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Broken Fellowship

Broken Fellowship. Pastor Lee P. Washington Reid Temple AME Church. Romans 5:12-21. Paul traces the entrance of sin into the world through Adam’s disobedience. Gen. 3 is crucial to Christian understanding of our human sinfulness.

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Broken Fellowship

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  1. Broken Fellowship Pastor Lee P. Washington Reid Temple AME Church

  2. Romans 5:12-21 • Paul traces the entrance of sin into the world through Adam’s disobedience. • Gen. 3 is crucial to Christian understanding of our human sinfulness. • The intent of the author of Gen. 3 was to paint a picture of disobedient humanity. • Gen. 3 teaches us the lesson of humanity who refused to trust and follow the God who created them.

  3. The Effects of Original Sin • Original sin fundamentally altered the perfect world that God created. • Sin continues to alter the peace of your mind and your life. • Sin entering the world serves as the backdrop for good news about God’s action through Jesus to bring salvation. • Following Adam and Eve leads to a never ending cycle of disobedience in our lives.

  4. Pre-Sin Condition of the World • God and humanity interacted freely and naturally. • Humanity enjoyed an unbroken, unchained and perfect relationship with God with the environment, and between each other. • There was abundance of food which was pleasing to the eye and good for food.

  5. God’s Restrictions • Humans were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. V17 • Humans were to avoid consuming the fruit of this tree because if they did so, they would die. • This was not an infringement on their freedom but as a safeguard for their own-well being.

  6. Post-Sin Condition of the World • Harmony and the peace was fractured and broken. • Temptation came and carried the day in the midst of the perfect world. • Sin did not strike at a moment of weakness or stress. • As followers of Jesus we no longer live in paradise and the risk to fall is greater.

  7. The Danger of God Talkv:1-3 • The fall came in the midst of the first conversation about God or God talk. • The serpent initiates the conversation by pressing Eve and Adam is silent. V6 • The danger is to turn God into an object rather than treating God as the subject of a genuine relationship. • Chapter 2 Adam and Eve lived in vital relationship with God.

  8. The Danger of God TalkContinued • The Serpent invited Eve and Adam to talk about God rather than to speak to or with God. • God talk is dangerous especially if it is about God and not to God. • It remains crucial for us as disciples of Jesus to maintain a relationship with God and to resist the temptation of substituting God talk for a moment by moment relationship with God through prayer.

  9. Questioning God’s IntegrityV:4-5 • Satan seeks to get us to question God’s words and buy into questioning the integrity of God’s trustworthiness. • When deciding between obedience and disobedience the crucial question is do you fundamentally trust that God has your best interest at heart? • Satan implies God can not be trusted and is holding out on your best interest.

  10. Who is Responsible for Original Sin? • The Snake? The Man? The Woman? • Why did the snake speak only to the woman and why to the woman instead of the man? • The conversation of Satan involves the contradiction of God. v4 • The conversation of Satan cast doubt on the motives of God. v5

  11. The Issue Of Knowledgev:5-7 • The issue of knowledge about God becomes at its deepest level an issue of trust. • Can God be trusted with your best interest or does God have his divine interest more at heart than interest in humans? • Gaining knowledge was to be disobedient and to lose by drawing the wrong conclusion. • Knowledge helps to inform our decisions and we are responsible for our independent decision.

  12. The Issue Of KnowledgeContinued • If humanity could attain this knowledge, humanity would suddenly become like God. • To live daring lives that achieve God’s will, we have to settle in our hearts the trust issue—God can be trusted. • You can’t achieve the will of God in the world apart from living in a moment by moment relationship with God’s word.

  13. Acting on Impulsev:6-8 • Once we begin to question God’s motives, we are left simply to live by our own cunning intellect and resolve. • When trust in God diminishes we are reduced to acting on impulse. • Apart from a vital relationship with God we lack the ability to discern good and bad, right and wrong. Prov. 14:12

  14. The Danger of Self-trust • We often think temptation is based on appearance but the key is v6. • When one’s relationship with God deteriorates and we no longer know God and worse yet we no longer trust God has our best interest at heart we resort to self-trust, and live by the flesh. • What was the end result of self-trust in Adam and Eve and what is it for us today?

  15. Godly Trust – Godly Responsev9-13 • Trust is the key to living faithfully and courageously for God in the world today. • Without Godly trust we remain trapped in endless cycles of disobedience and broken fellowship with God. • God responded by looking for his prized creation. V9 in the midst of tragedy God comes looking for us. • There may be repercussions for our actions but there is also hope because God’s mission is culminated in the cross of Jesus Christ.

  16. God Offers us God’s Best • Are you seeking to live faithfully for God? • Do you have a vital relationship with God? • Do you trust God has your best interest in heart? Or, do you live your life trusting fundamentally in yourself? • Have you reached the point in your life you are ready to hand over all you are to God so you may live the victorious life?

  17. Lesson Summary • Gen. 3 is crucial to Christian understanding of our human sinfulness. • Sin alters the peace of your mind and life. • God’s restrictions are not an infringement on our freedom but a safeguard for our own well being. • God talk is dangerous if it is about God and not to God. • God offers us God’s best.

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