John 3:16-21
God LOVES Us, and Sent His Son to Save 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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall of Man
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.
John 14:6-7
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
The Christian view is that something has gone wrong with the world...And this world is broken...Mankind has personal faults and failings, inadequacies, pride, and we have desires that want material things...And through these things and our weaknesses, we are tempted by an evil one and we sin...This world needs fixed...The world is broken because man sins, and we have this sinful nature...And so we need God to help us get this world fixed...So God who does LOVE us sent His Son not to condemn this broken but to save it...Jesus is the Light of this World, yet, we often follow the darkness and the dark side of evil...Those who live in the dark, often have a harder time seeing the LORD...Those who live in the Light see easier what God has done and can do...
So God sent Jesus to save us from our sins...His Son would treat all people the same...Jesus was One who was always helping the ones who needed help and mercy...He constantly helped those who were weak and mourning...And so His Son died on the cross for us, and for the sins that we have committed, and will commit in the future...So as I think about this, it is my sins that sent Him to the cross...And so He died for me and each of us who have sinned -while having this unconditional LOVE for each of us...
The world was not always broken...God created the heavens and earth and all things were at that time good...Then we fell from grace in the Garden of Eden...And we sinned in Paradise when we were disobedient to God...We desired an attractive fruit, that hung from the tree...God had asked us not to eat the fruit but it looked appealing and was pleasurable to the eye...We broke our relationship with God...
The Christian view is that we need now and each day to reconnect with God, through His Son...His Son is the Only Way back to God...Jesus tells us that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life...No one comes to God except through Him...
Because God sent His Son to us, we can see that He is here with us in our human struggles and trials...When we seek Him we see that life has a purpose and the His Word helps anchor our lives and our souls...We can flourish in this life, because His Son has restored our Way back to Him and back to the Garden...