The Greatest Story Ever ToldSample

Act 2: Rebellion, Part 1—The Fall

In the beginning everything was good. People living in harmony with each other, and with God. We were created in God’s image with so much value and purpose. So much potential to do good and to be God’s image to the world. 

But that potential to do great things by definition includes the possibility of us doing terrible things. 

It wasn’t long before humanity chose to do bad things. We took what God intended for good, the freedom to choose, and we used it for evil. 

We rebelled against God. We chose to believe the lies of the serpent instead of the truth of God. 

This was the moment that knocked everything off course and into a downward spiral. This was the origin of every bad thing we see in the world today: hate, greed, lust, violence, pride, racism, etc. This was the moment when sin entered our story. 

For most of us, when we think of the word sin, we grossly downplay the weight of it. We tend to think of sin as making a mistake or breaking a few rules, which is true, but it is so much more than that. You see, sin is an infection, it's a disease, a cancer that has corrupted humanity and poisoned God’s creation. Every aspect of life and the world we live in has been distorted by sin. 

If you don’t believe sin is real, just turn on the news! You’ll see the negative consequences of sin everywhere you look. Think about your own life. Think about the times you knew what the right thing to do was, but you didn’t do it. The times you chose to use your power to help yourself instead of helping others. 

We rebelled against God, and now we’re experiencing the consequences of that rebellion. Because we rebelled against God, the entire story took a turn for the worse. A turn away from the perfect unity of life with God in the garden. A turn toward the struggling and striving of life infected by sin. 

In a sense, we threw away our future. How? Three simple steps:   

1. We focused on what we couldn’t do.
2. We believed in a lie.
3. We gave into temptation. 

Those are the same three steps that still lead us into rebellion today. But the good news is that even when we rebel, God still chooses grace. 

Because guess what? Nine verses after humanity rebelled against God, God tells us His plan to put back everything that was broken (Genesis 3:15). Starting with us. Starting with you. What is His plan? One powerful name: Jesus. 

We rebelled against God, and our story took a turn for the worst, but that isn’t the end of the story. Because even when we rebel, God still chooses grace.