Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church Sermon Podcast.
We're so glad you're here, and we hope this message inspires you,
builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.
Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible
and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.
So welcome and enjoy the message.
If you have your Bible, please open it with me to Genesis chapter 3 in a message I'm
calling Understanding the Enemy. Now, I think it'll be helpful for you to keep your Bible open
because we're going to be looking verse by verse through the first half of this chapter. Genesis
3 is one of the most important chapters in all of the Bible. It records for us the darkest day in history,
when mankind would fall. In fact, that's what theologians call this chapter, the fall,
when mankind and creation itself fell from the good state that God had created it in.
As we've seen over the last few weeks, God actually created a very good
and a very beautiful world full of life and joy and peace. There was no depression, no anxiety,
no pain, no suffering. There was no death. And God created this perfect world, and yet that's
not the world we find ourselves in, is it? So what happened? We find out what happened in Genesis chapter 3.
Now, Lord willing, I'll preach three messages from this chapter.
Next week, we're going to look at the devastating judgment of God
that came upon us because of the fall.
And the following week, we're going to look at God's promise of a coming deliverer.
But this week, I want us to focus in on how it all went down, because the
same enemy that is found in the Garden of Eden still roams about, tempting us and trying to
destroy us. 1 Peter 5, verse 8 says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, that's your enemy. The devil walks about like a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour. You see, we have a great enemy and we first meet this enemy
in Genesis chapter three, verse number one. It says, now the serpent was more cunning than any
of the beasts of the field, which the Lord God had made. I want to stop right there because
we're now introduced to the enemy, the serpent.
Now, we've got to go to the New Testament, to the book of Revelation,
to find out who the serpent is, and it is none other than the devil.
It is Satan himself.
Now, the question is, where did he come from?
Well, we've got to piece together various passages of Scripture
to find that he originally was created as this beautiful
angel of God. But in pride, he rebelled and tried to overthrow God. And so God cast him out of heaven
and he came to the earth, taking his evil with him. Now, I think it's very important to understand that evil isn't an actual thing.
It's the absence of good. Just like darkness isn't really a thing, it's the absence of light.
As Christians, we're not dualists believing that in eternity past there was these great two great
forces of battling each other of good and evil, God and the devil. No, we're not. This isn't Star
Wars. This is reality. The serpent was created by God, and as a created being, he rebelled against
God. Just like you and I, as created beings, we also have rebelled against God. Now, before we
continue in Genesis chapter 3, I want us to look
at Jesus's description of the devil found in John chapter 8 verse 44. He says, you are of your
father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the
beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie,
he speaks from his own
resources for he's a liar and the father of it. So Jesus says the devil is the father of all lies
and he's a murderer. Now to be clear, the devil's good at lying. He's really, really good at it.
And guess what? That means he never comes to us saying, hey, I'm the devil. He never comes saying, look, I'm a liar.
Instead, the Bible says that he disguises himself as an angel of light,
or in this case, as an animal in the garden.
Verse number one again.
It says, now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
And he said to the woman, has God indeed said you
shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Here's our principle. The enemy tempts us to doubt the
love of God. The serpent says, has God indeed said, has God really said, has God actually said
you shall not eat from every tree of the garden? Now notice what Satan's doing. It's subtle, it's crafty, it's cunning.
He's taking a partial truth and he's twisting it to make it sound like God is being stingy
and unloving, that he's holding back. You see, the most dangerous lies always sound the most
like the truth. If you were to poison someone, which I hope you never do, but if you were to do that, you wouldn't, you know,
label a cup and give someone a cup that's labeled cyanide poisoning.
No, no, no.
You would be more subtle than that, right?
You might put it into a cake that you've baked or something like that.
Just a little bit of it, poisoning it.
That's what Satan does with us.
He didn't give us the full picture.
He doesn't label it. He makes
his lies sound believable. But let's look again at what God had actually said in Genesis chapter 2,
verse 16. It says, in the Lord God commanded the man, saying of every tree of the garden,
you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. So God says, I want you to look at this
beautiful garden. You can eat all of these wonderful trees except one. There's one tree
that's poison, and if you eat that tree, it's going to kill you. Now, if someone invited me over to
their house and to see their garden, and they showed me all their trees, and they say, hey, you can eat as much fruit as you want. Eat it anytime
you want, but that tree right over there, don't eat the fruit there because that tree is poison.
Now, I think that would be a loving thing to tell me, don't you? A very good thing, a needed thing for me to know. But Satan twists
God's loving commandment, suggesting that God's being stingy and holding out on her. Has God
actually said that you can't eat from every tree? What he's doing is he's planting this idea
in Eve's mind subtly that God is withholding his blessing from her. But God had given her everything she
could possibly want except for one tree. It'd be like me saying to someone who's coming into a
worship center and said, hey, you could sit in any seat. You sit in any seat in the building that you
want except for one. That seat right over there, that's a dangerous seat. In fact, it's going to
kill you. I don't know how it's going to kill you, but that seed's going to kill you. Now, someone could say, well, pastor, you're being
so restricting. No, I'm being really generous. You can have your pick of all the seeds, but that one
is going to do you harm. Verse number two, and the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of
the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it,
lest you die. Now notice Eve adds here to God's command. God hadn't told them that they couldn't
touch the fruit. He had only told them they couldn't eat the fruit. Now maybe Adam was the
first legalist adding rules to God's
rule, or maybe Eve was beginning to question God's goodness as she sort of says to Satan,
you know, he won't even let us touch it. How often the enemy lies to us in that kind of way
by taking God's commands and twisting them to sound like God's actually against us instead of
for us. He does that all the time. And people bite hook, line, and sinker. Verse number four.
Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. Here's our principle. The enemy
tempts us to doubt the word of God. He starts out, has God actually said, questioning God's word. Now he says, you know,
you're not going to die. That's contradicting God's word. He's tempting Eve to doubt the
truthfulness of what God has actually said. You see, if the devil can get you questioning God's
love and God's word, he's got you. He's got you exactly where he wants you. That's why it's so very important that
as Christians, we must learn how to root our lives in to the word of God, to be firmly planted in the
truth so that we're not easily deceived. Now, in John chapter 8, verse 31, it says,
then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, if you abide or remain in my word, you're my disciples indeed. And you shall know
the truth and the truth shall what? Set you free. It shall make you free. So many people are living
their lives according to the devil's lies. You're nothing but a cosmic accident of evolution.
You're worthless. You're not really of any eternal value. God doesn't actually love you because look
at your sin. He doesn't love you.
Listen, those lies are enslaving. They're going to make you curl up in a fetal position, but the
truth of Jesus, it will set you free so you can soar through life. Now the serpent says, you will
not surely die. And he goes on in verse number five to say, for God knows that in the day that you eat of it,
your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good from evil. Here's our principle.
The enemy tempts us to believe that God's holding out on us. Now, we already touched on this a
moment ago, but Satan, he keeps at it. He keeps using the same tactic. He says, God knows that if you eat this fruit,
your eyes are going to be open. You're going to be like him. Now, this was another partial truth,
because we know that after they ate the fruit and after they rebelled against God, verse number
seven says their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. Now, Satan left that part
out, didn't he? That their eyes would be open to what?
Open to their shame and their nakedness.
He left that part out.
Instead, he twisted the truth so Eve would believe that God was holding out on her.
He's saying, God wants you to remain blind and ignorant just as he made you.
He doesn't want what's best for you.
Now, the devil is still using those same tactics today, isn't he?
He's trying to make you think that God doesn't want you to have any fun.
But that couldn't be further from the truth.
You see, every time God says in his word, thou shall not, what he's really saying is don't hurt yourself.
Don't hurt yourself.
I'm giving you these commands and they're out of love.
They're out of protection for you and society and your family.
Don't go outside of this because
you're going to hurt yourself. You see, Satan wants us to believe that his ways are more enjoyable
than God's ways. I'm telling you right now, he's a liar. He's trying to trick you. Why? So he can
destroy you. So he can destroy the relationships of your life. Verse number five again. So for God knows that in the day that you
eat of it, your eyes are going to be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Now, the irony here is that God had already made Adam and Eve like him. We talked about this a
couple of weeks ago, that we have been made in the image of Almighty God in his likeness. But Satan appeals
here to Eve's pride, which prior to this was non-existent. And he's saying, God's holding out
on you. He doesn't want you to be like him. He's selfish. He wants all the privileges of being God
to be his alone. But you can change all that, Eve, by just taking of the fruit.
You can become like him.
Here's our principle.
The enemy tempts us to believe that we can become our own God.
That is where our culture is.
Be your own truth.
What's right for me,
how dare you tell me that's wrong for me
if I say it's right for me?
I'm being my own truth.
That's our culture. Now, listen very carefully. One of the most important things human beings
must come to grips with is that there is only one God, and you're not Him. That is critical.
That's foundational. There's only one God, and you're not Him. Now, you may want to be Him. You
may act like you're Him. You may say that, you know, I'm being my own truth, but you're not Him.
Now, really, if you think about it, at the heart of sin, if you peel back the layers of the onion
of sin, at the heart of it, in many ways, is pride. To put our will above the will of God, to put, you know, attempt, I guess you could
say, to kick God off his throne and to sit on that throne instead to be our own God. Verse number six
says, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree desirable to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate.
She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. We see here there's three aspects of temptation
that the New Testament also describes that still affect us today. The lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life. Eve sees the fruit, and it looks like it's going to taste very good.
That's the lust of the flesh.
She sees that it's pleasant to the eyes.
That's the lust of the eyes.
And then she sees that it's a tree desirable to make one's wise.
That's the lust for knowledge or the pride of life.
Now, here's what she wasn't thinking about.
She wasn't thinking about the death that it would bring to her
and billions of others after her. She wasn't thinking about the untold pain and suffering.
She wasn't thinking about the heart attacks and the strokes and the cancer of just taking that
one little piece of fruit that was rebellion against God. That was not in her mind. Now,
it's very important to understand that the tree was placed in the garden by God, and it was placed
there not to tempt Adam and Eve to sin, but to be a test of their love and their obedience to God.
You see, the Bible says that God does not tempt anyone towards evil.
And yet, we know that he does test us.
So what's the difference?
Well, the difference is the purpose of God's testing is success, and the purpose of Satan's temptation is failure.
So God wanted Adam and Eve to be successful in demonstrating their love and their obedience to him in a real relationship,
but Satan used that against Adam and Eve to cause them or tempt them to fail.
Now, I think it's also important to realize that temptation is not sin. Sometimes people have a
very sensitive conscience, and they start thinking that temptation is sin. Maybe you're tempted to
get drunk, or you're tempted to cheat to get drunk, or you're tempted to
cheat on your taxes, or you're tempted to lust after a woman, and you think, well, I've sinned.
Well, not necessarily. You have been tempted. What you do with that temptation determines whether
you sin or not. You see, an evil thought is not always sin. Now, thoughts of evil, that is sin. In other words, what do you do with
the sinful thought? Do you dwell on it? Do you act on it? Adam and Eve, they acted on their sinful
thoughts of disobedience. Now, as a kid, I used to go around and around in my mind thinking, well,
did Adam and Eve first sin when they ate the forbidden fruit, or did they sin when they decided to eat the forbidden fruit? I tend to think that their sin was likely their
decision to eat the forbidden fruit. Here's the principle. We sin when we do not love and obey God
by faith. Now, the greatest command in Scripture, according to our Lord Jesus Christ, is that we
are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So how do we know whether
we're loving God? Well, are we obeying him? You see, Jesus connected our love for him to our obedience
to him. He said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. So whenever we decide to disobey God, the decision, it's actually rooted
in a lack of love for God in that moment. Anytime we disobey one of God's commands, we're actually
disobeying the greatest command, not loving him properly. Now, for Adam and Eve, along with the
pride that we already touched on, they were not believing and trusting in God, were they? I think had they believed God
that they would surely die if they ate of the fruit, I don't think they would have eaten it.
Hebrews chapter 11 verse number 6 says, but without faith it's impossible to please him.
For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently
seek him. So temptation becomes sin when we don't love God and obey him by believing and trusting
in him. Now, James, in James chapter 1, he kind of unpacks for us the nature of temptation
and the nature of sin. In verse number 14, he says,
but each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
Then when desire has conceived, he gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's full grown,
brings forth death. So temptation is an appeal to self, to be drawn away by our own desires and enticed.
And then when it conceives, it gives birth to sin.
And when sin grows up, it brings forth death.
Now, the word enticed that James uses here is a word that is used for bait or a lure.
It's a fishing terminology. When you go fishing,
you put a hook, a tie hook onto the end of your line, you throw it in the water.
But because fish are not enticed or tempted by a hook, you cover the hook up with bait, right?
Maybe a worm. And so that fish sees that big juicy worm. It doesn't see hook. It sees worm
and they're tempted to eat it. That's what Satan does with us. He baits something that's enticing
to us, enticing to the eyes, enticing to the flesh, enticing to our pride, something that's
tempting. So here's what we got to do as believers. We must learn that there's always a hook
in temptation. There's always a hook in temptation.
There's always a hook that's eventually going to bring destruction.
Now, Satan never warns us about the hook.
He hides the hook.
But God, he warns us about it.
In fact, God told Adam and Eve, in the day that you shall eat it, you shall surely die.
But Eve, in spite of her warning, allowed Satan to deceive her,
and she ate. And then she gave some to her husband, Adam, and he ate. In fact, we're going
to find out that Scripture teaches next week that Adam actually had the greater sin. Eve was
deceived. Adam chose willfully. She gave some to her husband to eat, and in that moment, they wrecked everything.
Everything. Next week, we're going to look, Lord willing, at the wreckage more closely,
but their act of disobedience was the turning point for the entire world in the worst way
imaginable. Verse number seven, then the eyes of both of them were opened,
and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
coverings. Here's our principle. Sin always brings shame. Always. The end of chapter two that we looked at last week, Adam and Eve, they were
both naked and it says they were unashamed. Why? No guilt, no insecurity before God, no sin.
But something terrible happened in the white space between verse six and verse 7. Their spirits died, and by that I mean that their spirit
was separated from the Spirit of God, so that now they felt all this shame to be in God's presence,
because God is holy, and He is just, and He is right, and they're wrong. And it's the same for
us when we sin. Sin brings about incredible shame, a weight of our own guilt before God, an insecurity to be in his presence.
So that, what do we do? Like Adam and Eve, we try to cover up our sin and our shame ourselves,
try to cover it up. And we also tend to follow their example of trying to hide. Look what they
did in verse number eight. It says, and they heard the sound
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So as soon as they get themselves
covered up with leaves, which probably didn't work out all that well, by the way, later God gave them
a better covering. But as soon as they get covered up, they hear the Lord approaching.
So what do they do?
They run.
They try to hide.
Here's our principle.
You can't hide from God.
Did you know that?
Now, we read about this and we think, what fools.
They think they're going to hide from God?
I mean, that just seems so ridiculous.
And yet that's what we do when we sin.
We have a tendency to try to hide from God.
Now, people do that all kinds of different ways.
Maybe they stop attending church.
You know, if I go to church, I'm going to feel really bad about all my sin in my life.
So they stop going to church.
Or maybe they stop reading their Bible.
They stop praying. And as they start, stop thinking as much about God,
maybe they stop feeling as guilty about their sin. But just because you stop seeing God
doesn't mean that God stops seeing you. Did you know that? He sees you exactly where you're at.
One of the funniest moments for Kelsey and I as parents was when our daughter Ellie was about
18 months old or so. We had just gotten all the kids in bed, and they knew that if they got out
of bed, they were going to be in a lot of trouble. So Kelsey and I were finally done. We plopped down
on the couch. We're exhausted after the marathon experience of tucking the kids in bed. It's like that every
night if you have got little ones. So I think we flip on the TV. We're watching a show,
and around the corner comes little Ellie. Very quiet, walking kind of in a sneaky way. She just
barely peeks around at first, and then she steps out a little further.
Now, all we could actually see of her was her little feet and her ankles because she had draped her blankie over her head and her body so that she could not possibly see us. And so in her mind,
that meant that we also couldn't see her. And so it tells it we're cracking
up, but we're trying to cover, stop laughing because we want to see what she does. We want
to see this play out. And so what's she going to do next? So slowly she walks in the living room.
She stands for a moment. She walks a little bit further. And then she turns around. She walks
down the hall
and goes back to her bedroom. The whole time, she thought she was hiding from us. Listen, that's what
it's like when we try to hide from God. It's a foolish and childish exercise in futility that
we try to hide our sin from God. He sees it. He sees us exactly where we're at.
Instead of hiding it, we need to expose it. Lord, look what I've done. I am sorry. I confess it to
you. I give it to you. Why? Because in that is forgiveness, and he takes the weight of our sin
off of our shoulders. Amen? Psalm chapter 139, verse number 7 says, where can I go from your
spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, you're there.
If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there.
Some of you have been making your bed in hell
and I'm telling you, God sees you exactly where you're at.
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall hold me
and your right hand shall hold me.
No matter where you go, no matter how you
try to hide, no matter how fast you run, God sees you. And guess what? He still loves you.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He sees you in your sin. He sees you in your broken
state. He sees you in the mess that you've created and sin has created within your life. And he still loves you.
He sees you and he wants a relationship with you.
Verse number nine.
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you?
So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I
hid myself.
And he said, who told you were naked?
Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, the woman whom
you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. The Lord God said to the woman,
what is this you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. We see here that God confronts Adam in his sin, and he does so with
a series of rhetorical questions. Now, God already knew exactly where Adam was. He knew exactly what
Adam had done. It's like if I were to call my son on his cell phone and say, hey, bud, where are you?
Now, I already know where he's at because
this handy little app called Find My iPhone, I know where he's at at all times. I'm calling and
asking, checking to see, hey, are you going to be honest with me? Which to this point, he always has
been, thankfully. God knows where Adam's at. He's asked, he's calling him out. What he's doing is he's pursuing him.
He's pursuing him. Now, notice Adam and Eve, they don't pursue the Lord. They run the other
direction. They want nothing to be, nothing to do with God. God, in his infinite love,
he pursues Adam and Eve, knowing he's not done with mankind. He pursues them in their sin, and then he confronts them in their sin. And what's their
response? They start playing the blame game, right? Adam immediately throws Eve under the bus. That
woman that you gave me, Lord, she made me do it. He blames Eve, and then he blames God. The woman
that you gave me, Lord, then Eve, what does she do? She blames the servant. They're pointing fingers every which way except for towards themselves
where the fingers belonged. They clearly were not taking responsibility for their sin, which is
exactly what God's looking for in our lives. Here's our last principle. When God confronts us in our sin, he's looking for confession and repentance.
Whenever you have a guilty conscience, that tug on your heart that you've done wrong,
that's a very good thing. Let me tell you, that's a very good thing because that means God's not
done with you, that he wants you. He's calling you out of your pain. He's calling you out of your
misery and your darkness and your sin. That's the Holy Spirit. If you have an awareness of your sin,
he's not done with you. So any moment you hear his still small voice, that tug on your heart,
that you've done something wrong, that's God confronting you in your sin so he can help you.
And there's multiple ways you can respond.
You can try to run and hide.
A lot of people do that.
You can try to ignore God.
A lot of people do that.
Or you can confess it to God.
Here's what God wants because he loves you and he wants a relationship with you.
He doesn't want to be distant from you forever, separated in spiritual death. He loves you, and so here's what he wants. He wants you to own it. He wants you to
say, I'm guilty. I did it. I need you to own it, confess it, and turn from it. The word of repentance
means to turn. It's a change of mind towards one's
life and behavior. It's the flip side of the coin of faith. We turn from our current life of headed
towards sin and self, and we repent from it. We turn from it, and at the same time, we turn in
faith positively towards Jesus. Did you know that's what God requires of us?
No one will ever go to heaven when they die who didn't own and confess their sin.
No one.
No one will ever go to heaven who didn't turn from their sin and turn to Jesus in faith.
That's what God requires of us. So if God's tugging on your heart today,
you're not tugging on your heart wondering about your sin. He knows all about it.
He knows the filth of our own minds and our own motives. He's tugging on our heart, wanting us to admit it,
to come clean.
Say, here I am, Lord.
God, I'm sorry for my sin.
I'm guilty.
And I've tried, but I can't do anything to fix it.
And so, God, I'm asking you to forgive me,
not because I've earned your forgiveness.
I know I haven't, but I'm asking you to forgive me
because that's what I need.
And that's what you're good at.
And I believe in your son, Jesus,
that you sent to this earth to die on the cross for my sins.
I believe that he paid for my sins and he rose the third day.
And I'm asking if you'd come into my life,
just pray and ask God to help you receive him.
I'm telling you, if you'll be honest with God in that kind of a way,
God will radically, dramatically, and eternally change your life.
Now let's bow together in an attitude of prayer, if you will.
Every head bowed, every eye closed.
This is a holy moment in the life of our church
and both campuses it's not necessarily a formal moment though
we've been praying that as god moves there'll be movement in our worship centers
just a moment after i pray we're going to stand to our feet we're going to sing at both
campuses and we're going to ask you to move as God moves in your heart.
There's going to be pastors and other leaders and prayer partners
scattered across the front of our services,
and they're here to help you.
Maybe God's tugging on your heart.
You want to step out and say, I want to give my life to Jesus. They'll know exactly how to help you. Maybe God's tugging on your heart. You want to step out and say, I want to give my life to Jesus. They'll know exactly how to help you.
At the 930 service, I baptized a friend of mine that I got to know better this week. It was a 16-year-old boy by the name of Ben.
And Ben was diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half ago or so.
He and his family have faithfully watched our services online.
Since then, he's unable to leave his house.
On Thursday, we received some devastating news that the cancer is all throughout his body,
and on Friday, they placed him on hospice.
I went and spent some time with him on Friday
and found a young man with such strong faith, an eternal brother.
The last thing he wanted to do with his life was to be a testimony of God's saving grace.
Listen, life is short.
It's so short.
The Bible says it's like a vapor.
It's here for a moment, then it's gone.
Whether you live to be 16 or 60, it's short.
What are you going to do with Jesus?
That's the most important question of life.
What are you going to do with Jesus?
I want to invite you.
You give your heart and life to Jesus today because he loves you.
And you want to know Jesus, not by his justice, but by his grace.
I want to invite you. and as soon as I pray,
you don't wait. Please, you step out and you come and say, it's time. It's time that I get right
today. It's time. Don't run from God. You run to him. You come down one of these aisles. You come
down one of these staircases and say, I want to give my life to Christ, this team.
We're going to know exactly how to help you.
We'll pray with you.
We'll help you take the next steps.
Maybe say, I want to be baptized and go public with my faith.
Maybe you want to join our church and become a family member today,
officially, formally.
We'd love to have you.
We'd love to visit with you about that.
Maybe you don't need a pastor.
You just need the master.
You just need to come to these steps as an individual or couple, a family. Just pour out your heart to the Lord.
Give Him your burdens. Jesus says, the Bible says, cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you.
All right? Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
I'm sorry that our great, great, great, great, how many great grandparents, Lord,
rebelled against you and that we all were in Adam. We're all guilty because of it.
The choice that he made, we would have chosen. The choice that he made, we choose.
And we're sorry, Lord, for all that we have done. Lord, yes, we recognize that much of our pain
and the circumstances of our life that are hard
are a result of other people's sin as well
and not just our own,
but Lord, we own that which is ours to own.
And I pray if someone's not doing that, Lord,
would you please be heavy upon them until they yield.
Would you please, Lord, by your spirit,
touch them in a deep place of their being
that I cannot go to, that only your spirit can go to?
And would you make them aware of their sin
in such a way that they are willing to confess it,
that you open their eyes to your beauty and your son, Jesus.
Lord, may we gain some eternal brothers and sisters today.
We love you.
We need you.
And we ask, Lord, that you would work in power.
In Jesus' name, amen.
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