What kind of world would you like to live in? That is the world of Genesis 1 and 2, a world where there is no suffering or pain or dying, a world where work is not frustrating but a joy, where relationship are not fraught but fruitful, where there is no poverty but abundance. And all because everything is in a right relationship with God its creator.

Genesis 3 tells us why the world is no longer like that. It tells us why people get sick, it tells us why we stand at grave sides saying farewell to loved ones, why there is conflict both globally and individually, why work is not always a joy and why pain is part of our everyday experience.

1. The problem - Relationship Rejected
I wonder if you've ever looked closely at an arch bridge, it the middle is the keystone. The keystone is what enables the bridge to stand, remove the keystone and the forces will destroy the arch. In Genesis 1 and 2 there is a keystone in the perfect world, it is relationship with God and God’s word that is the keystone. Remove it and the perfect world will crumble.

(1-7) New Testament writers tell us that the snake or serpent is Satan and that as he enters the garden it as the ultimate saboteur, he comes to knock out the keystone, to remove God’s word and so to strike back at God. It is the beginning of a cosmic battle that the Bible shows us playing out over the rest of history.

But how does he do it? What does he do? He attacks God’s word, the very word which in chapter 1 creates and in 2 sustains and governs the world. A rule, a word, which Adam and Eve are to mediate to the world.

2:16-17 "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die."

Do you see what Satan does? He makes Eve doubt God’s goodness and focus on the prohibition, the one tree in the whole of creation that God has said they must not eat from rather than on the provision of "any" other tree. What Satan does is raise in Eve’s head the question ‘Why hasn't God given it to me?’ And it leads Eve to doubt God’s word, it’s very subtle but Eve drops the "certainly" (3), she begins to doubt God’s word.

And then (4) Satan openly challenges and contradicts God "You will not certainly die", and he laces the disobedience with promise (5). It is appealing, it is the chance to rule for themselves, to determine what is right and wrong rather than listening to, trusting that what God says is right and wrong.

Do you see what is going on? Temptation is sin made attractive, Satan doesn't outline all the consequences - cancer, arguments, broken marriages, murder, death - he sells them an attractive package with the lie of no consequences. But it strikes at relationship with God and will rip the keystone from the perfect world.

How does someone know that you love them? You do things that please them and you don't do things that you know they hate. As people watch you how do they know if you love God or not? You do the things he loves and don't do the things he hates - and those things we find out about in his word and are for our best. God is not a cosmic killjoy he is a loving Father.

Some of you may have heard of Philip Pullman he has written the award winning His Dark Materials Trilogy, the first book of which has just been released as a film ‘The Golden Compass’. In his books God is a cosmic killjoy and Pullman says: 'The book depicts the Temptation and Fall not as the source of all woe and misery - but as the beginning of true human freedom, something to be celebrated, not lamented. And the Tempter is not an evil being like Satan, prompted by malice and envy, but a figure who might stand for Wisdom.'

Do you see what Pullman is doing? He makes God the killjoy and sin freedom. The problem with that is it doesn't explain the world we live in now. Genesis 3 by contrast does, why does God tell Adam and Eve not to take the fruit? Because he knows the consequences and in his love and compassion did not want Adam and Eve to experience them.

God loves us and wants what is best for us and that is found in his word. But that doesn't mean that sin won't be attractive. How is the fruit described? (6)"good... pleasing... desirable..." It looks great and Satan says there are no consequences.

What is it for you? What seems good, pleasing and desirable but means that you will trample all over God’s word?

Adam and Eve’s sin is rejecting God’s word, wanting to rule themselves, as Adam refuses to stop his wife taking and eating the fruit. (17) Makes clear for us what sin is, it is where I ignore God as creator, where I want all that he gives - Adam and Eve still wanted the perfect world - but don't want God and relationship with him and its shown in rejecting his word. It is shown in my deciding right and wrong for myself.

And what are the consequences? Just watch this clip from the film Blood Diamond. "Sometimes I wonder, will God ever forgive us for what we have done to each other. Then I look around and I realise God left this place a long time ago."

The consequences of us rejecting God, his words, are catastrophic. Fundamentally there is loss of relationship, and as the keystone of God’s word is ripped out of the perfect world it begins to collapse. Adam and Eve realise they are naked (7) - that means stripped of protection, defenceless, weak and humiliated. With their loss of innocence they feel shame and alienation.

(8-10) It ruins their relationship with God, they hide from God, Why? (9) "I was afraid". Previously Adam has not feared God (2:15, 21) but now he runs and cowers because God will know what he has done and the relationship is ruined. And the knock on effect is that every good thing is now marred by rebellion, every suffering, every tear, every death and sorrow a result of man’s decision to throw off God’s rule, to reject God’s word.

The consequences are mapped out in the rest of the Bible as people murder (ch 4), die (ch 5) and commit evil (ch 6). All because we want to rule ourselves and we reject relationship with God, and with the keystone removed the perfect world disintegrates.

2. The Promise: Relationship restored
But there is a shaft of light in all the gloom of Genesis 3, God doesn't just abandon us, God wants the relationship to be restored and promises that one day he will as he says to the snake:

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
and he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."

The rest of the Bible is the outworking of this promise as Satan tries to destroy the promise - as Cain murders Abel, as Israelite babies are killed and the nation oppressed in Egypt, as the Queen Mother wipes out all the royal sons centuries later, as Herod kills every boy under two years old in Bethlehem. But God is Sovereign and he keeps reminding his people that the serpent crusher is coming, the seed who will be bruised by Satan but will defeat him.

It is a promise to believe in. Luke 3 shows us Jesus is the Son of God but it also shows us that he is the Son of Adam, the seed or offspring of Eve. He comes to be bruised by Satan but ultimately to crush him as he dies on the cross in our place and rises again, overturning the devils victory in the Garden by again making it possible for us to have a relationship with God and to be credited as those who have lived by his word.

We don't fully see it now but just as God kept the promise of Genesis 3:15 so one day he will keep the promise of a return to the perfect world where relationship and his word will be the keystone.

What would the world you want to live in look like? Here is a flavour of that world - Rev 21:1-4, Rev 22:3-5 (p.1181).

Is that a world you want? Not floating on clouds like angels with harps and sandals but a real perfect world, a world made perfect because it is marked by relationship with God; no suffering, no pain, work as a joy, perfect relationship, no fear for your family. In the mean time while we wait we are to live under God’s rule, calling others to wait for what we wait for, giving them a glimpse of the benefits of trusting in Christ, as God patiently waits for people to repent and believe.

Maybe this morning you realise that actually you are not satisfied with this world, that actually deciding right and wrong for yourself hasn't worked. The question is will you put your trust in Jesus and ask for forgiveness from him.

Maybe you have been reminded this morning of a struggle you have with a particular sin, something that is tempting you, maybe you have given in to it or maybe you haven't yet. Temptation is sin made attractive, sin with lie of supposedly no strings, Jesus has come to crush the power of that sin, if you will let him, if you will ask him.

Maybe this morning you just need to re-focus on God’s word and living by it as a sign of the grace God has given you in Jesus. We are reminded that this world is not home, it is the hotel room whilst we live waiting for the new heaven and the new earth. A world which will be marked by relationship with him and ruled by his word.

1. How does someone know I love them? How would God know?
2. What difference does the Bible make to my life day to day? How do I determine right and wrong?
3. What difference does Jesus life, death and resurrection make to me?
4. What does living in the light of God's fulfilled promises mean today, tomorrow, and in the future?

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