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Review:

Imago Dei- we were wonderfully created in the image of God and the fullest reflection of that is both male and female.  Together we are a fuller portrait of the image of God, but individually we are in part.  It is in the two genders we see a greater fullness of God’s character and how He interrelates as the Triune God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

We are created for relationship with each other, and we are especially created to have relationship with our Creator. 

Read Genesis 3 [Husband and Wife]

We have an adversary who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.  John 10:10

• His rebellion led to stealing the Kingdom of Earth.
  
  
• He brought death to all living things on the Earth.
  
  
• He seeks to destroy the relationship between Mankind and God.

Know your enemy. His playbook has not changed.

• Satan is cunning, begins with questioning God—“really..?”. (1)
  
  
• Satan’s forces have studied you and know your weaknesses.
  
  
• Satan’s forces appeal to your pride to shift glory from God to you.
  
  
• Satan is a deceiver. Slight misrepresentation leads to significant miscalculation. (4)
  • Eve had never known anything to die. Death was unfamiliar.
  • The adversary authors an alternative motive for God’s command, thus directly attacking God’s character as deceiver—God has hidden motives. (5)

• Satan wants you to trust you, which ultimately is trusting Him over God.

Two immediate effects of the FALL (6)

1. Our relationship with God is now broken. (8)
   
   
2. Our relationship with each other is now broken. (7)

Our revealed nakedness exposes our inner mistrust for others and insecurity in who we are. [The first sign of brokenness]

• Fear (7)
  
  
• (2:25 vs 3:8-10)
  
  
• Hide or Cover.

Sin manifests into self-protection called “blame”.

• It’s not my fault. I did not start it.  I should not be punished.  I have nothing to correct.
  
  
• Adam blames God and Eve. (12)
  
  
• Eve blames the snake. (13)

Satan is given the death verdict. (15)

• Satan will have temporary victories.
  
  
• He will be crushed by the offspring of a women—not man!

Sin has devastating consequences—delights have now become burdens. 

• Painful procreation.
  • Women now experience pain in fulfilling God’s charge to multiply.

• Broken relationship.
  • No longer a pure reflection of the Trinitarian oneness.
  • Wives desiring and husbands domineering. Delight has now become a burden. (16)
  • This creates much discord as husbands often lead out of personal gain and not by the servant leadership we were modeled by Jesus himself.
  • Instead of harmony there is discord in despising sinful rule.

• Care and provision is now difficult.
  • Men now experience hardship in providing for their families. (17)
  • The earth is now in disarray due to sin.
  • Creation in the beginning did not have within itself destructive forces. (18)
  • Burden will be the plot of men. (19a)

• Death has now become realized. Dust to dust. (19b)

FIRST BLOOD- God kills an animal to provide skins as clothes for Adam and Eve to cover their shame. (21)

Sin and its consequences can only be paid for by blood. 

Leviticus 17:11 “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”

Hebrews 9:22 “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

1 John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

Jesus restores by His blood.

• Relational brokenness.
  
  
• Purpose in family.
  
  
• Trust in provision.
  
  
• Hope for life beyond death.

  How does this curse we have from Adam get resolved?  1 Corinthians 15:22, 45-49

• We were cursed by the first Adam.
  
  
• We are given life by the second Adam.
  
  
• We are being restored into the image of our creator! (49)

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

Romans 10:9-10 “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”

Benediction:

We are not being transformed back to his image so that we can be naked, but to receive clothes of glory.

Isaiah 61:10a “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness…”

 Revelation 3:5 “The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white.  I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.”