1st Sunday,
December 2
Genesis 3: 7-24
There could
not be a better place to begin our look at the "nobodies of
Christmas" than at the very beginning—in the Garden of Eden. If anybody could have inflated egos and be
puffed up with pride, it could be Adam and Eve. Certainly, they were not just
like everybody else—in fact, there was
nobody else. There they were—the king
and queen of all creation, walking through their very own paradise. They could have been just as proud as
peacocks.
But they weren’t—not on this day! They were not out strutting their stuff—God
even had to track them down. He called
and called, but no one answered—they were hiding. Why? They had sinned and were not proud of
it. When they finally were confronted by
the Lord, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed Satan—it is always somebody else's
fault. Such is the method of much of
psychology today—blame somebody else, for you certainly don't want to damage
your own self-esteem! The truth is, “Pride goeth
before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs
16:18) Many today would say, "Oh,
come on now, what is the big deal? So
they ate some fruit, how is that a big sin?" Oh, it is not the fruit itself that is the
focus, but rather, the disobedience towards God. The king and queen had asserted their own
right to themselves, and this, God, in His mercy, would bring down. Oswald Chambers, the great preacher of the
early 20th Century, once wrote, “The
Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin, but that
the nature of sin, namely my claim to myself, entered into the human race
through one man. But it also says that
another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away—an infinitely
more profound revelation.” This we
see in the very beginning—God told Satan, “And
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise
his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) Satan would do his best to “nip at the heels”
of Jesus and His Church, but Jesus would deal the crushing blow.
Such was
the purpose of Christmas. Jesus the
Christ would be born of a woman and placed in a manger. His entire life and ministry would be focused
on the Cross and the payment for sin that must be made in order to bring
reconciliation between a holy God and a very unholy mankind. Paul wrote in Romans 5:17…”For if by one man’s offence death reigned
by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” This all-sufficient grace, the power of God
to let the life of God live within, is a free gift to one and all who will
recognize their sinfulness, hate it, and come humbly to the Throne for full
salvation. You see, it’s one thing or
the other—darkness or light, something is going to reign. Come humbly to the King of kings and the Lord
of lords, and live forever in His
Kingdom of light. And remember—none of
this would have been possible without that first Christmas. Praise the Lord, for He is good!
~ Rev. Roy D. Warren, Jr.