As we move into Genesis Chapter 3, we meet a serpent. This creature approached Eve and sowed doubts in her mind. When he asked Eve about what God had told them about the Garden, he disagreed with her and with God. “You will not certainly die” (Genesis 3:4 NIV), he said about eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

This may remind you of a conversation you’ve had or have heard. Something was brought up that made you doubt God’s goodness. That’s how Eve felt in that moment. She suddenly wasn’t sure if she could really trust God. When we distrust God’s heart, sooner or later we will disobey God’s word.

The serpent convinced Eve of three dangerous things in their short conversation. First, that your choices don’t have consequences. The serpent said, “You will not certainly die,” but that’s a lie. The nature of sin is death. The consequences of sin are death. Sin kills in many ways, but some of the worst are when it kills our relationships, dreams, and futures.

Second, the serpent convinced Eve that she didn’t need God. he said, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5 NIV). If Eve could just get over the idea that God made the rules, she could just make the rules, he was saying. If she didn’t like something God said, she could just disregard it.

Finally, he convinced Eve that if one thing was forbidden, she wasn’t free at all. Eve had the whole Garden to focus on, but after this conversation, all she could focus on was the one thing that God told her she couldn't have. You and I are the same. We will never feel free as long as we focus on what we can’t have or shouldn’t have.

Eve listened to the serpent. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6 NIV). In that moment, sin entered the world. All of the brokenness, violence, injustice, racism, oppression, corruption, and tyranny started with that one choice. Sin does that: it affects more than just us. Others suffer the consequences of our decisions, too.

The world changed, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Their world changed. They had never known fear, shame, or pain, but they were about to. They heard God walking in the Garden and wanted to hide. They made clothes to cover themselves. They didn’t see themselves the same as they had before. They didn’t see God the same. They no longer believed that God loved them the way He had before.

God called out to them as He walked in the Garden. Think about this: God called out to them, not because He didn’t know where they were but because He wanted them to face what had happened and the consequence of their choice. He wasn’t walking aimlessly through the Garden wondering where they were. Even though they had made a grave mistake, He was walking towards them.

God was there for them in the midst of it all, as He still is for us. They ran away from him and hid in their guilt, shame, and brokenness, but God came to seek them where they hid. When we make a mess of it all, God doesn’t run away. He walks towards our mess. That’s what fathers do. That’s what our Heavenly Father does.

That’s the story of Genesis 1-3: God created, we rebelled, we ran away, and He came after us. Whatever questions you have, whatever details of the interpretation you struggle with, that’s what’s important at the end of the day. God created. We rebelled. We ran away. He came after us.

Thus begins the rest of the story of the Bible, a story where God will stop at nothing to get His family back. God promised them that one day there would be a Son born of a woman, a Son who would crush the head of the serpent. One day, someone would be born who would make right everything that sin had made wrong.

There was a tree in Genesis where we found death. A tree where Adam and Eve were lured away from the Tree of Life. They began to die, not only spiritually but also physically. When we open the pages of the New Testament, however, we find that God sent His Son, Jesus to live among us. He was arrested and hung on a tree on Golgotha’s hill. On that tree outside of Jerusalem, where God’s Son died for our sins, we found life again.

God knew from the very beginning that we would reject Him, but He refused to reject us. When we ran away, His love compelled Him to come after us, and He has never stopped walking towards us. As we read through the rest of the story this season, pay attention to all the ways God has walked towards us and met us in our mess. He will never stop.