We invite you now to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter three. Before I read our passage this morning, I'm gonna pull back the curtain just a little bit on some sermon prep sorts of things that go on, and perhaps I've mentioned this before, but weekly sermon prep is one of the greatest blessings that a pastor gets to do and participate in throughout the week. I get to spend the week, you know, reading and praying and studying and contemplating the work of Jesus Christ, and there are weeks where you wrestle and wrestle with a text, and you feel you've started your sermon, and you're almost done, you know, you got that draft done on Friday, and what you feel like you're looking at it, and you're like, well, this is Christ-centered, this is edifying, but something just doesn't feel right. Something is missing. Well, this usually happens to me two or three times a year and you wake up on Saturday ready to go finish your sermon and you just don't feel good about it. And then you go and you wrestle with the Lord and all of a sudden it clicks and then you have to rewrite that sermon. So, that's what happened this week, so I say that to let you know that your prayers for, you know, sermon prep are appreciated, and to explain why our title will be a little different, and we'll only have one scripture reading. So, our title is going to be Joy to the World, with a question mark at the end. Joy to the World, and then we will just have one reading this morning, Genesis chapter 3, verses 14 through 19. This is the Word of God. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all 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, I will surely multiply your pain in 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 have 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 it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Well, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever and ever. Let's pray. Lord God, help us to know your ways. Teach us your paths, the paths of salvation, the paths of blessing. Lead us in your truth, for you are our God, the God of our salvation, and it is for you that we wait all the day long. Through Christ our Lord, amen. All right, well, this is a pretty thick passage here. I've already pretty much given a long enough introduction, so we're going to get going here. Our plan this morning is going to be to explain the passage and reflect a little bit on how it applied to Israel in the wilderness, the young church in the wilderness, and then we're going to see how it points forward to the person and work of Christ and how it applies to us as the mature church. So essentially, we have two points this morning. They are not very creative. It's explain and apply to the young church, the Old Testament saints, and then pointing to Christ and applying to the mature church, New Testament saints. Maybe someone else could think of, you know, fancy points for me later. But last week we did look at verses 14 and 15 in detail, and in summary what we learned was that Adam and Eve, by eating of the fruit, they aligned themselves with Satan. But God sovereignly rescues them and takes them out of the hand of the enemy and sets up a cosmic war. We saw that salvation is entirely by grace alone and through the power of God alone. And that the sides of this war, the lines were drawn. It was the woman and her offspring, singular, and we said that does apply to those that love the Lord Jesus Christ, and the seed of the serpent, Adam and Eve's offspring versus the devil's offspring. And the Lord promised Eve a son who would be victorious and crush the head of the serpent, but the serpent would also strike at his heel. And in these verses we saw that first gospel promise, the beginning of the covenant of grace, where God promised his people a rescuer, a savior warrior king, who would be wounded in battle but would be victorious. So there's the hope of the gospel. However, there are more consequences for sin to come. And now as we get to verse 16, what we see is not just the consequences of sin for Eve and for Adam, but what we see is that God is going to keep this promise. of a victorious son, and we know that He's going to keep it. The evidence is, is that even though life will be hard and full of suffering and difficult, at the same time, life and existence is going to continue to go on. Children are going to continue to be born, except instead of children being brought forth without pain and without suffering. Wouldn't that be nice, ladies? I know some of you are getting close to that again, and we'll pray for you, right? We can't say, many of us can't say, you know, I understand your pain. But now, it was going to be without pain, but now as a result of the fall, that's not the case. Children are gonna be brought forth with pain, suffering, and oftentimes, things that even result in death. So the first half of verse 16, the Lord says to the woman, because her name is not given yet, Adam will give her her name next week, which is also a sign of faith in God's promise. But for now, he says, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Now, we don't need to spend a lot of time proving this from natural revelation because we're very well aware of these things. And as we said, some of us are more aware of the pain of having children than others. We know how difficult pregnancy can be for many women and how painful giving birth can be. But the consequences of sin go far beyond things like morning sickness and painful labor. Where we know that sometimes there's the additional crushing and emotional pain of the loss of a child that doesn't make it to term. Or the loss of a child at any age. There's sometimes severe health problems that occur with our children and our babies. And many women in the history of the world and many children have died in labor. That doesn't happen as frequently, it's rare these days, but that was a normal feature of our world until the onset of modern medicine, as many children and many mothers would die in labor. And the heartbreak doesn't just stop there. It includes in the rearing of these children and being a parent. It hurts to watch the effects of sin take hold in your children at times and to see your children make decisions that you know are harmful for them and for their soul. It hurts to see them walk away from the Lord. Sometimes there are years and years and even decades of pain that come along with raising children. And then there's also a different kind of pain that some experience as a result of the fall and that not all of our bodies work as they ought. And sometimes motherhood and fatherhood is not in God's plan for some of us. This is also another kind of pain and difficulty that's associated with the consequence of sin here. So bearing and raising children is full of heartache and great difficulty. And so is not having children. That's full of heartache as well. And now that we've fleshed this out a little bit and maybe thought of some ways and some heartache and hard things, the consequences of sin here that we haven't thought of before, I can see it in many of our young ladies' eyes. You're thinking, why would I ever do that? You have scared me off from having any children. So this isn't in our passage, but I do want to tell you all something, especially young people, that as hard and as difficult as it is, children are worth it. It's lovely to have so many little ones adding their voices to our worship and sitting in the middle of the floor as I walk up here and these things. Children bring parents and all of us great joy And that joy is definitely worth the pain and the suffering. But we see now that that joy is often mixed and is always mixed with pain. So just a reminder to us, we really want to make sure that we remember that when it comes to parenting and having children, that a lot of people are really hurting and suffering. And our parents in the congregation, they need your prayers. They need your encouragements and trials. Those that have lost children need prayers of comfort. and support. There are many of us who are grieving because our children are not walking with the Lord. We pray for those prodigals to return. And we also pray for those who grieve because the Lord has not had parenthood for them up to this point. We see that as a result of the fall, there's a lot of heartbreak. There's a lot of hard things. But these are burdens that we bear together. Not only are there consequences of sin for bearing and raising children, the marriage relationship, the family, but especially the marriage relationship is also affected by sin. Thinking of marriage, God ordained the institution of marriage. He set it up before the fall. And as we've seen, as we've been going through Genesis, that Adam was created first and God gave him certain leadership responsibilities. Adam was the one that named the animals. It was with Adam that God made the covenant of life or covenant of works with him. Adam was called in a unique way to be God's prophet, priest, and king in the garden of God. He was called to speak the truth. He was called to be a spiritual leader. He was called to be a protector. He was called to be a provider as he's to work the ground. And God created Eve to be his helpmeet, his partner in these things, his blessed companion. And together, in perfect harmony with great blessings, they were created in the image of God, both male and female, created to worship and serve the Lord together, hand in hand. They were called to work together to spread God's kingdom, his garden temple, over the whole earth and to populate this whole world with worshipers made in the image of God. Adam and Eve each had their distinct roles and responsibilities as they partnered together. And both were happy and holy in these responsibilities and the things they were called to do. both creating the image of God, both equal in dignity, but different roles and responsibilities in creation. God already set this up, but as a result of the fall, this holiness and happiness is fractured. The result of the fall is a result communion with God is broken, and communion with each other is broken. The created order is broken and polluted and contaminated, and marriage relationships are affected. We read more about how the fall affected the marriage relationship in the second half of verse 16, where we read this as God continues to speak to the woman. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. Now there's a lot of discussion, always, but especially today, what this verse means and what it doesn't mean. However, I don't think that this verse is quite as difficult to understand as we've made it out to be. I do think that what it teaches can be difficult for us to believe, and can be difficult for us to accept at times because of our own hurts and experiences and because of the popular views of our culture. So I don't think it's difficult to figure out what this means, but if for various reasons, sometimes it's difficult for us to receive it. So we get some help for understanding what it means, specifically this phrase, your desires shall be contrary to your husband, by comparing Scripture with Scripture, by looking at another passage that also uses the same word, contrary. It's very clear. We can look at that, and that helps us read this one. So in Genesis 4, verse 7, Cain is angry because the Lord did not accept his sacrifice. And so God says this to Cain. He says to him in Genesis 4, 7, if you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. So God is teaching Cain, He's warning him that sin is lying in wait to trap him and desires to overpower him and to rule him. Sin wants to dominate and have its way with Cain and we know with the rest of us. So now we can take this thought and read it back into Genesis 3.16 to help us understand what it means that Eve's desire will be contrary to her husband. One of the results of the fall for Eve is that she will increasingly desire to have her own way, to overpower Adam, to rule over her husband. She will desire to be the one that's in charge and will seek to have Adam submit to her will. And so, this will cause much marital strife and conflict. But then in the rest of verse 16, we read this, but he shall rule over you. So, as a result of the fall, Eve is going to seek to dominate, but God's design for marriage remains unchanged. He shall rule over you. Adam was still called to be the head in this marriage relationship. God made the covenant of works or the covenant of life with Adam. He's uniquely called to be God's prophet, priest, and king. And the fall doesn't change the general nature of this calling, but it does change Adam's ability to do it well. And that's important that we remember that the design of marriage and roles for men and women stay the same. We're gonna see why that's important as we think about the last Adam, Jesus Christ. So the fall doesn't change this calling. It's reaffirmed here, but Adam can't fulfill it anymore. Adam's still called to lead, but as a result of the fall, Adam and now all husbands after him will fail to lead lovingly. or will lead very poorly, or even lead in an abusive way, or even fail to lead at all. And at the same time, Eve and all wives will, they're not going to naturally submit to just a desire to submit to their husband and let him lead. There's going to be a constant power struggle in marriage and in the home. And in verse 16, what we see, we see how the marriage and the family are now broken by the fall. But even though it's broken, Even though the marriage relationship is now filled with conflict and struggle, and these are well-deserved consequences, we still see God's preserving grace. Even though marriage is broken, God will keep His promise to bring forth a Savior, a son of Eve. So even though it's going to be hard, the promise, the fulfillment of that promise continues. And not only is the family affected by the fall, we also see that Adam's work and even all of creation is polluted and thrust into sin and misery as well. Looking again at verses 17 through 19. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and 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 it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. So as we've said, Adam failed his task and his test in the garden. Instead of speaking up and keeping Eve from evil, and instead of protecting the garden from the serpent, Adam just sat there passively, and he let these things happen. And now the results are a polluted creation, painful labor to survive, and death. And as with Eve and pregnancy and childbearing, we know these things because we live them. These truths are clear to us as we exist in this world. Just a few thoughts on them. He starts with cursed is the ground. Creation is cursed. Adam was called to grow plants for food and now instead of the ground producing and sustaining the best of food and a robust harvest, now there's going to be weeds that come and choke out crops. There's going to be insects that ravage the crops. There's going to be drought, wind, other disasters that make the ground even seem like it's hostile to man's attempts to grow food. Now, we do lose sight of this difficulty a little bit in today's world, especially in our own circle in the United States where food is abundant. But we still are reminded that there's a hungry world out there and we see that even as we try to, through new technologies, get some relief for the curse of the ground, we see that it's impossible to feed the world, even as we irrigate and try to keep crops from disease and increase outputs and these sort of things. Well then, even the ways that we try to do some of those things ends up with various chemicals and other difficult, you know, results in our body and health problems. So even the things that we try to do to alleviate this still cause problems. Whether food is organic or not, cursed is the ground. So may as well buy or not because it's cheaper, right? Yeah. No, not only is the ground hostile, so we think the ground is hostile to growing food, Adam's labor is affected. Before the fall, all labor would be joy. It would be service to God and worship all rolled into one. Adam was happy and holy in all his labors before the fall. But now instead of happiness and fulfillment, there will be toil and hardship. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Work will be hard every day and it will be hard on the body. And those of us that have physically demanding jobs, we know that we can only do those jobs for so long because our body falls apart. And those of us that don't have physical demanding jobs and don't move enough, in a totally different way our bodies are falling apart. We think of labor and now man's relationship to his labor. I thought of the song, I don't know if I've quoted this song before, but 16 Tons by Ernie Ford. This is what our labor feels like now. He said, just a few parts of it. Some people say man is made out of mud. I was born one morning and the sun didn't shine. I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine. I loaded 16 tons of number nine coal. I was born one morning. It was drizzling rain. Fighting and trouble are my middle name. And then the refrain for each stanza, you load 16 tons. What do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter, don't you call me because I can't go. because I owe my soul to the company store. This is how our labor feels even now. Our labor will often be miserable, back-breaking. It will not pay enough to meet our needs at times. We will get injured on the job, we'll get fired, we'll get laid off, and eventually our labors will break down our bodies and our minds and we will die. We will return to the dust. from where we came. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken for your dust, and to dust you shall return." Essentially, Adam and man's work will eventually kill him. However, there's still God's grace here. There's still hope. Work will be fruitful enough for life to continue on the earth. so that that great promise of the serpent-crushing son born to Eve might come to fulfillment." So we see the effects of sin are awful, are terrible, they make life hard. yet work and life will continue so the promise of God can be fulfilled. So as we start to think then about this passage about Genesis, we read Genesis 3, 14 through 19, as we think of it as a whole and try to think of it as in a big picture sense and to think of how it would apply specifically to the young church of the Old Testament, we would summarize it this way. In other words, how would they apply what we read here? Well, after Adam failed his task and test in the garden and plunged all of humanity into sin and misery, we see that God promised to rescue His people. He established the covenant of grace. God promised Eve a son that would crush the head of the serpent. And the promise of this Savior means that life on earth, it must continue until this promise is fulfilled. Children then will continue to be born. There will still be families. The ground will continue to bring forth food, yet now these labors are marked by suffering and will result in death. The young church in the Old Testament, they know they can expect to be in a state of constant war against evil in the nations, even as they're in the land of promise. They know they can expect suffering and trials and hard labors and that they will die. But at the same time, they have a blessed hope. They look forward to the promise of God to provide that rescuer, their participants in this plan, their eyewitnesses to God fulfilling the covenant of grace. They are looking forward to that final victory of the seat of the woman over the serpent. They look forward to that final day when the earthly blessings that they are currently experiencing will become even better. They will become permanent and everlasting. And they look forward to that day when all their labors will once again be pure joy and delight and happiness in the service and worship of God. This is how they would receive this. Yes, this is why things are so hard, but here's our hope. God will fulfill his promise of a Savior. This passage explains to us why life is so hard. So hard. And yet it also points us to our blessed hope of Jesus Christ. You can already see the application to us as New Testament saints will be very, very similar. But before we get to that, I do want to reflect specifically on just a couple ways what we read here, how it points to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The promise in Genesis 3.15 tells us that Eve's son will crush the head of the serpent, but that that serpent will strike the son's heel. This tells us that the work of Christ tells us about it, that Christ will be victorious, but he will suffer. That victory comes through suffering, that first comes suffering, then comes glory. Eve is told that children will be brought forth through great pain and sometimes even death. Well, doesn't this speak to the work of Jesus Christ as he brings forth the spiritual children of God the Father? He suffers and dies and is buried so that we who are dead might be born again of the Holy Spirit. Christ's pain that results in the new birth for sinners is much greater, was much greater than all the pain of childbirth. And yet that suffering of Christ, Christ's pain results in our new birth. And we praise him for this. The consequences of sin are again, they're not just in birth. And again, we see the great suffering and what Christ underwent so that we could be born again. This also speaks to our marriage relationship as it points to Jesus Christ as our perfect and true husband. In the fall, humanity lost, communion with God was broken. Men and women were alienated from each other, and husbands and wives were especially alienated from each other. And as our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, came to crush the head of the serpent and to bring us heavenly life as those who are born again, he also proved himself to be our true and perfect husband. And this is why the role of Adam as leader and head of the family is still so important. Because we remember Adam's responsibilities given to him. Adam was responsible to love, to cherish, and to protect his bride from evil, and he failed. But now Christ, as the second Adam, does these things perfectly, and now he is our true husband. He is our faithful prophet, priest, and king. He is the one that speaks words of love and truth to us. It is Christ who cleanses us from our sin and presents us as holy to God the Father. It is Christ our king who conquers the evil in our own heart and protects our souls from all evil. Paul speaks of Christ as our blessed husband in Ephesians chapter 5, when he says, husbands, love your wives. As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. So you see these roles given to Adam in the garden, roles where Adam failed in every single way, are also roles that Christ, the second Adam, the husband of the church, fulfills completely. So if we are to go forward and strip these roles from Adam in marriage as the head or leader of the marriage relationship, then we're in danger of stripping Christ of his. This is one reason why it's important to teach what the Bible says about gender-specific roles in marriage between men and between women, because they teach us something about the work of Jesus Christ. Now, I know that this is a very, and can be a very difficult and even hurtful and painful topic. especially to those that have been in an abusive marriage and been hurt greatly. We must be patient with those who have been hurt, come alongside those who have suffered in this way. And I want to say, if this is your experience, And when you think about Adam's role and leadership and headship and these sorts of things, if that's hard for you and even causes anger and pain for you, when you think of this, when you think of the wicked way that you were treated and hurt, you can take all of that pain to Christ, your faithful husband. Your earthly husband may have failed and sinned mightily against you. But Christ as your husband is the one who heals and restores. Jesus Christ is safe. You can cling to him and know that as your husband, our Lord Jesus Christ will only speak kindly to you. He will only speak gently to you. He will always speak the truth to you. He always has your best interest at heart. He's patient with you, He cleanses you, He heals you, He restores you, He's making you whole again and holy. And Christ protects your soul and preserves you from all evil. This is Christ your husband. This is Christ the husband of the church and all Christians is the bride of Jesus Christ. And as those who are redeemed and born again from above, Born again of the kingdom of God, Christ also as our husband gives us heavenly blessings even right now. He also heals marriages, broken marriages that are here even this morning. This is why Paul affirms and restates God's creation plan for marriages and why he can give these directions to wives and to husbands, also in Ephesians chapter 5. As we seek to live in fellowship and power of the Holy Spirit, we can begin to recover what was broken in the fall between man and wife. So Paul says, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church. his body and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. And later on, further down the passage, let each of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So as those who are in Christ, Christ restores all things, including our marriage relationships. Husbands, as those in Christ, lovingly lead your wife. Speak kindly to her. Speak truth to her. Encourage her. Cause her to flourish in her gifts and in her interests. Serve her and love her as Christ has served you and served his church. And women, all who are in Christ, Pray for your husbands that they would grow in their spiritual leadership and seek to follow it. Even when you feel like you might have better thoughts, and in all honesty, you probably do. But even so, if your husband is striving to be a godly spiritual leader, seek to submit to him in the Lord, knowing that this is not going to come naturally to you, but Christ heals and restores all things. And the more that our marriages can look like this and sound like this, the more blessed they will be. For Christ is our perfect husband, and he restores and heals broken people and broken relationships. Now, briefly, I didn't get to talk about work that much. We know because of the fall, our work life is difficult. And if you're looking for happiness and fulfillness in work, or for a matter in another person, in a spouse, or being a father and mother, if you're looking for fulfillment in life through your work, through your vocation, you're going to be disappointed. Because we've just heard that these things are marked by suffering, difficulty, and trials in this age. But if you think about it, even these sinful consequences are God's grace to us. For if we could be fulfilled by a spouse or by being a parent, or if we could get perfect peace and fulfillment through our job, then we wouldn't look to Christ. We would feel like we didn't need Him. So even as hard as these sinful consequences are, they are still God's grace to us because they point us to see our need for a Savior. So we shouldn't be surprised and groan and moan and complain as much, at least. and our toilsome and hard labor, and in the hard things of our life. Remembering that Christ, our husband, is using even these difficult things to sanctify us, to make us holy, and to get us ready for heaven as his spotless bride. And as we work, as Christ continues to redeem us, we can get some satisfaction even now, knowing that while we're working, we're serving Christ, and that we're witnesses to him in all of our labors. It probably should have been two sermons, and it almost was, but I restarted it yesterday, so we've been through a lot. Here's just two thoughts. If I've lost you, if you forgot half of what I said, two things to take away, and then we'll conclude. First, looking at this passage, we see why life is just so hard all the time, why everything is hard, especially when it comes to bearing and raising our children, and our relationships, and our marriage relationships, and we see why our work life is so hard. It's because of the fall. It's not defective planning, it's because of Adam's sin. And Shorter Catechism, Westminster Shorter Catechism question and answer 19 describes the situation for us after the fall. What is the misery of the estate wherein to man fell? All mankind by their fall lost communion with God and are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself and to the pains of hell forever. So let us remember that this life is hard. It's hard because of sin and that even if we are doing well, there are many hurts and heartaches all around us that all of us carry. So let us come alongside one another, bear one another's burdens, help each other to carry all these burdens to the cross where rescue and healing is found. Second thing, having seen all this sin and misery, we also see God's grace to us in Jesus Christ. We see that Christ endured pain worse than this for us, and we see now that He even gives us new creation blessings as He begins to reverse the curse and restore all things. What we have now in Christ, in its fullness, this is what Israel was looking forward to. But as the New Covenant, the mature Church of Christ, now we have more. We have more love, more knowledge, more New Covenant blessings. And so in the midst of our continued war and suffering, we can remember these things. It's hard. We know why. We know where this is going. We know what our hope is. We know where this will end. So we can enjoy as much as we can our current blessings, but we know that something better, something permanent and everlasting is to come, and we know that one day all of our pain and suffering will be gone, it will be over, and once again our labors will be all joy in the service and worship of God. Until that day, may the Lord sustain us and give us hope. Let's pray. Praise the Savior now and ever, as we sang earlier. We praise our Savior, Jesus Christ, for becoming man, for entering into our sin and misery, for rescuing us from the evil one, and even through death itself, through his glorious resurrection. We praise our Lord Jesus and thank him for sending us the Holy Spirit to work in us, and to work in us even new creation blessings, even right now in our relationships and in our work life. Praise our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that he also continues to remove the curse from us as far as the curse is found. Lord, let these things encourage us in the difficulties of this life. In Christ's name we pray, amen.