LIVE Join our service streaming live right now! Click here to watch.
We think we have everything under control and know how to anticipate our weaknesses, yet sin still sneaks up looking attractive and attacks when least expected. In Genesis 3 a crafty serpent made the forbidden tree seem good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable for wisdom.
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The pastor uses the example of a self-driving car getting stuck in wet concrete to illustrate how we fail to anticipate sin. What are some “wet concrete” temptations in your own life—things that look good and harmless on the surface but carry hidden danger?
The sermon emphasizes that Eve’s desires for wisdom, knowledge, and fulfillment were not inherently sinful—only the way she chose to fulfill them. How can we distinguish between God-given desires and worldly distortions of those desires in our own daily lives?
The Soviet engineers in Turkmenistan lit a crater on fire to solve one problem and created a far worse one that still burns today. In what ways does sin work the same way—seeming like a reasonable solution in the moment but producing consequences that spiral beyond our control?
The pastor contrasts fast-growing lumber that looks fine but rots quickly with old-growth wood that takes longer but lasts for centuries. Where are you currently tempted to take a shortcut rather than trust God’s slower, more lasting path?
Why do you think we continue to fall for the serpent’s lies even after we know intellectually that they are false? What makes sin’s appeal so persistent even for people who are familiar with Scripture?
The serpent’s invitation in the garden was “take and eat,” and Jesus uses the same words at the communion table. What does it mean practically to choose Jesus’s offer over the serpent’s in the specific decisions you are facing this week?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
We’re beginning a brand new series tonight, and if you don’t like snakes, well, it’s not going to be all about the actual creatures. It is going to talk about what one serpent brought into this world and what sneaks up on us so much of the time, and that’s sin. We’re going to spend this time as we head towards Easter thinking about how sin sneaks up on us when we’re least expecting it, and then it attacks. What do we do about that?
So many times we think we have everything under control. We think we know where we’re going. We think we know how to anticipate sin, how to deal with our own weaknesses, and yet we’re not really ready, and that’s what we’re going to be thinking about.
Think about how it was when you were driving here tonight. What did you do as you were in the car on the way, or as you were in the car earlier in the day if you’re tuned in online? Hopefully, you’re not watching, maybe you’re listening, but you’re not watching while driving the car. But at some point today, you were driving, and as you were driving, you anticipated things, right? You saw cars stopping, you saw construction, you saw exit ramps and signs to tell you where to turn and all these sorts of things, and we anticipate what’s coming, and then we react to them. But if we aren’t able to anticipate them, our reactions aren’t fast enough. It’s that process of anticipation that helps.
One of the fascinating things, I think, is they’ve been trying to develop automated cars, cars that can do self-driving, and in some parts of the country now you can actually find a taxi that will pick you up without a driver in it. Sounds a little hard to get my mind around. I can’t imagine. I’m sure if I have the opportunity to try one of those, I would feel very disoriented at first.
They’ve been running for several years now, and by and large, it seems like statistically they are safer than human drivers, but they do run into problems, and probably not the same problems a human would. For example, I read about one from Cruz that was driving in San Francisco and came up to a street that had just been newly worked on, and promptly drove right into the wet concrete and got stuck.
Now, we human drivers do a lot of stupid things and foolish things. We don’t see a car that’s stopping, or we run into something when we’re not watching, but I think the difference here was that that car, for all the things that have been programmed to do, had not been programmed to anticipate when the road looks clear and wide and inviting, but there’s a little sign on the side that says, “Caution wet concrete,” so it plowed right into it and got stuck. It wasn’t ready.
So often in our lives, as we think about what God’s calling us to do and how we’re supposed to live, the problem is that we are not anticipating what’s coming. We see some of it, but just like that car, we say, “Oh, well, it’s not a human. It can’t do it. It’s foolish.” I heard one person react to it and say, “Well, it ain’t got no brain.” That’s the problem.
Well, God’s given us a brain, but the problem is we oftentimes don’t use it. God’s given us his word so that we can fill that brain with wisdom, but the problem is getting that wisdom from the pages of the Bible into our heads because so often we just don’t want to, we don’t get around to it, we’re not prepared. And then those sneaky snakes sneak up on us and they pounce. They slither right.
That’s where we’re going to be thinking tonight as we go all the way back to the first time it happened back in Genesis chapter three. Let’s pray that God would help us not just to see an interesting story, not just something that happened long ago, but would understand that the very problem that Adam and Eve ran into— the very problem where they were not anticipating the problem you and I still have today—and ask that God would help us to see it.
Would you pray with me, please? Father, would you help us to anticipate? We think we’re ready for the traffic to stop, but we’re not ready for the wet concrete. We think we’re ready for a particular challenge at work or at home, but some other one comes flying at us. We think we have everything organized and then life doesn’t go that way and we fall on the sin because we are not anticipating. We don’t have to come up with it all on our own. Would you help us to be people of your word that we would be all the more receptive to your word as we study it tonight and that through that you would help us to be prepared for everything that we face. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So we’re going to look at Genesis chapter three. If you want to turn there, starting with verse one. What we see here is the end of the creation story. We’ve seen God create everything by simply speaking. And then what happens? Well, then he creates Adam and Eve and he dwells in the garden with them. He has conversation with them. There is a world that is good, even very good. And they have everything in it to enjoy.
God’s given them one commandment—not to eat of the tree in the center of the garden, not to go to that tree—because they have everything else to eat. And we can think a lot about why they shouldn’t have, why God put that there. We can get lost in that, but we don’t get lost in the weeds of this garden. There weren’t any yet. What we do want to see is simply that God said, “Don’t do this.” That was the only thing they didn’t have to do.
Think about us today. There are a lot of things we know we shouldn’t do that we want to do. They had one thing, but the problem is we use the excuse of all the things: “I can’t anticipate everything. I’m looking for wet concrete. I can’t see the pedestrian that’s going to jump out unexpectedly onto the street.” And as we look at God’s word, he says we don’t need to anticipate. You just need to read my word and hear what I have already told you. And where we get lost, where we get stuck is when we’re not looking to Him. That’s what happens here, first with Eve and then with Adam.
Let’s take a look. Genesis chapter three, verse one says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” Let’s just skip for a moment. We’re going to go to verse six. It says, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, 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.”
What do we see here? We see several things. At first, we think, “Oh, a snake, why would you listen to a snake?” For someone, as a snake today, we mean that as a negative. Unless you actually have a pet snake, you probably think of the living creatures that are called snakes and you think of them as negative. But both metaphorically and literally, we think of snakes as a bad thing.
They didn’t have any reason to think that. They were in the perfect garden. Snakes there weren’t going to do any harm to them as creatures. And so one thing I think that we need to start out with is that when we hear that the serpent spoke to Eve, what we shouldn’t be thinking is, “How could she look at this repulsive creature and decide to listen to him?” She looked at a creature that God had made that was good in his appearance because God had made him. The world wasn’t fallen. There was no reason for humans to be fearful of, say, a venomous snake. No. He was a snake, just like everything else in the creation; he had a purpose. He was in the garden.
So she sees a snake, and if anything, the snake was attractive. What are we told here? We see different things in different translations, but essentially what it’s saying, if we look at how the word is used throughout the Old Testament, is that he was shrewd, or we could even translate it wise. Serpent was shrewder, was more subtle; sometimes we see it translated craftier, but we start moving towards negatives. It doesn’t need to be a negative term necessarily. What it’s saying is that this creature had all the appearance of wisdom.
Now as we’re going to see, the wisdom wasn’t true wisdom because it was leading away from God, but the creature wasn’t foolish. The creature wasn’t repulsive. The creature was appealing. It sounded good to listen to this creature. Now again, we can go down all kinds of rabbit trails. Was it normal for the animals of the garden to talk to Adam and Eve? I don’t know. Scripture doesn’t say. Eve doesn’t seem to be shocked, but then again, maybe she’s also just getting used to what does and doesn’t happen, right?
We would not be shocked if animals talked to us if they did on a regular basis in our own language. We had our cat or our dog walk up and say, “Hey, how are you today?” If that were how it had always been since we were babies, we wouldn’t think anything of it. The only thing that would throw us off today is that we know that we’ve lived to this point in life and it’s never happened, so we don’t expect that it will. And we know it was strange if it did. But for Eve, there’s not that. And whether or not she’d ever held a conversation with an animal before really doesn’t matter. In this case, she hears it and there’s no reason for her to jump back in fear. There’s no reason for her to think this is bad. It seems like something, some creature worth talking to. He has something really interesting to say.
What he has to say is, what about that really attractive, beautiful tree that promises wonderful things for you? He doesn’t say, “You know, I think you should go disobey God and take of that fruit.” That wouldn’t sound good. No, what he says is, “God’s so tough. He’s a tough taskmaster. He said you can’t have anything in this garden,” right? What’s he doing? He’s trying to make what God said look unattractive and point out how desirable what we see in verse six.
Eve looks at the tree. She says, “Oh, the fruit’s beautiful, and the thing that it does is beautiful. I’d love to have wisdom.” And so we see here, Eve has curiosity. Is that a good thing? Yes, it’s good to be curious. It’s good to want to know things. God made us that way. Eve wants wisdom. Guess what? God says we should want wisdom. And so here a creature says, “Wouldn’t you like this wisdom?” Anything in that context, minus the fact that it disobeys God, all sounds good.
And if that were all that the story said, one day Eve woke up, snake said, “Hey, I bet you haven’t checked out this tree. It’s a great tree. It’ll make you wise.” Eve ate of the tree, became wise, story ends happily ever after, right? The problem is that God has said not to eat of this tree or you will surely die. So with all that in mind, I think it changes the feel of it a little bit, because we feel like some eerie horror film music should be playing as she prepares to take the fruit. That she should be jumping back from the snake and then solely maybe approaching out of curiosity.
But if we really think about it the way it would have been for her, everything looked good. And I think this is so critical if we’re going to understand how the first temptation is just like so many of the temptations we do today, because so much of the time when we let our guard down, when we’re not digging into God’s word and asking him to speak to us through his Spirit to understand what he wants us to do, if we’re just kind of going at it on our own, we’re just winging it, we’re trying to anticipate the road hazards without really paying attention first to what’s supposed to be ahead of us, it looks pretty good in the moment. It looks like that nice clear road that there’s no traffic on. And if we don’t understand that the cement’s wet, you’re going to get stuck. What’s going to happen? We’re going to get stuck.
If we don’t listen to God’s word when he says, “Don’t do this,” we say, “Well, maybe it didn’t quite apply. Maybe that was for a different time period. Maybe if God only understood what situation I’m in, then he would never have said that. And so I know that I’m in a different situation than God intended, so I can do this thing that he said otherwise not to do.” When we start to do that kind of thing, what happens? Well, the temptation looks beautiful. And if we’re going to be prepared for sin, if we’re going to be prepared not just to see it and then do it, but to see it and then reject it, what we have to do is start with the fact that we’re anticipating that it looks enticing and beautiful.
And I think sometimes we make it out to be so bad because we focus on the sins that we have no interest in. The sins that we do have interest in sneak right into our hearts because we’re not ready for it. That’s what the serpent does with Eve. And so he takes her good desires—the same thing that drives us often. Our good desires.
We want wisdom. We want knowledge. We want power. We want security. We want to get along with people. We want to be able to provide for our families. We want shelter from bad weather. We want these things. They’re not bad things. They’re even God-given desires. But we’re so anticipating a certain grid where we will be repulsed by sin that when it actually feels like it would be kind of nice, when it actually looks appealing, even if intellectually we know that’s the case, we still fall into the trap: “Well, it can’t be bad. It doesn’t seem that bad.”
That’s where Eve is here. Serpent’s walking her down a path. He’s slithering down the path with her to say, “You know, if this were really true, there would be buzzards flying over the dead bodies by this tree. There’d be skulls and crossbones by this tree. If it looks good, if it looks like it would taste good, and if as you bite into it tastes so good you want to share it with your husband, it must be good.”
All the while, Eve’s sinking into that concrete. Take a look at 1 John chapter 2, verse 16. John writes, “For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.” That’s John trying to get us to understand. He wants us to understand that we have desires; God’s given us desires, and we can choose how we’re going to fulfill those. Are we going to align those with God? Or are we going to align those with the world?
Now, what John isn’t saying is that we renounce everything in the world. Here Eve is in the garden, and God wanted her in the garden. God wanted Adam in the garden. He wanted them to experience his provision in that very concrete fleshly place. When John says flesh, that’s not what he’s referring to. What he’s referring to is the sense of flesh as our sin nature, of the sin of the world, the brokenness of the world.
What Eve is doing is moving from those good desires. Should she want to eat something? Yes. She should go to any of those beautiful trees other than the one that God said to avoid. She should go to any of those trees, eat of that tree, enjoy that tree, be nourished by it, and so should we. When we have a desire, our sense should be, how can I fulfill this in a way that’s following God? If our sense is, “Well, I just have to do this even though it seems to be out of line with God’s will because he gave me these desires, and I have to be true to me, or I have to be fulfilled,” the problem is that we’re falling to the lie that the way that we fulfill those desires has to be the way the world says we do.
Serpent says the way to fulfill the desire for wisdom is to eat of that tree that God said not to eat of. And today, the one behind that serpent, he says the same thing to us. “You want to be wise? You want to be happy? Well, turn on the TV, go on social media, read about what makes people happy, and if it doesn’t correspond with what God says, God’s wrong. God does not want you to be happy.”
Did he really say that you shouldn’t be happy in life, that you shouldn’t have anything in life, that you should suffer every single minute of life until you die? That’s what the serpent wants to say to us today. Sometimes we fall into the trap of saying yes and then become bitter and angry until we finally can’t take it and we sin.
Or sometimes we say, “Well, no, that’s not what God wants, but that must mean he wants me to do whatever I want.” And then we run off into sin. Either way, we’ve lost our eye on where we’re supposed to be. We know there’s a good thing to accomplish, but we’re not asking how can I accomplish that in a good way?
I was reading about what Soviet engineers did years ago in Turkmenistan. There are these craters there in their natural gas fields that can at times leak all kinds of noxious gases. I guess it makes sense given where they are. But there was one near a town, and there’s some debate on exactly how it formed, whether it was man-made or not. Apparently, the Soviets either never released or destroyed those records many years ago.
But in 1971, I believe it was, they decided they couldn’t stand this any longer. And so what did they do? They smelled these noxious gases, and they thought, “What we need to do is burn off all those gases. We’ll light it on fire. That way, we burn up the gas, and then the village nearby doesn’t have to smell them any longer.” It’ll be good.
The problem was they didn’t ask the question, “What happens next? How much gas is there? What are we getting ourselves into?” And so if you were to go over there today— I don’t know how close they’d let you get to it— but in Turkmenistan you would actually find there’s still a crater on fire. It’s been nicknamed the Gates of Hell because for 50 years now, 50 plus years now, it’s been burning constantly, burning up the natural gas under the ground, just raging.
The only way you can get near it is to actually put on a suit like you would to go into a volcano. They’ve created this thing, this fire, this raging fire that never ends. And guess what? It puts even more noxious pollution and contaminants into the air for the village nearby, and because it’s burning nearby, it has eliminated the ability for them to drill for the natural gas in there because it’s not safe. And they’re not sure how to stop it.
And so often when we go down this path, just like Eve, she goes and she eats the fruit and she’s turned on that fire. The literal Gates of Hell are standing there right before her. She’s bitten into the fruit and separated from God, and then it’s too late to stop it. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the engineers after that fire started up and they realized it was burning a little bit more than they thought. And especially as the weeks went by, they thought it’d last maybe a week or two, they thought, “I wonder if we should have done this.” But by then it was nothing that could be done. It was already burning. They couldn’t say, “I’ll hit the undo button.”
And so often with the sins in our lives, we keep rolling along, and when we finally want to stop, we’ve made too much of a mess. Too much of a mess for God’s forgiveness? No, not too much mess for God’s forgiveness. As long as we have breath, we can always turn to him, but too much to escape some of the wreckage. It’s going to create a mess. And because we don’t know how long our lives are, yeah, maybe too much to ever resolve because what happens if our sin is right in the middle of it and we still haven’t repented of it?
And so God says, “Don’t do that. Keep your eye on me. Don’t create that burning, raging inferno of a crater that can’t be extinguished.”
Truist would have said, “Maybe we shouldn’t light something on fire if we don’t know how much fuel is under the ground that could possibly keep it burning.” Maybe for Eve, wisdom would have been to say, “You know, if the one who made me said I shouldn’t eat this, and suddenly I’ve discovered that snakes talk and there’s a talking snake talking to me, maybe I should go back and consult with the creator first.” Maybe we should think the same thing on whatever we’re pursuing this week that isn’t necessarily what God would want us to do.
Is it wrong to want good things? Is it wrong to want success? No. But are we actually turning to God? The problem when we light that crater is it becomes harder and harder because the lies that come from the serpent, we’re not just foolish for following them. We ensnare ourselves in an ever-increasing amplification of foolishness when we turn to them because what does it do?
Well, you know when we get into that concrete and we start spinning our wheels, we get stuck. We’re stuck more and more and more. And when we’re in sin, we’re stuck more and more and more to the point that even as we read God’s word, our hearts are hard. As we read God’s word, we can’t see the very thing speaking to us. We just see the distortion.
Look at what the serpent says in verse 2 of Genesis chapter 3. The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.”
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.”
The interesting thing about this conversation is that not only is the serpent making what is wrong more attractive, he’s actively seeking to make what is right less attractive. But the lies appear appealing. He starts with undermining God. We talked about that a moment ago where he says, in a more extreme case, “God said you can’t eat anything,” right? But then he keeps whittling away, and he’s already created that discontent in Eve where she’s thinking, “Well, did God say we couldn’t eat anything? Does he really want us to starve? Is that how our God is?” And so she’s already going through that.
And then what happens next? The serpent says, “Well, let me tell you a little secret. You’re not going to really die.” He starts distorting God’s words because God didn’t say they were going to fall down and die the moment they sunk their teeth into the fruit. He said they would bring them death though. Don’t touch it lest you die.
And it was true, but not immediate. And so I’d imagine in Adam’s head, he’s watching this whole thing go on and he watches Eve eat the fruit. And notably, he doesn’t stop Eve from eating the fruit. He doesn’t say, “Hey, you know, Eve, I passed along to you that thing that God told me that we shouldn’t eat this, but, and I know that snake is kind of neat, but maybe we, maybe we shouldn’t.” No, yeah, let’s Eve eat it. And then he feels even more affirmed in his decision to go ahead and eat it as well.
Because what does he see? Eve did not die. It wasn’t like an Indiana Jones movie. She didn’t just die right then and there. She bit into it and it was over. No. What happens? Nothing. See what I mean? It was good. Just, “Hey, Adam, try it.” And he said, “Well, apparently God’s not accurate. I guess I’ll go ahead and try it.”
And isn’t that what the evil one wants us to think as well? We read what God says is good. We read in the Proverbs, the things of a good life, and it says, “And the good things will come of this.” And we say, “But good things aren’t coming of this right now. When I look at the people who do evil and they get ahead in the world, people who don’t look out for others, they look out for themselves, guess what? They’re often doing better than I am. People who choose paths that are sinful, they’re often happier than I am. Maybe what God’s saying isn’t true.”
And what happens is we get ourselves ensnared in this. And again, I’m probably not saying anything that most everyone here, if not all everyone here, hasn’t thought about and encountered before. And yet we fall into it again because we get into a little sin and all of a sudden, even if intellectually we know this, what do we do? We start to play that same game. We think everyone else looks happier. Other people are prospering more. I shouldn’t do the right thing because they are not doing the right thing. I shouldn’t live the way that God says because it’s so much easier, so much more successful. I could even do more things for God’s kingdom if I’m more successful and I don’t live that way that God wants me to live.
And that serpent, even if we don’t see him, that’s the reason we’re looking at stories of sneaky snakes. Yes, there was a serpent in the garden, but oftentimes the snakes in our lives, the ones that come slithering in, sometimes we see those friendly snakes, sometimes we don’t even see them. We just find ourselves, “Wait, how did I get here?” God’s saying, “Watch for that wet concrete.” Satan distorts the meaning of God’s words by making that sweeping prohibition. Satan then questions its relevance and its implications and its severity. Just the same thing today.
So they eat that fruit and they obtain a form of wisdom, not godly wisdom, something that they know more than they did before. They’ve lost what really matters. That’s the challenge for us.
So why do we do it? I keep saying, “Well, we’ve been through this. We already know this.” Why do we do it? We do it because we think we’re going to get someplace faster because of it. We get tired. We get frustrated. We just get weary. We get bored and we see a shortcut. Here’s a shortcut to a happy life. Here’s a shortcut to a complete life. You can take it. It won’t hurt.
And for a while, maybe even it looks really good. I was reading information about lumber not too long ago, and it’s kind of interesting. If you look at old houses that were built with wood, we look at houses that were hundreds of years old, and they withstand the test of time. They have windows that still open and close, even though they’re wooden. They might get some termites, but generally, they often fare better than our newer houses.
We look at our houses and we think, even when we use advanced materials, they don’t stand up nearly as well as these old houses built with old wood. Why is that? What was really interesting was reading the difference between the wood that was used here in the United States between the first colonies and about 1940 and everything after.
There was a plentiful supply of old wood, forests that had grown for centuries. And apparently, if you look at a lot of the trees that would be used for construction, let’s say building windows, this particular company that had this information was talking about how windows are made. A lot of the windows, they were being made of this old wood and they still work after so many years, and yet you go and buy a wood window today and it might last a few decades.
And the difference is that old, old wood, the way that the tree grew was slower. And so the rings, if you look at the rings that you see when you cut a tree, they were tighter together, and that tightness created a firmness in the wood. The center of the tree, the best wood in the tree also had less sap and it was drier and firmer, and so it was more resistant to rotting.
And so what do we see that happens? You take a board today, it looks perfectly fine, perfectly straight, put it right next to one of those old pieces of wood, they both look really good. Look at the ends, you see that difference and think, “Ah, it doesn’t really matter.” And what do you discover? One board lasts longer than the other. But in the short term, it doesn’t look different.
And in the short term, oftentimes, if anything, sin is even worse than that because sin looks like it’s better. It’s faster. You can grow it in no time. Just plant a little tree farm of sin and it grows right up. Seems like God’s way is going to take a lot longer, maybe our entire lives to get to where we’re supposed to be.
And we don’t want to wait for that hard wood with the really tight rings. We say the wider spaced rings, they look fine. That board looks just as good, if not better. The problem is it’s not going to last. We’re building something that’s going to rot and decay and warp. And it might fall down upon us. It might not be able to serve us. It might collapse underneath us.
And in fact, that’s what sin does. But it is a shortcut. It looks like it’s going to get us there. Our desires, whatever you’re desiring right now, whatever you feel driven towards, maybe the exact details of it are sinful, but there’s something good and godly underneath that. What Satan lies to us about is saying that the only way to fulfill it is something that’s not good and godly. That’s the only way we’ll feel happy. The only way we’ll feel fulfilled. He draws us away.
That serpent looked at Adam and Eve and one commentator observed this and just struck me right to the core as I thought about this. What did the serpent say to Eve? She said, “Look at this good thing. Take and eat.” She took it and she ate, and she experienced death. We’ve all taken and eaten of that death.
So what do we do? When Jesus came, he didn’t come just to tell us what we should do. He also came and said, “Take and eat.” But you see that serpent said, “Take this wisdom that was actually the opposite of wisdom. Wisdom that draws away from God, anti-wisdom.” But Jesus brings us to the table and he says, “Take and eat.” What does he say? He says, “Take my body and my blood.” The very wisdom of God, made flesh in the world, comes into the world and says, “There’s another way.”
And we feel like we need to rush for that fast-growing lumber that’s not going to last. Jesus says, “You don’t need it because I’ve already offered you something better.” It might not appear fast in our lives. We might be profoundly unhappy at times. Scripture doesn’t promise us otherwise. But what Scripture does promise is that as we turn to him and we trust in him, we’ll experience something that’s secure and lasting in a way that what Adam and Eve chased after could never do.
When you look at this story and it might feel like so long ago, these words here are so long ago, but it’s the same story that plays out in your life and my life. Every single day we see them missing and taking and eating the wrong thing rather than taking of the very relationship that God offers them. But God doesn’t give up on them and he doesn’t give up on you and me. He says, “Yes, sin is sneaky, and yes, it looks like it offers safety in that moment.” That’s what you see in these words here. Eve thinking there’s safety, “I’ll gain wisdom, I’ll be ready.” That fruit looks pretty good, she says. What does God say? Sin seems to offer safety.
Sneaky sin, sneaky snakes of sin, they seem to offer safety, but God offers salvation. That’s the only safety we could ever truly cling to. I’m going to pray with you, please.
Father, we pray that you would help us tonight to turn all the more to you, to trust in you. We pray that you would guide us and help us to be those who are faithful. Lord, whatever shortcuts we’re tempted to—I know I’m tempted to shortcuts—I know each and every one of us, there’s those things our heart wants that are from you or of you. And yet the distortion comes and suddenly we’re becoming dissatisfied with what you’re giving us and how you’ve called us because we think somehow there’s another way that those desires can be truly genuinely quenched.
Would you help us to see that the only safety is not in that sneaky sin? It’s not in what the serpent says. It’s in what the Savior says. Would you help us to hold on to our Savior, your Son? Father, would you give us that grace today? Would you strengthen us with your Holy Spirit? We pray in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.
Jesus does indeed say, “Take and eat.” And here’s the question we have to ask ourselves as he does: Am I willing to say, “I know I continue to be tempted to that fast-growing wood. I know I’m continuing to be tempted in that lane that has the wet concrete because somehow I think it’s going to work for me. But I know I need something better, and I want you, Jesus, to help me to get there. I want to reject those fast shortcuts. I want you to draw me to where I really should be.”
And if you’ve already done that, then we invite you to this table. We invite you to take these elements because these are for you. But if you haven’t, consider tonight an invitation. It’s not that we’re saying we don’t want to share this with you, but we’re going to ask you to let these elements pass you by just this one last time and make a point of it to trust in Jesus tonight, to set aside that fast-growing wood that rots for the strength and the security of Jesus, and then come back next week and share this meal with us. Because indeed, although all of us have tasted of sin and all of us continue to fall into sin, Jesus has come in taste and eat of true wisdom, wisdom that will not fail.
So it was on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, and he broke it, and he gave it to them saying, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In like manner after supper, he took the cup, and he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you under the remission of sins. Do this as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Start the Conversation