We are back in our Genesis series- creation, failure, redemption, repeat. We are just finishing up with chapter three, and I realized the last time we were together in this series; I left you on a cliff hanger, literally.

For those of you who were with us, I shared about how I was camping, hiking, exploring the backcountry of SD with some college friends and as I was climbing the face of this structure I grabbed a rock, that shifted and I heard a “rattle”. I had a decision to make, the snake helped me with that decision, but it sent me in the wrong direction and I got lost in the backcountry of SD with no map and no phone (because that technology wasn’t created yet).

I realize where I ended my message two weeks ago, I never told you if I found my way back to camp. I’m sorry for those of you who unnecessarily worried about that. Just so you know, I eventually found my way back to camp.

I share that as the jumping off point again, because of this statement, in my fear and confusion, my running away got me lost, got me separated from the people that cared for me and my well-being.

That is a contemporary explanation of what happened when Adam and Eve were confronted with the serpent. The first part of Genesis 3 we talked about how the serpent confronted Eve with misleading questions and statements, Eve responded with some truth, but also some fallacies, Adam was an observer, not a protector. Eve took the fruit and gave it to Adam and sin broke into the world, which we also named chaos. Chaos was brought back into creation, Adam and Eve were filled with fear, they ran away and hid. God pursued them, he went “looking for them” with three questions: Where are you? Who told you? What have you done? All three questions were about proximity and grace?

Where are you, why have you wandered away from me? Who told you, what voice are you listening to? What have you done, can you take responsibility or continue to blame?
Then we got to God’s response. What is he going to do with sin, chaos back in his created order? Does he start over? Does he destroy the serpent? Ultimately, what is God’s response to a broken and lost world?

Read Genesis 3:14-19

 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

As we noted the verses 14-19 had a different format. It had stanzas, sections, and some theologians believe God’s response was like a poem, a lament, it is his song of grief. God knows, that because humanity “took” wisdom into their own hands, taking from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that ushered in chaos; which we define as brokenness, lostness, specifically sin.

What does it mean for you to see that God laments, or has grief over the brokenness of the world? Personalize it, what does it mean for you to see that God laments over your broken world? How can that impact your walk with him today?