Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall of Man and Our First Sin
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us,knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Love Never Fails
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
John 3:16
God LOVES Us
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Acts 4:12
Salvation is Found in No One Else
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
Matthew 9:9-13
The Calling of Matthew
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 1:19-21
Jesus Was Born to Save His People from Sin
19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
John 1:29-31
The Lamb of God Takes Away the Sins of this World
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."
1 Peter 2:24
Jesus Died on the Cross to Save Us from Our Sins
24 "He himself bore our sins" in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; "by his wounds you have been healed."
Love is the greatest of virtues...Things fail us, as things come, things go, and we grow up, and many things pass away...Love never fails...St. Paul tells us about this in his letter to the Corinthians...When I think about the story of the Bible, I think of about the Love that Paul wrote about...And the story is an odd story about love...To get to love man first fell from grace and sinned in a place of paradise...Sin is and was in our nature...And when we sinned, we needed to be redeemed, to get help, we needed salvation...So we need a Savior to help us in that respect...Where there is a Savior, there is hope for salvation...And salvation is found in no one else except Jesus...But the Savior would not come until thousands of years after man's first sin...
God has shown us throughout the Bible, that we need something (like sacrifices) or Someone, a Savior, because we sin and need redeeming...When we read the verses about sin and how One was born to help us, we see that followers of Jesus, believe that there is sin and evil in the world...So God sent His Son to us, so we could be redeemed from our own sins...And His Son did just that...Jesus died for our sins...And in dying God has shown His LOVE for us...He gave His One and Only Son to us, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life...This story of salvation from our sins, is the story of a Father's LOVE for us...
John the Baptist, the messenger for Jesus, tells us that Jesus is the Lamb of God...He is the One who takes away the sins of this world...Jesus was born to save our world from sins...And Jesus did just that and has the answers to many of our questions, as we look around the world, and see how it is and how it might be if everyone we able to hold to His commands and teachings...
While others look to the world for answers and maybe in different ways to help to be free from sins or to be free from evil and the bad things we do, Jesus tells us that He came for people like me, for sinners...He came to help sinners...Jesus frankly comes out and says, He did not come to earth for the righteous, but He came for sinners...By listening and following Him, we know we sin and have sinned...But we also also and more importantly know He came to help us with our sins...His redemption gives us salvation, and deliverance from our sins...As He was recruiting Matthew to become a Disciple He knew that Matthew was a tax collector and was a sinner...But Matthew would come one of His Disciples...Jesus saved Matthew...Matthew would write the Gospel According to Matthew...This sinner gives us great hope...From a sinner to a Great Saint, the sinning Matthew, became Saint Matthew...