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SERMON OUTLINE & SUMMARY |
| Series: Free to Love - How to Leave the Judging to the Judge Part 1: The Original Sin as the Original Impediment to Loving Others Freely September 20, 2009 | by Ken Wilson SERMON OUTLINE & SUMMARY How can we be free to love with the extraordinary, supernatural, mind-blowing, world changing love that Jesus sets loose in the human heart: holy love, healing love, bring-you-to-your knees love, set-the-captives-free love. The last time we were truly free to love is recorded in Genesis 1-2. Gen. 1: God is free, creative, love in action Gen. 2: Human beings freely created in love by LOVE: as God breathes into the human the gift of life and the human become a nephesh--a soul, a living being. But....something happens that takes away our freedom to love. What is that something? Foreshadowed in first command of love to first human: And the LORD God commanded the man, "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." (Gen. 2: 16-17) How this first command violates our common sense: Don't we need the knowledge of good and evil in order to be good people in a good world created by a good God? When this command comes in the bigger story: just before Adam meets Eve and has the first opportunity to love another human being. Did he need this command in order to be able to love freely? Gen. 2: 18-25: The love-fest. Then Gen. 3: our original sin and its consequences. Gen. 3: 1-11 Is this a simple story with a simple-to-grasp point? Or is it a complex story that requires our willingness to wrestle with it in it order to extract the blessing? What happened to the love between the two people? It soured. How do we know? First accusation: "The woman you gave me, gave it to me, and I ate." Was the accusation accurate? Was the accusation self serving despite being accurate? What two parties are implicated in Adam's accusation? Do we implicate God when we accuse others? Is Adam using his forbidden knowledge of good and evil to accuse others, while excusing himself? Is this a powerful human tendency? Is there anything about the original command that bothers you? Isn't God and religion about morality? And don't we have a responsibility, in order to be moral agents, to have this knowledge? God and religion are about morality. There are moral imperatives. But there is a common sense approach to morality that gets in the way... I think this is the first test in the Bible. Are we going to choose common sense over spanine sense? Are we going to choose our common sense over spanine revelation? And this command was necessary in order for us to love. The reason we're not free to love isn't that we disobeyed any old command. It's that we disobeyed this command. Can you see how the original sin relates to the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 7:1-2, Judge not, lest ye be judged? Who in the Bible is the judge? God. What does a judge need in order to do his job? The knowledge of good and evil. What is our job? Upcoming sermon topics: 1. The OVERWHELMING EMPHASIS in the gospels on not judging as a requirement for loving others freely. 2. Judging Others: The Sin of the Pharisees 3. The OVERWHELMING EMPHASIS in the writings of Paul on not judging as a requirement for loving others freely. 4. The OVERWHELMING EMPHASIS in the writings of James on not judging as a requirement for loving others freely. 5. The teaching of Paul in 1 Cor. 5-6 about settling disputes between brothers in the church and the occasional need to kick someone out of the community. 6. The teaching on speaking the truth in love to each other, in light of the fact that true community includes accountability. For complete sermon notes online, visit our sermons page. |
| PRACTICAL TIPS |
 1. Try to remember a time when you were walking in darkness in some way, and someone loved you without judging you, and how God worked in your life through that particular way of being loved.2. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you someone in your life right now who needs to be loved like that by you. During this series, storm the heavens until God enables you to love that person like that. Don't go through the series as an academic exercise. Go through the series as an exercise in regaining the ability to love others freely. |
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION |
 1. How have you understood the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? What has it always meant to you? How has this sermon challenged those ideas?2. Does the word "judging" have positive or negative connotations for you? Why? 3. Can you think of times in your life where "spanine sense" has conflicted with "common sense"? Which won out? 4. Why do we desire to have the knowledge of good and evil? 5. How does judgment get in the way of loving people and loving God? |
Posts
Hi everyone! Welcome to the sermon blog. Before we begin, just a few preliminaries:
ReplyDeleteThis will be a moderated blog. Like our small groups, the blog will have ground rules. No unsolicited advice giving. Be kind & respectful of others. Share your views as your views without attacking the viewpoint of others. Pastors will moderate the blog like small group leaders moderate a small group discussion.
Focus on biblical material itself. The text is the movie, the blog is the conversation about the movie afterwards.
Great! One thing to remember is that we need to define judging. What are you talking about when you say we should not judge? It is clear that we may not judge a person's soul, however, we are called to judge actions. That is why, e.g., we have the commandments. We can say that breaking those is a bad idea. Judgement on action, not person. I think we sometimes get these two issues confused, and in a sermon like this, it would be helpful if you could specify what you are telling us not to judge.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
I was very interested in today's sermon. It reminded me that in Genesis there is an iceberg of wisdom, knowledge, and growth available that (for me at least) has yet to be fathomed.
ReplyDeleteSome of the things i have contemplated over the years of studying the creation and fall story have to do with some questions i have come to while reading or talking about it. Why was the tree put there to begin with? Why were we told not to eat from it? What about the tree of eternal life, why no real mention of it until after the sin? And how does this fit into the overarching plan that God has to redeem his children?
These questions have brought me to at least one possible solution. Combined with the observation of humanity that sometimes become s hobby of mine, i have thought about the possibility that the whole thing was in some way, planned.
God created us a certain way. I believe that we haven't changed that much since the beginning, technology yes, culture yes, but our inner selves not really. Many people know about the idea of reverse psychology, was that in play here? We were created with free will, so we had the choice all along. The prevailing thought is that this was our first test, and we failed. I have a different thought.
We as people tend to see the grass as greener on the other side. We also tend to take for granted things we live with. In this sense to live under the constant protection and guidance of God we would not take hold fully of the beauty and true nature of His love, because it would never be truly demonstrated and we would not know the lack of it.
The knowledge of good and evil came with an expulsion. This was to show us (again, only along this lie of thought) the true nature of free will that we possess. Can we choose if there is no choice? Can we truly say we would choose to walk away from God if He was always standing there? To become fully aware of the choices we have the ability to select, we would also need a place to demonstrate our desire to be with God. If we are constantly with Him, then how can we show we would sacrifice all to be with Him?
With these tings in mind, and the idea that God knows what He is doing, i have thought about the possibility that our expulsion, by our own means as it were, was a necessity to our full understanding of what it would mean for Jesus sacrifice, and how much God truly does love us.
However, i do put this down as a thought process that i have come to over years of idle study. I do realize it is not really in line with the amazing sermon from today, but it did remind me there is a wealth of things unknown about the beginnings of humanity that we may benefit from if we search while asking for God's guidance.
to draw it back to the lessons of judging ourselves and others, reserving the right to judge anyone for God alone, and seeking for a more complete Love (capital L); we are forever under His watchful eye and loving regard. I find that within this chapter His unfailing care coupled with His strict justice combine to show us that His judgment is far more final, and far more merciful, than anything we could hope to achieve.
Judgment. To determine or predict or fear or observe or discern or conclude or surmise or understand or suspect or.... Well. We can use a plethora of euphemisms. We do use use a plethora of euphemisms. To say that someone does not measure up. To cast someone out. To discard a fellow human being. To make out that some other person does not qualify. Does not make the grade. Does not gain admission. Does not get to be a member of.... Of what? The glee club? The kingdom of heaven? The church? The group in which we are the central and deciding vote? The court in which we preside as judge? And jury? And this judicial metaphor dominates us, doesn't it? Is at the center of all we do. At the center of everything we do and are. At the center of our work and our schools and our homes. It will assert itself in all our dealings with one another, will it not? And to what useful end? To the end that we can eliminate everyone. And I mean everyone--since all are not without sin. All of us fall short. All of us are defective. So that we can separate everyone at one time or another and for one reason or another from.... From what? From those who are theoretically deserving. Who are theoretically endorsed. Who are theoretically lovely, through and through. Who are theoretically perfect and who are therefore worthy of our love.
ReplyDeleteLast night, I could have wept. The man next door was yelling at his son, using a great deal of profanity. Using a great deal of profanity. Yelling and screaming at his son. I heard him through all the walls between us. Loud and clear. Perfectly clear. He said that his son was not living up to his talent. His ability. And he would not take him to compete in any more travel matches--soccer matches is what I understood--unless he changed his attitude. Unless he.... What? Became different. Changed. Corrected himself. Corrected his attitude. Tried harder. Played better. Eliminated his faults.
And this father had tossed his son into the group of people who deserved his father's profanity. Who deserved his father's chastisement. Who deserved the withdrawl of his father's love and his active condemnation. Who deserved his father's punishment. Who warranted his father's judgment. Who was not worthy of his father's understanding. His encouragement. His.... Well, his love.
As Ken briefly mentioned, I was always troubled by the presence of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden. I always thought, "Why would He put that there in the first place? Didn't He know that of course they would eat from it?"
ReplyDeleteThe answer came recently. God put the Tree of Knowledge there because from the beginning He wanted to give us free will. By putting the Tree there, he was giving us free will to choose even *before* we knew anything about evil. Even then He wanted our love for Him to be our choice instead of coercing us.
Just a cool side thought on the sermon.
anonymous, important point--what is judging? I hope to let the scripture speak for itself on this one rather than rush into a premature definition.....I think we'll tend to see from the context what judging is as it is addressed. What do you think it is in light of Genesis 2-3?
ReplyDeleteFantastic topic and one I have thought about often in the years. I don't have a real solid POV right now but I am really glad Ken has brought up this topic. Very thought-proviking - count me among the camp that has always viewed the original commandment about the tree with suspicion and confusion.
ReplyDeleteOur small group just discussed the sermon.
ReplyDeleteA few thoughts came up:
-There are commands to judge and not to judge in scripture, confusing.
-Could it be that the 'bad' judgment is the type of judgment that interferes with our ability to love?
-Maybe it's ok to make a judgment concerning someone else's life choices, as in knowing that they regularly get drunk and internally disapproving the behavior, but also making the effort to tend to their felt needs, care for them, make them feel valued and loved regardless of their particular sin issue?
-I think it's back to the whole 'treat others as you would like to be treated'?
I loved the reminder that our very sense of good and evil is a stolen sense. and as such, maybe it should be lightly handled.
See, I'm with Glenn. Why did God put that tree there? Why did he flat out tell him "this is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - don't eat it or you will die." Why die?
ReplyDeleteIt's a test of some kind that I always thought God knew we would "fail," i.e. that we would eat it. And I wonder if the test was for the serpent as well, and what the serpent represents - I think we as Christians have collectively assumed the serpent was a form of the Adversary.
Is the meaning of the story that we as humans try to be like God but will always fall far far short of the mark, and that this is, in essence, the human condition?
Rolling Uphill small group approached the topic this way. We asked ourselves, collaged about, then shared:
ReplyDelete-in what areas of your life are you vulnerable to others judging you?
-on what topics are you likely to judge others?
One comment on the exercise: we noted the close correlation between what one judges [in others] and the areas in which one feels vulnerable to judgment [from others].
"judge not lest you be judged" -Jesus?
It is amazing what a little collage work can do to move a discussion along.
Charlie, I think that all sin is us putting ourselves before God.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we are looking at the test through the lens of the "already fallen". It seems to us that of course we would fail the test, but that's just because we are familiar with "human nature."
I honestly think God left the decision completely to us, and it really was a case of Him giving us free will even before we knew what the knowledge of good and evil was.
As I think about the passage of the two trees, I think there are actually two separate statements. 1.) You are free to eat of any tree in the garden. In the NIV version there is a semi-colon here. I wonder if it should be a period. I find it hard to fathom that God created something just to forbid it. Then the second statement 2.)but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I wondering if this not so much a commandment as a very strong recommendation. This would be in accordance with I Cor 10:23 where is says everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. The older (and hopefully wiser) that I get, I tend to see life more as "shoulds and shouldn'ts" instead of "do's and don'ts".
ReplyDeleteIf we don't judge what will we do?
ReplyDeleteSounds like God's job is to judge and our job is to love?!
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your sould and with all your mind. This is the 1st and greatest commandment. And the second is like it; Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the Profets hang on these two commandments." - Matthew 22:27-40
Looks like it is just our job to LOVE.
So when the first people desided that their judgment to be like God (Genesis 3:4-6) was right it broke God's heart as like someone having an affair.
I'm chiming in on this one a little late. I'm in Japan, infact I just moved here from Ann Arbor this summer. I'm so happy there is a place for me to connect with people from the community back home, not to mention the audio sermons, which I deeply appreciate.
ReplyDeleteI tend to really start to love Genesis around the chapters dealing with Abraham. I think it's for various reasons that I don't respond to the first chapters as enthusiastically, some of which, as Ken touched on, might not be the best of reasons.
I'm very excited to consider the idea of the commandment about the tree being related to the concept of humanity's eagerness to become "opinionated," which might just be a nice way to say judgemental. This relation seems present both in the story itself and in how we respond to it. It's a cool and beautiful layer when you look at it that way.
Back when I was kicking and screaming my way through the bible the first time I read it, I kept hitting roadblocks by putting my "opinion" as such a high authority that I couldn't give God's word a chance be heard. I finally started using the paradigm of "IF God's character is as Good as it often seems to be, what are some of the ways this part of the bible might still be true?" This allowed me to shut myself up enough to consider more of the picture, as well as face my own inability to reason on God's level.
As a side note, the sermon mentioned "this command came at this point..." and I started feeling like "this sermon came at this point" for good reason in my life in a personal way. Hopefully I didn't stray too far from the text itself. I'm excited to "catch up" on the audio sermons now. Greetings from overseas!
I first want to express how glad I am to learn about this online section! Last time I tried to post here, it lost all my writing, so I'm going to test this to make sure it works...
ReplyDelete