Sermon on Joy (2 of 3)

Why Joy Is Mixed With Pain After the Fall

Let's pray Lord God, thank you so much for another chance to gather with your people and to to hear from you and to Worship you Lord. We again. Thank you so much for everything you've given us that Many joys in life that you give us.

Even in situations where we we don't expect it. We don't understand it Lord, we we ask that you would help us to love you better to appreciate your gifts more. And God we ultimately want our hearts to be conformed to the image of your son.

So God just ask that you bless these people and bless the reading of your holy word in Jesus name. Amen so This morning. We're gonna continue to talk about joy sort of I think unfortunately this week's sermon is a little bit of a downer after last week's and.

And you know, I do kind of relish in finding weird passages to do on on certain Sundays. But I promise I didn't do this one on purpose. This is just kind of how it happened. But we have our Christmas celebration tomorrow and most people are anticipating that.

We understand that Christmas is a celebration of of how the Lord Jesus Christ God himself Came to us in the flesh as a as a man as a human being. And he did it to save the world from its sin and to restore creation and you know.

You think about that? It's it's one thing to say it, right? And we all understand what what I just said and what I mean by that. But I think it's sometimes it's another thing to really appreciate it, right?

Because it's you know, we hear that God came in flesh and. Like that's that's crazy, right? Like that's pretty outrageous. But we can just say it and it just kind of comes Naturally to us and we can say that God came to the world to save us from our sins.

And that's again. It's Amazing when you think about what it means but we can kind of just say it and it just kind of comes naturally to us and I think like so many things sometimes you got to take a step back and and really understand.

The bad news that comes before the good news like in order to appreciate something you kind of have to Go through some experiences where you know, you know what you're appreciating I guess. Because our lives, you know, we're gonna talk about the problem with our joy.

These days and our lives are not all joy all the time. I mean, you didn't need to come here to hear me say that you know that Our lives are difficult. Our lives have problems. There are tears that we cry, you know, we can we can all understand that and.

So I want to talk about why that is. And so we're gonna read from the book of Genesis again. And so this time Genesis chapter 3. Last week, we looked at God's good creation and we looked at all the things that God created us to enjoy and We said that you know, obviously we can still enjoy these things but those things are not all joy.

And so what happened between Genesis 2 and now? And so let's read from Genesis chapter 3 and find out what happened. These are the words of God. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden and The woman said to the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden neither shall you touch It lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of that The tree excuse me you when 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 and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the Tree was to be desired to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day.

And the man and his wife hid themselves in the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him. Where are you? And he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

He said who told you that you were naked. Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said the woman who you gave to be with me. She gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate and the Lord's God said to the woman.

What is this you have done? The woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this cursed. Are you above all the livestock and above all beasts of the field on your belly?

You shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel to the woman he said Surely, excuse me.

I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing in pain. You shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you've eaten of the tree of which I commanded you.

You shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you in pain. You shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles that shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face.

Face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it. You are taken. You are dust and to dust you shall return the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all the living and the Lord God made for Adam and for His wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Then the Lord God said Behold the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and also take of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work of the ground from which he was taken.

He drove them he drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden He placed the share of him and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. This is the word of the Lord.

The Curse on Family, Work, and Food

So this story is pretty much pop culture to us as Americans. We all kind of know the basics, right? Everyone if you walk down the street, everyone knows what happened in the Garden of Eden with the serpent and Adam and Eve.

We all know about the fall of mankind. Even if most people don't understand the deeper meaning everyone at least has a superficial understanding of that story but I think there's some value in taking a still a deeper look at to some of the things we might not have considered because I think this story shows us why our joy is so often tied up and twisted and connected to things and ideas and experiences that are anything but joyous.

And I think it can be hard to untangle the two sometimes. Like anyone have that experience like the very things that you love and enjoy. They're still somehow tainted with pain. Sometimes that pain is our own doing like we love something so much that we like kind of smother it and ruin it.

But sometimes not sometimes it's not our own doing. So even in our joy, we're somehow always reminded of pain and sin. Last week if you remember I talked about four areas of life. That God created for us to enjoy four things that were God's idea to give his creation joy.

See God created a world that was not only unique and useful. But also a world for us to enjoy. Now, of course, there are more than four areas of creation for us to enjoy but we focused on four last week.

We focused on food art work and family and I said that those things were Universally enjoyed by mankind across cultural lines across ethnic barriers all people groups, right? All people groups find enjoyment in these things because you know makes sense.

God created them to be enjoyed. But just as universally as the enjoyment of these things also every people group in the world also Experiences pain and dysfunction in these four areas as well. It doesn't matter what culture you come from what ethnicity you are.

Everyone has experienced pain and food. Everyone has experienced dysfunction and what work and art and family. That is also universal and it's been devastating. And I think Genesis 3 tells us why that is.

Now after I wrote the sermon for last week, I understand, you know, I don't blame anyone for hearing what I said and Kind of like being like really Adam like I don't really understand. Like I said, we're supposed to find joy and food and alcohol and I don't blame you if the first thing you said.

Oh, yeah, Adam. Well in my family, you don't know what obesity or alcoholism has done. You don't know. You don't know what diabetes has done to my family. Food and alcohol do not bring joy. They bring pain.

I don't blame me if you thought that. Because as much as Genesis 2 proves that those things were made for joy Genesis 3 proves that these things can now bring pain. Or even when I mentioned work like I thought about work too because I Know from the Bible that God created work for his people to enjoy and I know that some of you thought to yourself.

Well, that's easy for you to say you don't have a soul-crushing job like I did. You don't have a monotonous awful repetitive boring job like I do. There's no joy in work. It's pointless and it's awful and it sucks the life out of me.

I've had jobs like that. So I hear that I understand if that that's what you thought because again as much as Genesis 2 proves that work was created to be enjoyed Genesis 3 proves that it can bring pain sometimes a lot of it.

So I get that. You see mankind we understand as Christians mankind threw at him. Mankind was deceived and gave up the sinless Painless joy that God created you see all that joy in the garden. That's how it was intended to be.

Mankind was deceived into thinking he could have that joy and even more without God. Mankind was deceived into thinking that somehow God was holding out on him like the ultimate joy. There was something else that that that God wouldn't give them and man could take to have real joy.

We've all collectively been making the same mistake ever since then. And so as a result, our joy is mixed with sadness. Like I said last week our pleasure is spiked with pain. Because God is the only source of joy.

And so when we try to get it without him it backfires every single time. That's the reality. You know, that's why this season, you know Christmas I was I was watching some some videos from two non-christians talking about Christmas and it was interesting.

It was a very interesting conversation. Both of them said that you know, it's Christmas time is sort of like a magnifier it. It can lead it can show us how joyful things are. Right, it can it can magnify the joy we have in our family and art and food.

But it simultaneously can magnify all the pain that's associated with those things. So many of us will go home tonight and tomorrow. We'll enjoy our family. We'll enjoy food. We'll enjoy decorative art some better than others.

We'll enjoy all that and we'll enjoy a year of hard work and all of these things. But simultaneously some of us also even though we will enjoy these things. Some of us will have sadness at this time. Some of us won't feel like feasting.

Some of us won't want to see another Christmas light or a Christmas tree because it reminds us of our pain. It reminds us I think of what we lost in Genesis 3 you see Genesis 3 is a chapter of curses.

Curses from God and the reality is. Many people can really intimately feel some of those curses around this time. And so we want to be sensitive to that. Because as good as the world is as good as everything God made is we have to deal with the reality that Curses have come because of our collective rebellion against God.

He noticed to the curse is almost point-for-point. The very things that God lovingly and graciously created for us the very things that he made it for us to enjoy. He curses in this passage. It seems to me like God is sort of saying okay.

You guys think you can have joy without me. You think you can have good things without me. Give it a shot. Let's see how far you get with that. Which is a terrifying thought when you think about it but our God is so gracious and good that He doesn't actually take the joy away from us even as he curses it.

Because even as he does these curses, he doesn't go as far as he could. He simply still demonstrates his love and mercy. By letting us keep the joy, but now there's also a reminder of of the bad of the sin.

The first thing God curses in our passage today was verse 16 the family dynamic. God says to the woman I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing in pain. You shall bring forth children your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you now.

It doesn't take a genius. I don't know exactly what a lot of this stuff means. But it doesn't take a genius to know that that's not good. The family dynamic is not a good thing anymore. Necessarily it makes it seem sort of like the task of being fruitful and multiplying when God Created in the Garden of Eden that was supposed to be a joyful somewhat simple task.

But not anymore. No longer is our family relationship completely joyful and completely happy and good. It could have been that way. But Adam and Eve thought they could do better. And so in response God shows him a taste of what it would be like without him.

But again, he doesn't go all the way. He lets us still have joy. He lets us still know what it's like to have children to have a family to experience the miracle of life. And and the joy of starting a new family, but now.

It'll be painful and maybe even a little bit dangerous. There's some kind of wrench that God throws into the husband and wife relationship here. I don't. I don't know if we can flesh it all out to this morning.

But clearly your desire shall be contrary to your husband. That's not a good thing. And clearly this idea of him ruling over the woman. That's not a good thing. And so we have curses we still get the good parts, but now it's mixed with bad.

I Pulled up some statistics here and these are you know, I could have pulled up any kind of statistics. Some of these are kind of debated, you know, you can kind of get a range of statistics. But from the best I can tell in the United States almost 50 of marriages end in divorces.

And I've seen numbers even higher than that. Not only that. But lots of people just don't get married anymore. They're uninterested in the complications of divorce because you know, it's a coin flip. I guess I read a statistic that said 34 of children a third of children live in single-parent households and the statistics tell us that everything is not hunky-dory.

When you have a single-parent household There are difficulties or trials that arise because of that situation and the outlook can sometimes be very grim. I Think that these statistics again, I could have chosen a bunch of them, but just these two I think they clearly support and demonstrate the fact that God has cursed the family dynamic.

The second thing God curses is the man's work. Work was meant to be a joy. But now God again gives us a taste of what it can be like without his goodness. Verse 17 says cursed is the ground because of you in pain.

You shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. I think it's very clear that God made our work frustrating. That's what his curse was. Our work will be frustrating.

It won't always yield results. Sometimes it'll yield thorns and thistles. It won't always be satisfying or fulfilling at least not all the time. And also here's another thing I Think this passage says that our work now after the curse our work will be primarily just to feed ourselves.

Right. It's not gonna be just for the joy of working now. We're gonna work because we need need to work to survive. The statistics again, I think support this curse. I saw a poll that said 50 of people say they are satisfied with their work, which means 50 are unsatisfied with their work.

That is amazing. That's such a high number. I've seen numbers. Take that up to 70 70 of people are unsatisfied with their work. That is a ton. And it's not just about money by the way, like I I thought okay.

Well, maybe if you make a little bit of money, you're more unsatisfied, but maybe if you're rich you're more satisfied. That's not how it is. It doesn't matter what your salary range is. It's the same general statistics.

There's there's a little bit of variation. But chances are no matter what you make no matter what you do. You're frustrated at work. See, I think that's a sign that work has been cursed. The third thing God curses is our is our food if you can believe it.

It's no longer as easy as grabbing the fruit off the vine and eating it. That's how it was but not after the curse. Verse 19 says By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return so it sounds to me like God is saying it's gonna take a lot of effort for you to eat and Eventually even with all that effort all that sweat even your food will not sustain you.

We're gonna return to the dirt because of our rebellion. I Could rattle off a million statistics. I mean the statistics about malnourishment the statistics about people that don't know where their next meal is gonna come from.

I saw a thing that said one in nine people on the planet Earth. Have no idea what they're gonna eat next one in nine people. That is a sign of a curse. You see that's not how God created the world in Genesis 2.

I Saw nothing about these things in Genesis 2. This can only be the result of what happened in Genesis 3. And so, you know We can study Genesis 3 and see that God says that he cursed these things and we can believe it because we believe God.

But we don't have to study Genesis 3. All we got to do is look around and see the devastation and the results of the curses. All the good things of creation have turned sour and painful by our sin and our rebellion, but That's pretty depressing.

Ecclesiastes and the Meaning of Enjoying Life Under the Sun

But I want you to again notice something. Because God doesn't just take these things away completely. Like the joy is still there. Did you notice that we still get our families? We still get our we can still have children.

We can still work and produce good things. We could still enjoy food. It's gonna take more effort, but we'll still enjoy it. Just that now it's tainted with sin. See Genesis 2. We had all these things but no sin and we were we rebelled and we were punished for it.

But God is still merciful. He lets us keep these things. That is amazing. We have to pay a price but we could still keep these things. That's amazing. I think that's important because God curses us, but he doesn't make an end to us.

Right, like he doesn't utterly destroy us because of our rebellion. See these curses. They're not good. We want them undone. We want them gone. But the curses are there to produce something good in his people.

They're not meant to drive us away from God, but rather To point us to something better. These curses don't point us away from God, but they point us to something better. There is a Person in the Bible who teaches us this.

There is a king a Jewish king who teaches us this exact point and he is known as the preacher. The preacher. King Solomon himself the wisest person of all time. King Solomon in his. Awesome. Awesome book.

Ecclesiastes tells us about these curses and he also tells us what the point of these things are. I You know, I don't think Solomon took a poll to figure out that there was there was curses right like Solomon is a lot wiser than that.

He knew about these curses. Before he could do statistics and polls and things like that. You see he understood the reality of the curses of Genesis 3, but the book of Ecclesiastes is the weirdest book in the Bible I think and I love it because of that but it is so strange the initial Point of the book like the first little section if you were to outline it.

The book starts off talking about how meaningless life is. Can you imagine a book of the Bible? Do you think that a random person walking down the street if you told them that there's a book in the Bible that talks about How pointless life is that they would believe it?

Probably not. Probably not. He says everything in under the Sun everything in life is vain. Everything is pointless. He says he tries everything he tries to find value and meaning in everything. He first he starts off and he tries to find it in his own work, right?

And you know, he was the preacher right? He was the king and so his part of his work was gaining wisdom and applying it to his kingdom. And so he did that he tried to find out everything he could he tried to get as smart as he possibly could.

He tried to find knowledge and wisdom and all these things and he was very successful. He was became very wise. And he spends all his time doing that and in the end he says I just have more vexation. It's a waste of time.

It's like chasing the wind. That's how he describes. It's like chasing the wind which is like the ultimate waste of time. I've never tried for anything. He tries everything he says he tries to indulge himself right everything he wants he indulges himself.

He says I'll have the best food. I'll have the best alcohol. I'll get as many wives as I can. I'll have servants. I'll build things. I'll I'll do it all everything that people like to do. I'm gonna do.

And he says at the end he says there's no joy. It's like chasing the wind you'll never be able to be joyful in a sustained way. By abusing these gifts from God. So he comes to this point where he's like, okay trying to live wise is vanity living like a fool of vanity.

Building building a lot of wealth is vanity being lazy and not doing anything is vanity. Like everything is pointless. Everything is just vain to him. You see King Solomon Was intimately aware of the curses of God because he tried them all out.

But you see the book of Ecclesiastes is even weirder. Because he Solomon sees this weird problem with these things, right? There's almost like a paradox here. Because on the one hand he finds these things these these things that people love and enjoy he finds them to be meaningless but on the other hand He says enjoying these things is good and what life is all about under the Sun.

Look what he says in chapter 8. This is after all this stuff where he's like all these things are meaningless. Look at look at this chapter 8. I commend joy. I Commend joy he says. For man has nothing better under the Sun but to eat and drink and be joyful for this will go with him in his toil.

Through the days of his life that God has given him under the Sun. Later in chapter 9 in the same little section. He says he says this he says go eat your bread with joy. And drink your wine with a merry heart for God has already approved of you.

Let your garments always be white. But your oil not be lacking on your head. And then he says enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life. That he has given you under the Sun because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the Sun whatever your hand finds to do.

Do it with your might. He's kind of a weird paradox. On the one hand, it's all meaningless and vain according to Solomon. And we also know, you know, all these things can cause pain as well. So on the one hand, that's not good but Solomon knows.

And you know, here's the thing about Solomon as well like Solomon wrote the Proverbs most of them right and in the Proverbs. We see warnings about eating we see warnings about family. We see warnings about drinking.

So he knows all these things are dangerous and they need to be you know, you'd be controlled in the right way. Even though all of that is true, even though it's vain. It's meaningless. There's there's danger there.

They can cause pain. He still says God wants us to enjoy them. They're there for our joy. Eat your bread with joy. He says drink your wine with a merry heart. He says Enjoy life with your wife or your husband because you know what they're meant to be enjoyed.

That's what Solomon says. There's nothing better under the Sun than to enjoy these things. Yes, they've been twisted. Yes. There are sin. We must war against. Yes. These good things have been tainted.

So we have to be on guard. We can't just indulge the way he did. But listen to this we shouldn't be so afraid of sin that we give up joy in our lives. Because God has already approved of us enjoying life.

It's a weird paradox, right? It actually it's not it's actually not that weird if you think about it. It isn't that weird because I think Solomon was clued in on something very big. He was clued in on something that was important.

He doesn't explicitly say it but I I have a feeling that he kind of knew. See God had a plan that would allow his people to enjoy life even through suffering even through pain. God had a plan to redeem joy for his people and reverse the curses of Genesis 3.

Take a look at the end of his book. This is the end of Ecclesiastes. Solomon concludes from all of this. He says in chapter 12. He says Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth. Later in that chapter.

He goes on. He says the end of the matter all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing whether good or evil.

You see Solomon was clear on this point after a life of Vexation and meaninglessness and chasing the wind. Which I think we can all relate to think about it. Solomon was clear on this that the best things under the Sun in other words the best things here on earth.

Were created by God and God approves of us enjoying them but The best things here on earth are not the best things of all. They are the best things under the Sun, but they are not the best of all things.

Because unlike Adam and Eve in the garden Solomon knew that the best of things are from above. The best of all things come from God. Because the good things under the Sun they only get their goodness.

Because God gave them the goodness and so the end of the matter is respect and honor the Creator. Obey the Creator, that's how you have joy. That's how you can even have joy with the things under the Sun.

Obey the Creator in enjoying those things. You know if you do that if Solomon were to have done that his whole life He wouldn't have had a vain and pointless life. He wouldn't have faced all this vexation.

That's why he says Remember your creator in your youth because that's what he didn't do and he found out at the end. That's what he should have done. And so that's how we can have joy. We'll talk about this in more detail next week because This isn't this doesn't end on a downer right like this.

We don't have to just put up with this joy mixed with pain all the time. You don't have to always have it that way. Because all of this is gonna be redeemed. All of this is gonna be reconciled and that's why Christmas is so awesome.

Because in Christmas we celebrate Christ coming in flesh and he's the one who redeems all these things. He's the one who comes and he's the one who point by point just like God cursed all these things he's the one who point by point reverses those curses and Reconciles him things to himself reconciles us saves us from our sins.

But he also restores our joy in this life. So that's why we celebrate at this time of year, that's why we celebrate every Sunday. Let's pray Lord God. Thank you again for your word Lord, thank you for Thank you for the book of Ecclesiastes.

It's such a it's such a relatable book some of us more than others I think but Wow, just just an amazing thing that you That you would put something that was so honest and so so real to us In the Bible Lord that we can understand that we can kind of learn from Solomon's mistakes.

In a way, we all have to learn these mistakes for ourselves. But it is so good to know That That that the wisest person on the earth Can teach us before we before we fall down before we fall into the pit God.

So I just thank you so much that you Sent your son that you've saved us from our own sins Lord, but you've also Shown us a way that we can enjoy life God Again, I just pray that you would apply this this message to our hearts Lord Help us to enjoy the good things that you've created.

God help us to enjoy them not sin Lord. But just to enjoy life as you've made it Lord in Jesus name. Amen.