Text: Genesis 2:15-3:24, Romans 3:23, Isaiah 64:6-7, Ephesians 2:1-3, Romans 1:18-32, Romans 6:23a
My kids love balloons. Love them. And since becoming a parent, I have learned to despise them.
Lucky for them (and unlucky for me), the grocery store nearest our house rewards each child who rolls past the checkout lane with a balloon for their excellent (or terrible) behavior.
I have two children, and inevitably, one balloon always makes a break for it in the parking lot. Somewhere between the automatic sliding doors and me buckling car seats and keeping eggs from being crushed, one – only one – will see its moment and slip free, its tail waving goodbye and good luck to me as it disappears into the sky.
Good luck indeed. One child is devastated, and one is delighted. And then? They turn on each other. Greed overcomes them, all they can think about is the one thing they cannot have, and by the time we pull into the driveway (four minutes later), fists have been wielded, cruel words have been exchanged, tears have been shed (I’m not saying whose), consequences have been made clear, and whatever affection they once shared for each other is long forgotten – discarded for the affection of self.
One such scene occurred in our home just last week, and the very next day I came upon the coveted balloon hovering hesitantly just above the dining room floor – forgotten, deflated and worthless.
This is what sin does – it lies. It promises to be shiny and colorful and inflated with excitement forever. It promises to be worth it. Sin tells us that God wants to keep the good stuff from us – that what we want matters more than what He has for us. (Genesis 3:4-5)
In Eden God told Adam, “You may surely eat of the every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17) Man had supremacy over all of the earth, but this exclusion – this one law – caused Adam to doubt God’s motives.
And man (and woman) sinned the first sin (Genesis 3:6-7). And for the first time in the history of the world, we felt shame. The lie of sin – that this will make us be like God and that we could live apart from Him – failed to deliver and the original glory of man and Eden was lost (Genesis 3:8-21). God’s tender warning that “you shall surely die” was true for them and true for us.
Sin wasn’t worth it. It never is. Romans 6:23 tells us the same thing God told Adam, “the wages of sin is death,” and Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Adam was guilty. Eve was guilty. You and I and your sister and your neighbor and your grandmother and your kids and your friend and your enemy – we are all guilty. We all deserve death.
The human race is guilty because of Adam’s sin. And each one of us is guilty too because of our own sins. Daily, hourly, even moment to moment we believe the lie that God’s law is holding us back and that we know better. And just as we scramble to act (or think or fail to act), the shimmer tarnishes, the balloon deflates, and what we thought we needed – what caused us to act outside of God’s law – is in the discard pile by sunrise the next morning.
Adam sinned, and through Him, we are all cursed – all born with a nature of sin and a sentence of death. But friends, keep reading! There is more! (And if you can’t possibly bear to wait – read Romans 5:17 for the most glorious hint!)
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