Robert Morris - The Broken Family
We're beginning a new series called Blessed Families. Blessed Families, and I just want to say to you, no matter what your situation is, whether you're married, single, widowed, divorced - no matter what, God's gonna speak to you, because we're gonna go into God's word. But, I want to talk about the family. I'm gonna talk about husbands and wives. I'm gonna talk about children. I'm gonna talk about, I don't even know how to say this correctly. I really am praying the Lord gives me some insight on this, but we're gonna talk about grown children. But today we're gonna start with The Broken Family.
And the reason we have to start here is because we all came from a broken family. Even if you came from a good Christian home, your parents were still broken. Even if they didn't separate or divorce, they're broken. We're born broken, because we all came from the first broken family, which is Adam and Eve. God put Adam and Eve on this earth, and there was something that happened when they fell that affects you to this day. We all have biological DNA, biological genetic characteristics. We all have that in our body, the biological characteristics that we get from Adam and Eve. We also got some spiritual DNA from them, some spiritual genetic characteristics that cause us to act and think a certain way. We got that from the fall.
So, I'm gonna actually show you today the three results of the fall - when they fell, what came into mankind and what affects us even to this day that we need Jesus to help us with, all right? So, let me make this statement. Even though there were only two people on the earth in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve - Cain and Abel came in Genesis 4. Even though there were only two people, I want to say it this way. Every person on the earth, and I know that was only Adam and Eve, but every person on the earth before the fall was in a perfect relationship with God and each other. And in just a few verses, every person on earth was in a broken relationship with God and each other. That's what happened at the fall.
So, Genesis 3, look at Verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.
Notice he completely misquotes God, completely. No, you're not gonna die. He contradicts Him. For God knows in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food - three things that she saw, and I want to point those out in a little more detail in a moment. That the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, those three things, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her. Just want you to know, Adam was right there beside her while the devil was talking to his wife, and never did anything about it. So, don't ever say, men - well, you know, the women, cause you were right there. With her, and he ate also. All right.
Now, let me show you a Scripture and then we're gonna go back to Verse 6. 1 John 2:16, For all that is in the world, now watch these three things, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father, but is of the world. Now, commit those to short term memory - the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, so you've got lust in both, so you've got flesh and eyes, and then pride. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
Now, go back and look at Verse 6. Watch this. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that's the lust of the flesh, that it was pleasant to the eyes, that's the lust of the eyes, and that it was a tree desirable to make one wise, that's the pride of life. See, Satan doesn't have any new tricks. And, it's the same thing from Genesis, all the way to 1 John, to Revelation. This is one book. So, I just felt like I just had to point that out, so.
All right, so what happened when Adam and Eve fell? Three things entered the world when sin entered the world that still affect us to this day. Here's number one: shame. Their first response, once they had sinned, was shame. Now, we're just gonna keep reading, so we stopped at Verse 6. Look at Verse 7. Then the eyes of both of them were opened. Watch the first thing they knew. And they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. They made them themselves. That's important, cause we're gonna see later that what they made didn't work. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
"Then the Lord God called to Adam and said, Where are you? So he said, I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because..." So, why did he have fear? It's because he had shame. Because I was naked, and I hid myself. And He said, Who told you that you were naked? And by the way, the answer to that question is, no one had to tell him. He had a realization of shame once sin came in the world. Shame came in when sin came in the world. Immediately! It's the very first thing they felt. When sin came in, they felt shame immediately.
And, I'm sitting here reading this, and who were they hiding from? I mean, they were the only two people. They had already seen each other naked. The only other living things on the earth were animals. I mean, were the monkeys pointing and laughing? I don't care if the dog sees me naked. You know? It's an animal. I mean, it's just crazy. Here's the point. They were hiding from God, listen, and each other. That they were ashamed for the first time ever. They were ashamed of their nakedness.
I can remember when I grew up, I was very skinny growing up. I've overcome that. If you have a difficulty, I can teach you how to... fried chicken and Blue Bell will take care of it, at the same time. All right, so let's go on. Okay, so the point is, I remember I was always afraid that someone was gonna - now, some of you can relate to this, but I was afraid someone was gonna walk in when I was changing and see how skinny I was. I don't know if any of you can ever relate to that. Now I'm afraid they're gonna walk in and see how fat I am! But anyway, different story. But, there was the shame.
Now, I'm not talking about a normal modesty that we should have, but the shame. That came with the fall. And so, they make themselves clothes to cover their shame. Look on down, Verse 21, watch what God does. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. So, they make for themselves something to cover em, but God then makes something to cover em temporarily, obviously until the blood of Jesus. But, I want you to think about this. Maybe you've never thought about this before. God made these Himself. He made them from animal skin, therefore He had to shed blood.
The only thing that will cover shame is blood. That's it. This is already a type and a shadow of a blood sacrifice that His Son was going to make, all the way back in Genesis 3. This shame, this nakedness, this isn't something that's in the natural, it's in the spiritual. That's what I want you to pick up on. Look at these verses, and again, the spiritual meanings. Revelation 3:18, I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire. Now, He's not talking about gold, by the way. He's talking about His word. His word is more precious than gold and silver.
Okay. That you may be rich, now watch this, and white garments. He's not talking' about actual clothes. Watch. That you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed. He's not talking about literal clothes. Here's another verse to show you for sure, Isaiah 61:10. For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, and He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. It's the only thing that will cover shame is righteousness. But, please let me distinguish between righteousness and righteous living. Righteousness means right standing with God.
The only thing that will take care of your sin and your shame is to be in a right standing, right relationship with God, and the only way you do that is through Jesus Christ. But what we do many times is think, if I can just overcome this, if I can start living better, if I can quit falling to this, then I won't have shame. You can do, and we should live righteously. I'm not saying that we shouldn't. But, I'm telling you that that won't take care of shame. The only thing that takes care of shame is Jesus Christ. That's it. Righteousness being deposited into your account. You also need to know this, sin was taken out of every person's account in the world when Jesus died on the cross. He died for the whole world. He died for the whole world. Are you following me?
God's already taken care of your sin. If you'll just believe in Jesus, then He will deposit righteousness, His Son's righteousness, in your account. The problem I've noticed is that since I've gotten saved, I've still made mistakes. How many of you have, you know, blown your top, or lost your cool, or said things you shouldn't have said, or made some mistakes, or somehow done something that you should not have done, since you got saved? Can I see your hands? Every campus, every campus, put it way up high, keep it up.
Now, look around at all of the sinners that go to Gateway Church! Okay, here's the reason I did that! Because Satan tells you that you're worse than anyone else, and that you've blown it, and you know better, and you've got the power of God now, and the Holy Spirit, and you should and you shouldn't. No one else deals with this stuff. You've been saved 20 years now and you're still dealing with this stuff. That's called being a human. That's what it's called. And God loves you, and He's already forgiven all of your sin, and He's put His Son's righteousness in your account, and that's the only way you'll ever get over shame. That's it.
So, that's the first thing that came with the fall. Here's the second thing: blame. Blame. All right, so we stopped at Verse 10, now look at Verse 11. And He said, Who told you that you were naked? We read that first part. Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, watch Adam's answer, The woman... You see the blame? And look, he blames two people with one statement. Whom You gave to me to be with me. She gave me of the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman said, The devil made me do it. That's where that saying came from, right there, Eve. The devil made me do it.
Do you see the blame? Neither one of them took responsibility for their sin. Neither one of em! This is a result of sin. This is what happened with the fall. This blame that you see in your children - blaming someone else for it, putting blame on you, or whatever. No, no, no, you said I could, or whatever it is? That came from Adam and Eve. That came from our spiritual parents. That's where we got this from. Adam's answer is incredible - the woman that You gave me. I was doing' fine with the chimpanzees. Everything was going' great until she showed up. Isn't that amazing how we blame each other?
Here's another thing about blame, and I want you to think about this. Most of the time, we'll say this. It's not my fault, or it's all my fault. Either one, they're both wrong. They're both wrong. But, we're both trying to put blame somewhere, and this is a result of the fall. It's not my fault. You don't understand. Or, think about this. How many people live in bitterness toward others and toward God, which is what Adam did? It was her fault and Your fault. You know, my boss didn't promote me. And God, you know, I hear about this blessed life, but you know, I'm not living' it, and so apparently, something's wrong with me. Don't live with blame! It's crazy to live with blame. When you live with blame, let me explain something to you.
Let me tell you where blame comes from, okay? It comes from a person named Satan. And there's another word for blame, and it's called accuser. Revelation 12:10, Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren... I'll tell you in a moment why I underlined our. The accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, he never stops, has been cast down. So, Satan's the accuser of the brethren.
Okay, so I've made that statement a lot: Satan is the accuser of the brethren. For the first time in my life, and I've been studying the Bible a long time, I saw the word our this week when I was studying this passage. Here's why I think that's important, the accuser of our brethren. Before you accuse someone, you need to remember, that's your brother, or that's your sister. And, you need to remember that when you accuse someone else, you're actually acting like Satan. That is what Satan does. Satan is the accuser of our brethren, our brethren. There's too much accusation going on in the body of Christ right now, instead of love and forgiveness.
All right, so here's the third thing. First is shame, the second is blame. Here's the third result of the fall: fame. Fame. Now, this isn't like wanting to be famous, it's wanting to be recognized, wanting to be acknowledged. It's that insecurity that all of us have, that we need someone to recognize us. Now, we're gonna get down to where I'm gonna show you where I get this from, but remember, we ended at Verse 13. Verses 14 and 15, God announces the curse that came on the serpent because of what he did. Verse 16 announces the curse that came on Eve, and Verses 17 through 19 announces the curse that came on Adam.
The reason I'm saying this, we start to Verse 30. We're gonna pick up at Verse 20, but I want you to know what was in between. Let me say another thing too, by the way. You want to get your theology straight. God did not curse them, He told them about the curse that they brought on themselves. That's what happened. God said, now let me tell you what happened because of what you did, cause I told you that you would die, and this is how death has resulted in your life now. And we're gonna go into some of these, because unfortunately, some people are still living under those curses, which Christ came to redeem us from those curses.
So, all right. So, He announces that, again, Verses 14 through 19, okay? Watch what happens as soon as He finishes, as soon as God finishes announcing this, Verse 20. Watch what happens. Genesis 3:20, And Adam called, Adam called, his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Now, what you're probably thinking is, well, that's not so bad, but let's dive into this a little bit. Eve, by the way, means life, so the mother of life, mother of living.
Okay, so what's wrong with this? Well, you have to remember, this is after the fall Adam gives her this name. God did not give her the name Eve, Adam did. But it was after the fall. It's when Adam was a sinner. Before the fall, which is Genesis 2, the chapter ends with Adam saying about Eve, This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. You're part of me. He says, you're part of me. We're together. We're one. After the fall, he says, immediately when I fall, you're Eve.
Let me say it another way. He labeled her, and he labeled her as separate and distinct from him. He said, your purpose is to bear me children. Her name was not Eve. God did not name her Eve. A lot of people don't know what her name was before, but I do. Scripture tells us. I'm gonna read it in the Old King James first, and then I'm gonna read it in the New King James, cause New King James translates it literally, okay? Here's Old King James. Genesis 5:2, it's recounting the creation. Male and female created He them, and blessed them, we're talking about Blessed Families, and called their name Adam, in the day they were created.
Okay, so what does Adam mean in the Hebrew? It's Adam. It does not mean man. People think it does. It means mankind. Genesis 5:2 in the New King James says, He created them male and female, and blessed them, and called them Mankind in the day they were created. Okay, I want you to think about this. It says God makes the two one, and what God has joined together, let no man separate. But immediately, when sin came in the world... before sin, Adam says, we're one. We're one flesh. You are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. We're one flesh. As soon as sin comes in, he says, you're separate, you're different. You're separate from me. And he labels her and says, this is your purpose.
Ladies have been struggling with this for 6.000 years, since Adam did this - is my only purpose to be a mother? Now, most ladies love being a mom, and they're created to be great moms. They love it. But, I'm here to tell you, that's not your only purpose. I'd like to tell you something else, too. That's actually not even your highest purpose or highest calling. And let me tell you why. All the ladies are clapping right now. Praise the Lord! Yes, I told you I was finished. I told you we're not having any more. Okay.
All right. So, I've got to think where I am now. That joke was not in the notes, but it worked out well. Okay. So, it's not your highest calling. I have actually said, in like, preaching on the family and marriage, I've said our highest calling is to be a husband and a father, for men, and our highest calling is to be a wife and a mother. I've said that. I don't believe that anymore. Let me explain something. Your highest calling is not to be a husband and a father. Your highest calling is to be a child, a child of God. And if you're a good child of God, you'll be a good husband and father. If you're a good child of God, you'll be a good wife and a good mother. You see what I'm saying? That's our highest calling.
So, in understanding that, that plus what else I'm about to tell you, you need to know that every person has a calling, and every person has gifts from God. Galatians says there's no male and female in Christ. So, why would you think just your husband has a calling from God, and your calling is just to be the wife and mother? This is why some women suffer from depression when the kids are grown and move out, because it's like their purpose has been fulfilled, their calling is over. That's not your calling. 1 Corinthians says that God gives to each one gifts, different from others but for the benefit of all, but to each. You're an each. Male or female, you're an each.
So, every person has a gift and a call from God. You need to know what your purpose is, because that will fulfill you. And what Adam did immediately was he labeled her, and immediately there began to be this competition and this separation between a husband and a wife. That's why I say we all came from a broken family. Now, they stayed married. There wasn't anybody else on earth, you know. But there was a breaking. Do you see this breaking? Immediately! Before the fall, just go back and read Genesis 2, 3, and 4. Before the fall, Genesis 2, the very last part of it, he says, You are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. You're one flesh with me. And as soon as the fall comes, he says, you're not Adam anymore. You're not Adam, you're not Mankind - you're Eve.
He separates himself immediately and he labels her. And this labeling happens, and then it goes to our kids, because our kids then want to be noticed. You go to Chapter 4, Cain and Abel. Abel is noticed for his offering and Cain is not, and Cain eventually kills Abel because of it. You can see it in your kids. You can see a spirit of competition. You say to one kid, You did great. The other kid says, What about me? This attention, this desire for attention, came.
So, what's the answer? What's the answer for the shame, the blame, and the fame that all of us fall to? The answer is Jesus Christ. In Acts 3, the whole context is Jesus, so you need to know that. It's gonna talk about the seed of Abraham, but the seed of Abraham is referring to Jesus, and all you got to do is read Acts 3 and you'll see it. Matter of fact, we're gonna read Verse 25 in a moment, and Verse 26 and even before, about Verse 21, tells you Jesus, okay?
But I want you to look at this verse, and the Lord gave me the title, Blessed Families for this series, and then as I'm studying for this message, I see this verse, and I think, wow, that's pretty cool. Acts 3:25 says, And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed All the families... not all of the people, all of the families. All of the families of the earth shall be blessed. They are blessed families. So, it's not just that we put our trust in Jesus for our salvation, but we continue to put our trust in Jesus for the shame, and the blame, and the fame.
God really does wanna bless our families and I know what it's like for a family to be messed up. I know what's it's like for a child to go away from God or to just not know what to do. God what do I do in this situation? I know what it's like to have marriage problems, Debbie and I've gone through that. But I want you to know that Jesus Christ came to bless the families of the earth and that includes your families.