Seven Rhythms: Honest Questions - Is deciding my own truth good for me?(Genesis 3:1-7 and Judges 17:1-7)
Today, we are starting a series called “Honest Questions,” where we will attempt to answer the questions you voted for in our Easter survey. On Easter, we asked you to consider the top questions you would ask God. You sent in your questions and voted on some sample questions we created. In this series, we will answer the top nine questions you voted for. We wish we could answer every question, but we feel we can address most of the questions you submitted in answering these nine questions. The format of these messages will feel a little different from our standard presentations. You may feel like you are in a classroom at times. The style will be different, but the content will be centered in the same place. We will anchor all of our answers in the Scriptures.
The first question we are covering in this series is, “Is deciding my own truth good for me?” This question is connected to popular cultural slogans like, “Be true to yourself,” “Find your own truth,” “Do what you feel is right in your heart,” “Follow your heart,” and “What is right for me may not be right for you.” At their core, these slogans revolve around the idea of self-determined morality, meaning I decide what is true for me, and living in line with that truth will bring about the most good. This is a great question to start our series with because how we answer this question will affect how we answer all the other questions. So, what answer does the Bible give to the question, “Is deciding my own truth good for me?”
The Bible's answer is “No.” Self-determination will not lead to human flourishing. We are not the authors of truth. God is the author of truth; in His truth, we will find the pathway for human flourishing. Good will come from aligning with His truth, not authoring our own truth. We can summarize what we will learn from today's two Scripture passages with this Big Idea: “There is no good apart from God.” We will see this idea made clear in humanity's first sin in Genesis and Israel’s moral decay during the time of the Judges.
Genesis 3:1-3, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
Before Adam and Eve committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden, they first believed the lie that there was good apart from God. The dialogue that Satan had with Eve shows the decay of humanity’s view of God and the good He had given them in creation. This exchange of words portrays how Satan eroded humanity’s trust in the goodness of God. Satan referred back to the prohibition of God for Adam and Eve not to eat from one of the trees in the garden. Eve also cited this command in her comments back to Satan. Both Satan and Eve misrepresent God’s prohibition. Satan gave a severely distorted rendition, whereas Eve was slightly off.
God’s original command is found in Genesis 2:16-17, which reads, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 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.” God's command expressed a vast amount of liberty for humanity, “you may surely eat of every tree.” After this expression of liberty, God made one prohibition, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.”
Both Satan and Eve misrepresented the liberty and the prohibition God gave to humanity. Satan deleted the first line about liberty and distorted the second line by extending the prohibition to include all the trees in the garden. Eve’s restatement of God’s command also misses God's provision and the liberty He granted humanity. She also exaggerates God’s prohibition. Eve omitted the word “every” from the first line and distorted the second line, though less than Satan. She lowered the expression of freedom and heightened the restriction by stating they could not even “touch” the tree. In this brief interaction, we can see how a seed of mistrust was planted in the minds of the first humans. Satan advanced his attack by raising suspicion concerning God’s commands.
Genesis 3:4-5, “4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan spoke as if he knew the inner thoughts of God. He directly stated that God had lied about the consequence of eating from the forbidden tree and also declared that God was hiding something “good” from Adam and Eve. God was hiding the way that would allow them to be “like” Him. This is ironic because man was created in “the image of God.” They were already “like” Him, but they were not “like” Him in the way Satan was speaking. Satan was offering them a way to be like God in “knowing good and evil.” This phrase is essential for us to understand to grasp the nature of the temptation here. The next verse sheds light on what this phrase means.
Genesis 3:6, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”
Humanity had all the “good” they needed. In Genesis 1, Moses repeated seven times that what God had created was “good.” God had provided a bounty of good for his creatures. Eve became convinced that there was a good that God was keeping from them. He was keeping pleasure and wisdom from them. She looked at the tree and determined it was good for something that God directly said it wasn’t good for. This “determining” of what is good is the meaning of the phrase “knowing good and evil.” Verse 6 breaks a pattern that was started in Chapter 1.
In Chapter 1 of Genesis, it is recorded seven times (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31) that God “saw” part of creation as “good.” In Genesis 3:6, we read that Eve “saw” the tree as “good” for eating and gaining wisdom. The tree was “good,” but not “good” for her as food or a path to wisdom. The heart of Satan's temptation was to invite humanity to become like God in “knowing” or determining what was “good and evil.” He tempted them to create their own truth and declared what was “good” for themselves. Immediately after declaring their independence from God’s truth, Adam and Eve experienced shame and separation, not the “good” they hoped for.
Genesis 3:7, “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”
Being naked was not a new thing. According to Genesis 2:25, Adam and Eve already knew they were naked. After they sinned against God, they knew this fact in a different way. They saw their nakedness as shameful. This separated them from each other. Later in the passage, God comes to them, and they hide from Him. Satan promised they would gain from their disobedience, but all they experienced was loss. Their relationship with each other suffered, and their relationship with God suffered. There is no good apart from God. When we try to create our own truth, we sabotage our satisfaction. The book of Judges illustrates this point as well.
Judges 17:6, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
The last phrase of this verse, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” is repeated twice in the book of Judges and summarizes the moral decay of God’s people during this period. The people of Israel were generally defined as falling victim to the same temptation that Adam and Eve faced. They pursued their own truth and tried to find good apart from God’s truth. The beginning of Judges 17 depicts the consequences of this self-determination.
Judges 17:1-5, “There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. 2 And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the Lord.” 3 And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.” 4 So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into a carved image and a metal image. And it was in the house of Micah. 5 And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest.
This story feels like a modern-day soap opera. This family was a mess. Micah and his mother commit outright sins yet mask their behavior with religious hypocrisy. Micah stole a vast sum of money from his mother, violating God’s commands not to steal and dishonor one’s father and mother. The significance of the sum of money stolen is seen when compared to the annual salary that Micah promised to the Levite later in the text, which was ten pieces of silver. Micah also sinned by creating idols and ordaining his son as a priest. Only males from the tribe of Levi were allowed to be priests, which his son was not.
Micah’s mother was dishonest about her pledge concerning the money that was stolen from her. She only gave a portion of the funds to the silversmith, 200 pieces of silver. The most alarming thing about this family is how they masked all their misbehavior in religious ways. Micah’s mom blessed her son in the name of Yahweh (“LORD”), the most sacred name for the God of Israel. Micah also showed a corrupted allegiance to Israelite worship when he hired a priest from the tribe of Levi to serve at his homemade shrine. When we “do what is right in our own eyes,” we create religious systems that dishonor God and destroy human relationships. Nothing “good” is gained by seeking good apart from God.
There is no good apart from God. God is the Author of good and the Giver of all good things. He is not hiding good from us. He has revealed the path to human flourishing and eternal joy. The question before all of us is, do we trust Him? Adam, Eve, Micah, and his mother sought to create their own truth, which ironically brought about suffering. The root of sin is a lack of trust in God. We sin when we first believe that God is hiding something good from us. We believe that we must determine our own way to be happy because we doubt that God is loving and benevolent. We convince ourselves that we must find good on our own because God won’t give it to us.
Let me ask you two tough questions that will bring this idea into everyday life. First, “Do you believe that the goodness of God’s plan for human sexuality is a lie?” Are you creating your own path for sexual pleasure apart from God’s design? Creating your own path may feel like sexual liberation, but I promise you it is actually the path of sexual addiction and enslavement.
One of the most popular examples of the destructive nature of sexual self-determination is pornography. Pornography is an addiction that is sold as a celebration of sexual liberation. Pornography is highly addictive, easily accessible, and utterly damaging to human sexuality. We run to pornography after we first believe that God is lying about the goodness of His plan for human sexuality. If pornography is a struggle for you, you must first see the root of this behavior before you can gain victory over it. The root is a lack of trust in the goodness of God. Confess your lack of trust in Him and ask him to change your heart. Only He can change your heart.
Second, “Do you believe that God’s plan for salvation is a lie?” Let me ask this question differently: Do you believe you can earn your way to heaven? Are you working to earn your “happily ever after?” Are you hoping that all the good in your life will outweigh the bad and you will be rewarded with eternal happiness? We cannot earn a right standing with God. In God’s plan, we receive righteousness; we don’t earn it, and we can’t.
Philippians 3:8-9, “8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
Righteousness is a gift from God that we receive, not a reward that we earn. Believing you can earn a right standing with God will result in missing out on a relationship with God. I pray today that you will receive the righteousness that God provides in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
Life-Level Application
Head: Read Proverbs 14:12-16. What are the differences between the wise and foolish in this passage? How does Proverbs 14:27 relate to the life of the wise described in verses 12-16?
Heart: Read Romans 1:18-31. List off the sins that Paul mentioned in this passage. What did Paul see as the cause or root of these diverse sins?
Hand: Read Matthew 6:25-33. How does Jesus relate our anxiety and worry to God’s provision?
Habit: How does your trust in God’s goodness foster greater obedience in your life? In what ways do you struggle with trusting in the goodness of God’s commands? How does your lack of trust affect your behavior?