Sermon – Genesis 3:8-15 – The Devil Made Me Do It

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – Genesis 3:8-15 – The Devil Made Me Do It

Beaver Dam Churches

10^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 10, 2012

Last week we looked at Isaiah 6 and talked about what it means to worship. We found that our worship is modeled on Isaiah's vision. Worship happens whenever we come into God's presence. In worship we join our voices with the heavenly choirs praising God. We express our unworthiness by confessing our sins. We hear the good news that we are forgiven. We listen to God's voice through the Word of God read, sung and proclaimed. We find out that God is recruiting us to follow Him into the world. And we respond in prayer, generosity and mission. It is truly amazing that all of this happens right here every Sunday morning.

But we know that even though we are participating in worship this morning there are many people not worshiping. Recently I heard a story about a family. For generations this family provided leaders for the church. They were extremely faithful. But today, a couple of generations later, this family now knows nothing about worship. Their grandchildren and great grandchildren assembled for a memorial service recently and they didn't even know to bow their heads in prayer or when to stand and sit or even how to use the bulletin. A generation has lost contact with the church and the faith of their parents. They no longer worship. It is as if they are hiding from God. We will talk about this today, but first lets pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

If worship consists of coming into God's presence then not worshiping is like hiding from God. Hiding from God is the situation Adam and Eve found themselves stuck in. Let's look at this closely.

Genesis 3:8-15 ⁸ They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" ¹⁰ He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."

The first thing we learn in this passage is that humankind was created to worship. God made us a worshiping people. He gave us a place where we could regularly come into God's presence and God set a time when He and His people would gather in this garden. Worship happened every day at the evening breeze. This teaches us that we too must regularly come into God's presence. Like Adam and Eve we should worship every day. You can do it in the evening like Adam and Eve, or like Jesus worship early in the morning. Any time and place is acceptable provided that it is part of a regular discipline of daily prayer and meditation on scripture. I start each day in worship coming to Pitts Creek church every morning at 6. Sometimes a group assembles and we worship together. Sometime I worship alone. But it is crucial for me to begin each day in prayer allowing God to speak to me through scripture. You are invited to join me in this practice of early morning prayer, or find your own time and place to come close to God. The important thing is to pray and meditate on scripture every day. Calvin suggested that we pray when we get up, pray when we go to bed, and pray before and after each meal.

When we engage in daily worship we come into the presence of God as God created us to do. But not everyone worships every day. One day Adam and Eve decided that they didn't want to worship. So they tried to hide from God. God came into the garden looking for Adam and Eve at the usual time and found that they were not there. God cried out “Where are you?” as he looked for His beloved creation. Adam cried out from his hiding place, “I'm afraid”. This is why people do not worship. They fear coming into God's presence. We fear God because God unmasks us. Normally our unworthiness is concealed by a thin veneer that makes us look ok. We know that just below the surface that we are messed up and not worthy to be in the presence of God. But God sees through our masks and sees who we really are. This terrifies us. It keeps us from worshiping and so we hide from God.

God knew that the only thing that could keep us from worshiping was the great evil that opposed His mission on earth. God knew that this evil had to be destroyed so that His people could worship Him daily without fear. God needed to deal a mortal blow to his opponent and restore the relationship he had with his people. So God began to ask some questions.

¹¹ He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" ¹² The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." ¹³ Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."

We learn two things from Adam and Eve. The first is that way to restore a broken relationship with God is not to hide from him by avoiding worship, but to confess our sin directly to God in worship. That is why it is crucial to be in church each Sunday. Here we come into God's presence and bow our heads in confession to begin the process of restoring our relationship with God so that we no longer fear Him and can come into his presence daily. So if you find yourself hiding from God unable to pray and meditate on scripture every day then attending worship on Sunday is crucial for you and God to get back together.

The second thing we learn from Adam and Eve is that the great evil in the world that prevents us from worshiping God is a serpent, a snake that talks. There are two ways to think about this. One is to believe that this as a real snake that tempted Adam and Eve. The other is to see this snake as a symbol of the devil. I think it can be both. A real serpent tempted them, and this serpent represents Satan who is still tempting us today to keep us from worshiping God every day as we were created to do. The serpent/Satan/Devil does not want us to worship, come into the presence of God, and so he tempts us to do things that we shouldn't do so that we will be ashamed of ourselves and afraid to come into God's presence every day.

But God will not tolerate this situation. God does not want this great evil to prevent us from worshiping Him as we should. So God acted with a proclamation.

¹⁴ The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."

So God's solution is to put enmity between the serpent and the seed of Adam and Eve. There are two ways to think about this too. First, the seed of Adam and Eve could refer to all of us. And God is referring to what we experience today. The serpent continues to strike our heads trying to prevent us from daily worship, but we can fight back. We have the power to step on the serpent and worship daily if we choose. The second way that we can think of this is that the seed of Adam and Eve is Jesus Christ who has dealt a mortal blow against the devil. Again I think both of these are true. We are the children of Adam and Eve. We experience the great evil trying to prevent us from worshiping daily. But we have the ability to overcome this evil and worship God though daily prayers and meditation on scripture in spite of what the serpent is trying to do. And we have the assurance that Jesus Christ has dealt this evil a death blow through his resurrection from the dead.

The devil in dying, but he is still dangerous. So we have to protect ourselves by coming into God's presence every day. We need to pray and meditate on scripture daily. It doesn't matter when or where you do this. But you must because you were created to worship God every day and the great evil that wants to prevent you from worshiping as you should has been defeated by Jesus. So there is no longer any reason not worship God every day. Just confess what you have done. Tell God “The Devil made me do it.” You will be forgiven, your fear of God will go away, and you will enjoy His presence forever. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we have come to worship today in spite of the Devil trying to stop us. We have confess our sins to you and know that in Jesus Christ you have forgiven us. So we are no longer ashamed of what we have done. And we no longer fear you. We ask that you be with us every day as we worship you in prayer and meditation on your Holy Word. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ who made all of this possible. Amen.