more than we can imagine. Meredith Klein says that part of what you do to understand this is you have to see when God shows up in the Old Testament. You, you, you see him, you see the blinding glory of God. You can't really see him, but woo god's there. But you also hear him like you hear the rumble of the mountain when Moses is with God and they are conversing. He also says, when you get to places like Second Samuel, um, you, you begin to hear the rustling of the trees. Like there's a wind in the top of the trees as they're entering into battle. And it was the reminder, oh yeah, God is with us. He says, if you wanna understand the presence of God, you gotta play it really, really loud. It's like a crescendo Of a storm. It's like the rumbling roar of an earthquake. It is the trumpeting of signal, horns and the din of battle. Cain says, if you wanna understand Genesis three, you could try to hide from the eyes of glory. But God is coming into his creation saying, what have you done? This is the betrayed Lord of hosts. And now he has to deliver Judgment. What a mighty thing to stand before the eternal God. Y'all, I need you to know that's who he is and he will not be mocked and he will not be trifled with. But that is not the end of this thing. You cannot leave here with that being the end of the story because the mighty God steps in, they don't know what to do. They've never, they've never sinned. Does he pulverize them? Does he say, I am done with you? That's it. No. Even here, grace of bounds, where are you? You can hear the portrayal. Where are you? What have you done? It's the holiness of God. But now it's like coaxing them out. I want you to see one thing here. If you don't see anything else, the holy God has entered the story. He's entered the garden, but he's still seeking them. Yes, my God comes to find me even in my ugly, yes. What, what y'all do. I gotta deliver judgment now. And he does. And death comes spiritually there right now. This love, this pure love that was coursing through them. It's gone. There's a separation there now. I mean, I can't even imagine that ache because you and I have never tasted of it like they did. Gone. They'll die physically. They will now die. Not immediately, but they will die. Can I tell you this is one of the reasons why I, I think the Bible's worldview is, is, is is right. Yeah. We can talk about science, we can talk about issues, we can talk about these things all day long. But I'm telling you right now, this is not the way it's supposed to be. The world that you see, the thing that you go, man, this should be better. You're right. When, when I talk to people who go, you know, death's just a part of life. It's just a part of being on this planet, Greg. That was never the plan. I know when I stand by the graveside of my loved ones, when I stand beside you at the graveside of your loved ones, we're not just saying, well, it's just a part of living on the planet. No, we are crying out, God, this is not right. It shouldn't have to end this way. And you are right. God had a different plan. But Adam and Eve rebelled and we've been rebelling ever since. It pollutes our, our, our, our nature, our our our questions, our our uh, our our reactions, our statements to each other, our our, uh, relationships, our world. It's, it's just, it's, it's all, in some ways it's been sort of poisoned. Adam and e have been, they've been banished from the garden. They've been banished from the mountain of God. No wonder we ache. JRR Tolkien, who was the writer of, uh, you know, all those things. Lord, Lord of the Rings, uh, hobbit, all those things. He says that we still long for Eden. He says, even on a good day, I'm just paraphrasing him now, but he says, like, even on a good day when everything's going well, life on its best day is still soaked with a sense of exile. This is not the way it's supposed to be. We wanna be someplace else. So the world's broken, we're broken. That's pretty hopeless. If I sit stand and, and, and let's just, you know, for closing prayer, everything I said up till now is true. But man, we can't end there. You see, my God didn't give up. He still loves them. E even, even as he curses Satan and he is cursed. Even as Adam hears the rest of his judgment, he's gonna be working in a land that is not gonna always cooperate with him. It's gonna be dangerous at times, even as Eve will now endure her own pain. And, and, and even as he now does deal with the serpent and says, you will be defeated. You will crawl into dust. This is, uh, ancient, uh, language here that just means you, you, you're this, that you're defeated. Like you, literally, you will bite the dust is what it says. You will not win. But even as he's cursing the serpent, he says, there will be a day and there will come one who's born of a woman. And you'll do your best to wound him. You'll try to destroy it. You'll hurt him. You will hurt him, but you will not win. This one who is born of a woman one day will crush the head of evil. Even in history's darkest moment when the thing is all falling apart and the plan is in jeopardy, God says, I promise I am sending one who will make a way back home. It's the first glimpse we have of Jesus. We are promised that Jesus is coming into the story. And this is how we have hope, like real hope. I'm not talking about wide-eyed, naive hope. This is the kind of hope that is resilient. It's defiant. It's, it's, it's informed. It's the kind of hope that says, I can face this broken world because I believe in God and what he is up to. Hope. Hope. We can't live without hope. Guys, you can't leave here without hope. Listen to me. Here we go. Some of these are my words. Some of these are somebody else that got me rolling. But hope, Hope is why little kids wake up earlier on Christmas morning. Hope is why young girls go to the dance anyway. Hope is why little boys shave way before they need to. Hope is why we start our diets on Monday. Hope Is why we sing through tears. Hope is why we pray. Hope is, is it's why we won't give into fear. Hope is why we won't give into defeat. We won't give into bitterness. Hope is why we take the next step. Hope. Hope is why we, we, we, we, we try one more time. Hope is why we come to church. Hope is why we invite a friend to come to church with us because we really do believe that God is still up to something and he's still taking this story forward. And let me tell you one last time where he's taking it. There will come a day where someone will say, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people. And he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with him and be their God. It's like we're back in the garden. We're back on that mountain of God. This is what we long for. This is what we were made for. And this is where it is heading. Oh, we're just getting started in this series. Come back next week. I'll just tell you this, the end of the service next week we're gonna have church. Okay? So y'all have been officially warned, but we're gonna have church next week. At the end of the service, We're gonna explore a story that is so difficult and disturbing and controversial and, and in the end, so loving and, and, and, and shocking and hopeful and encouraging. Of course, it is the story of, well, you'll have to come back next week. In the meantime, Father, I pray now for these people, some who are close, some who are far away, some who aren't really sure what to do with any of it, but you know them and you love them, and you're inviting them to take the next step to trust you this week. Lord, may we be a people who trust you as we take those next steps, just the next step, Lord, show us what it is to follow you. And we are so, so grateful that you didn't give up on us. God, we give you glory in the name of Jesus. Amen. See.