Summary & Key points
Rev. Elisha Satvinder's sermon explores the story of Adam and Eve, their fall, and its significant implications for human nature, sin, and the need for redemption through Jesus Christ. He emphasizes that the root of sin begins with a fundamental distrust in God's love and goodness, illustrated by the serpent's question designed to plant doubt in Eve's mind. This distrust led Adam and Eve to disobey God, driven by self-centeredness and a desire to be like God, making decisions based on personal desires rather than God's truth.
The sermon underscores the essence of sin as self-centeredness, placing oneself in God's position. It also presents the solution to sin through trusting in Jesus' sacrifice. Despite their disobedience, God sought reconciliation with Adam and Eve, a pursuit completed on the cross where Jesus, the second Adam, perfectly obeyed God and reversed the curse brought by the first Adam. Jesus' sacrifice removes the serpent's lie and transforms death into life, offering redemption and the power to overcome inherent sinfulness.
Rev. Elisha calls believers to humility and a deep reliance on God's grace, emphasizing the need for daily trust and obedience to God's commands. He encourages the congregation to reflect on areas where they struggle to trust God's goodness and bring these struggles to Him. The sermon concludes with a call to examine the motives behind actions, seeking to shift focus from self to God, and to live lives that honor God through joyful obedience and trust in His unwavering goodness and love.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you, worship team. I didn’t realize it’s a long weekend today, and as we started singing, I wondered, “Where’s everybody?” I just landed last night at around 3:00. About 14 of us had gone to Bangalore. Thank you to all who prayed for us. It was curry in the morning, curry in the evening, and curry at supper time. We are curried out! Patrina and I came back last night, she unpacked, and now she’s at the airport again with another group heading to Mei for another set of training. Please remember her in prayer as well.
This weekend, we have the FAL Cup, which is now in its 18th year. We are transitioning from the FAL Cup to the Dignity Cup and League because it has grown so much each year. We now see over 150 teams and a couple of thousand people playing. This year, it’s in Bukit Jalil, and we are grateful to God for that, isn’t it? Amen, Church. We can all celebrate that. This year, we will have the Minister of Sports and Youth do the closing. More than that, this is the first time we have a lot of embassies coming in, and different people. The team aimed for 40,000 people, but we settled for 15,000. So pray and hope to see all of you there. It’s good to see Darren and Funa, and all of you.
This morning, I want to talk about trusting God’s love in a world of lies. Let’s look at these scriptures together: Genesis 2:16-17 and chapter 3. “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.'” Remember, God planted the garden and provided everything necessary and needful. It was a perfect garden, a perfect environment. “But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.” This doesn’t mean they would drop dead immediately; it meant a separation from God and the beginning of spiritual death.
Genesis 3:1-9 says, “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?”‘” Note how he twists God’s words. The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 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.'” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman, “for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 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. 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. 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. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Today, we are going to look into our faith’s most profound and foundational aspect: the nature of sin and how the gospel transforms us by its power. What is the nature of sin? We use this word often, but what does it really mean? We will explore the root of sin, the essence of sin, and finally, the solution that God gives us on how to get out of this through Jesus.
The fall of the first human beings was rooted in not trusting God, a lesson that speaks directly to us today. To frame this, let’s consider the story of Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of the Holocaust. He was captured in 1961 and put on trial in Jerusalem. During the trial, Yehiel Dinur, a Holocaust survivor, collapsed upon seeing Eichmann. People thought it was fear or trauma,
but it was the realization that Eichmann was not a monster but an ordinary man, revealing the terrifying truth of the capacity for evil within ordinary people. Dinur said, “Eichmann is in all of us,” illustrating that sin is an inherent human condition. This story underscores the deep-seated human heart condition of sin, not just as bad actions but as an inherent capacity for evil.
Understanding this should lead us to humility and a deep reliance on God’s grace and transforming power through Christ. It’s only through God’s grace and our trust in His goodness that we can overcome our inherent sinfulness.
The root of sin is distrust in God’s love. The serpent’s lie in Genesis 3:4-5 challenges God’s command and attacks His character, planting a seed of distrust in Eve’s heart, suggesting that God is withholding something good. This distrust leads to disobedience, revealing that the root of sin is fundamentally doubt in God’s goodness and love. We often fall into this same trap, hearing the echoes of the serpent’s voice in our lives, tempting us to believe that true happiness and fulfillment are found outside God’s will.
The essence of sin is self-centeredness. Genesis 3:6 shows that Eve’s decision to eat the fruit was driven by self-centeredness, wanting to be like God and in control of her own life. This self-centeredness is the essence of sin, causing us to put ourselves in God’s place and seek our own glory. It manifests in various ways, including disobedience and even good actions performed for self-serving reasons.
The solution is trusting in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Genesis 3:9 shows God’s first action in seeking out Adam and Eve, demonstrating His desire for reconciliation. This pursuit is completed on the cross, where Jesus’ sacrifice removes the lie of the serpent from our hearts, begins healing us, and brings life from death. Through the cross, we find the ability to trust God’s goodness and love, moving from distrust to trust, from self-centeredness to God-centeredness, and from disobedience to joyful obedience.
As we contemplate and worship together, consider in what areas of your life you are struggling to trust God’s goodness. Reflect on this and bring your life, disappointments, pain, frustration, lack, and illness to God, reaching out to trust in His goodness and love