Sermon Video: The Fall: Consequences, Genesis 3:7-24

Following the decision by Eve and Adam to disobey God, the narrative of Genesis explains the multi-pronged consequences of that action, including: guilt, shame, fear, increased pain and toil in life, and ultimately the most damaging consequence in the loss of direct fellowship with God.  That things have changed, and can't be remedied by humanity, is illustrated by the removal of Adam and Eve from the Garden.

Sermon Video: The Fall: Temptation and Rebellion, Genesis 3:1-6

When consider the Fall, the more important thing the text of Genesis is not how it happened, but why.  The why is straight-forward: autonomy.  Adam and Eve could have remained as they were, serving God in sacred space in a priestly function as our representatives, they could have continued to receive from God life and wisdom, but they chose instead a faux-independence on the false premise that things would be better if they went their own way.

Every generation since Adam and Eve has confirmed this choice, humanity continues to choose autonomy over obedience, the path of death and self-destruction over the path of submission that leads to life.

Sermon Video: Suitable helpers united as one - Genesis 2:18-24

Why would the chosen bond of a marriage covenant be stronger than the given bond of the family we have had since birth?  What is it about humanity that demonstrates our fundamental need for relationships with each other, especially that of a husband to a wife and a wife to a husband?

In this text, the book of Genesis demonstrates that it was God's design in his creation of humanity that included the idea that a husband and a wife are two halves of a better whole.  God shows this truth to Adam through a vision of Eve as his "other side," an analogy that Adam quickly grasps and one reinforced by the finale of the section, "that is why a mean leaves..."

In the end, this passage reinforces the absolute ontological equality of men and women, for God has created a union of equals, one in which we can both be our spouses' "suitable helper."

Sermon Video: In the Garden of Eden - Genesis 2:4-17

A look at the Garden of Eden from the perspective of what it would have meant to the ancient Israelites (it owes much to Professor John's Walton's, The Lost World of Adam and Eve), it isn't the same as what most of us were taught.  Adam and Eve are real people, but are they the only people that were alive at the time?  Also, why is the Garden a paradise, what makes it that way, and what does this have to do with human mortality?  The answers offered are not dogmatic, simply an attempt to understand this text as it was originally intended.

Sermon Video: The Law reveals the depth of humanity's sin - Romans 7:7-13

Having established that we have "died to the law", the Apostle Paul next tackles the question: What then is the relationship between the Law of Moses and human sin?  On the way to the answer, Paul points out that the failure of the Law rests with the human beings whose hearts seized upon the commandments of the Law to add rebellion against it to the list of sins they were already committing (which the Law now explicitly forbade).

In the end, the primary achievement of the Law was to showcase, through a multi-generational failure to keep it on the part of the covenant people, that humanity absolutely needs a savior.  God gave humanity (through the representation of the Israelites as the test case) a system for living in fellowship with him, a system containing both blessings and curses (carrots and sticks) here in this life, but it wasn't enough to overcome the depravity of fallen humanity.  In the end, the Law showed up how far gone we really are, how dependent we are upon God's amazing grace.

Sermon Video: Death and Life, from the one to the many: Adam and Jesus, Romans 5:12-19

Paul compares how death spread from Adam to all of humanity, with all of humanity joining Adam in sin, to how life can spread from Jesus to all who put their trust in him, sharing in his righteousness.