Summer Camp 2009 - Saturday Morning

Tom Shrader opens a summer camp session by walking students through Genesis 3 and several passages in Romans to explain what went wrong with humanity and why the heart needs transformation. Drawing on the story of Adam and Eve's fall, he traces how sin separates people from God, clouds understanding, and drives everyone to seek identity and worth in false gods — relationships, athletics, popularity, or achievement. The session ends as a cliffhanger, with Shrader promising to address the solution — the transformed heart — in the evening session.

“Every false god never fails to fail you. Ultimately, it's going to cause you to lose your fear of God.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Summer Camp

Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 29 min

Themes: sin, identity, the fall, heart change, false gods, worth, transformation, separation from god, teenager, young adult, new believer, struggling with identity, seeking worth in achievement, summer camp student, questioning faith, feeling lost

Scripture: Genesis 2, Genesis 3, Genesis 6:5, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Ecclesiastes 9, Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 1:18-25, Romans 3:10-23, Ephesians 2, 1 Corinthians 2:14, 1 John 5:21

Theological Themes: hamartiology, original sin, total depravity, regeneration, heart transformation, idolatry, sin nature, imago dei

Full Transcript

The Same Story Everyone Has

The testimony we heard — and the reality is that when we listen to them, all the circumstances are always a little different, but functionally the stories are exactly the same. That is your story, and it is anybody's story who comes to Christ: this is what I was, and this is who I am, and I didn't do anything. God did it. I want to reinforce that all the way.

Father, I love that story of Stephen's because it's the same story that I have and it's the same story that everyone has. Once we were a mess — the word is sin — and that sin separated us from You. Now we are united with You; we can know You, and we can know You in a personal way. God, for doing that in our lives, we thank You. We thank You that that is not the end of the story, but only the beginning. We pray that You would do this mighty work in our lives. We ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.

Three Things We Want to Cover

I want to invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Genesis. I thank you in advance for what we talked about last night, and that is: once we get in here, we are really focused. We said last night there are three things we want to talk about — a transformed heart, an informed mind, and a radical life.

Let me give you what I think is going to be the flow. We are going to take today and tonight and talk about this idea of the transformed heart. Then tomorrow we will talk about the informed mind. Sunday night we will talk about a radical life. Monday morning the girls and I will meet together here, the guys will be somewhere else, and then Monday night we will come together and summarize it all.

The Bible Is the Word of God

When we get to Genesis three, we are looking at the creation of man. This is a little bit of an age thing — I laughed when Justin said he was twenty-eight and a half; I am fifty-nine and a half, and that is really, really old. When I was in school, Darwin came up with his idea of evolution around 1865 or so. About a hundred years after that, when I was in school, though the idea of evolution was out there, it really never surfaced anywhere. They were not teaching it to us in school; it did not have much popularity to speak of. There were some small, elitist, arrogant groups that believed in it. Now it is mainstream.

One of the tragedies of your generation is that you have been exposed to the idea that this book — and you even heard Stephen mention it — is just a book of stories, that it is make-believe, that some men got together and wanted to communicate great truths. Like Aesop's Fables, they would make stories up and plug in these truths, but they were just that: stories.

What we discover, and this is absolutely central to us, is that the Bible is the Word of God. Many of you attend East Valley Bible Church. We believe that though men authored this book — they moved the pen — it was the Spirit of God who was moving the men. So in this book there is no error. There may be some things that appear paradoxical. There may be some things we do not fully understand and cannot quite get our arms around. But we know that when we study it, it contains no error.

This is really important. Everything that God wanted to give us and wanted us to understand, He has given us in this book. We have it right here. All the questions and all of the things we need to know — if God feels we can know it, either He has given it to us because He wants us to know Him, or if it is not in there, He is saying we do not need to know it, or it is so big that our little puny brains are never going to grasp it anyway.

Creation, Adam and Eve, and the One Restriction

The book begins with the story of creation. In the very first chapter it simply says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Chapter two and chapter three are all about God creating, and then God makes man. Even scientists — I have read different articles — would say that if you were to take everybody's DNA and genes and trace them all the way back, they believe you could go all the way back to just one man and one woman. The Bible would say that was Adam and Eve.

God created them and placed them in what we call the Garden of Eden — paradise. He put them there with one restriction, one rule, one law: do not eat from this fruit on the tree in this garden. It was not about diet; there was plenty of food, plenty of fruit. But that one was the restriction. God said, "I don't want you to eat from that. From that day you will have this sense of knowledge, this thing that will make you, in essence, want to be like Me." All of a sudden pride kicks in, and they eat from that fruit.

When we started last night, we asked: who is God?

What Went Wrong

Something has happened. Something is wrong in the world — we get it. You look around and even your friends are a mess. But even when you look at your own life, sometimes you are really open about it, and other times it is just there in the quiet of your heart. When you are all by yourself, lying there at night with your mind drifting, you know instinctively that something is wrong with you. Something is not as it should be.

We learn this from little kids. I lost track of Sarah one day — she had to be about four, and I was babysitting. I just had not seen her for a while, so I found her in her room. Her room was all painted beige, and she had gotten some washable crayons — a blue one, almost the color of the wristband. On the wall, on the sheets, on the carpet, on her mouth, and in her hand was this blue crayon. It had been everywhere. She was standing there holding it when I came in.

I said, "Sarah" — and then I said, "Look at this. Did you do this?" She was standing there, blue everywhere, a blue crayon in her hand, blue crayon on her mouth. And she said to me, "No." Now, she was not quite old enough to have a real discussion, because I was about to turn into a prosecuting attorney and unpack the whole scene — I was genuinely concerned, because apparently someone had broken into the house, taken a blue crayon, put it on her mouth, and then placed it in her hand.

What is so interesting to me is that her mother and I never once taught her to respond that way. In fact, everything we ever said to her was, "Tell the truth. Don't lie." Why did she do that? And why do you do the equivalent? Why is it that when somebody calls and says "hey," you say, "Man, I was just getting ready to call you" — when you had no intention of calling them at all? Why do you instinctively do that?

Identity, Worth, and Worship

Think about Stephen. He happened to be dealing with a girl, but it could have been anything. His identity, his worth, his significance, his comfort, his value — all of it was wrapped up in that relationship. That girl was more important to him than anything else. Maybe for you it is not a girl or a guy. Maybe it is football. Maybe it is school. Maybe it is something else entirely. Why is it that we instinctively worship something — that something always dominates?

What was going on in Stephen's head at that moment? It was not just about the girl, though that may have been part of it. It was not even just about the physical component, though that may have been part of it too. He found his worth there. He found his identity there. He felt he was really something because this girl — whom he valued so much — would have this relationship with him. And by the way, it was not just him. The same thing was happening on her end. She was finding something there too. How did we get this way?

The Fall in Genesis Three

In Genesis three, when Eve eats, they immediately cover themselves. Genesis two ends with Adam and Eve naked — literally no clothes on — and unashamed. There was no sin. They were as open as they could be before God and before each other. Nothing was disrupting the relationship. Then they eat, and immediately they cover themselves.

Then they hear the Lord God coming. Verse eight says — and if you have your Bibles, underline this — they hid themselves from the presence of God. This God with whom they apparently had regular conversation, whom they walked with, whom they talked things through with — all of a sudden they are hiding from Him. Rather than walking with Him in the cool of the day, now they are concealed.

God says to Adam, "Where are you?" His intention there is not to gather information. God knows where Adam is. The question is not for God's benefit — it is for Adam's benefit. I was sitting down at the Hotel Del Coronado having lunch the other day, and someone nearby was on a cell phone trying to meet up with a friend. They had disconnected and could not connect. Finally the woman said, "I'm down here by the water," and you could hear the other girl ask, "Well, how do I get there?" And the first woman said, "Where are you now?" — because once she knew where that girl was, she could say, "Here is how you get to me."

That is what God is saying. "Where are you, Adam? Because where you are is not where it is. I did not design you to hide in a bush from Me. I designed you to commune with Me. You are in this bush — does this not seem odd to you? This has never happened in your life before. Where are you?"

And Adam said, "I heard You." Here is the key: "I was afraid." And he was afraid because he was naked. He had sinned. That is what went wrong. They heard God coming and they ran. This is the first instance we have of anyone acting in an abnormal way.

Sin Affects All of Us

Now here is what is important for you and me: this is not just a story that happened long ago, too bad for Adam and too bad for Eve. What the rest of Scripture tells us is that when they sinned — when one man sinned — that affected all of us.

Look at some of these passages. Genesis chapter six, verse five: "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse twenty: "Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins."

The Condition of Every Human Heart

"There is not a righteous man on the earth who does good and who never sins." Look at Ecclesiastes chapter nine: the hearts of the children of men — that is all of us, that is everybody that has ever lived — are full of evil and madness in their heart as long as they live. Jeremiah says this: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can possibly understand it?" Even those of us who have a profession of faith, even those who are Christians, hear this diagnosis from Paul. When he writes to them in Ephesians chapter two, he says this: you were dead. Now, here is hope — but that comes tonight. You were dead, but now you are alive.

You once walked in the course of the world like everybody else. You were the sons of disobedience. You will hear people say all the time, "We are children of God," but not by nature. By nature we are children of disobedience, children of wrath. We all lived according to the passions of the flesh.

What did Stephen do? He did what you do. He simply carried out the desires of the body. He did not act any differently than an animal would act — he acted exactly like people act without God. The desires run amok, even the desires for good things. There is nothing wrong with food; there is something wrong with eating it to excess. There is nothing wrong with sleep. There is nothing wrong with community — we are designed to have community and to speak and to talk — but there is something wrong when that community becomes so tight that my identity is bound up entirely with that girl, that guy, that group, or that team. There is nothing wrong at all with speaking, but there is something wrong with lying.

Paul's Summary in Romans

Now I want to turn to the New Testament, to the book of Romans. You are going to go past the Gospels — past Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and Acts — to the book of Romans. In Romans, Paul picks up this exact theme.

When you get to Romans chapter three, verse 10, Paul makes this statement: "There is none righteous, not one, and there is none who understands and there is none who seek for God." Get what he is saying here — that is every person who has ever lived. That is Paul's assessment, and more importantly, God's assessment of all mankind. Nobody is okay, nobody gets it, nobody seeks after God.

He says in verse 12 that we have all turned aside. What does that mean? Turned aside from God. And together we have become useless — the word is actually "worthless." It has to do with, for example, a piece of fruit so rotten that it is of no value. Not only are we worthless, he goes on to say in verse 12 that nobody does good, not even one. Verse 18: there is none who fear God.

The summary of all of this is in Romans chapter three, verse 23: "For all have sinned."

What Sin Does to Us

One author writes this: the first effect of sin in our lives is that it always makes us try to hide what we really are. You never let anybody see who you really are, what you are really thinking — for whatever reason, you are afraid they will reject you, or you are afraid it will embarrass you, or you are afraid of whatever the effects might be. So you begin to hide. Sin made our first parents hide behind the trees in the garden, and it has had the same effect on us ever since. Sin always involves us being unreal — pretending, living with window dressing, putting on a facade or a show, excusing ourselves, blaming others. We can do it either silently by implication or simply by the way we live our lives.

Here are five things sin does to you. When we talk about sin, when we talk about the effect of Adam and Eve in your life, when we talk about the decisions you make, when we talk about having to transform a heart — here is why the heart needs to be transformed.

**Number one: sin separates you from God.** There is a distance between you and God. Paul says a little later, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and "the wages of sin is death." Death means separation — there is a chasm between you and God. Paul says nobody seeks after God. Now, from a human experience that might sound odd, because you might even think you are out seeking, you are out looking. You might have even come to summer camp saying you are looking for God. What you are looking for, Paul says, is your god — small g — a god you have designed, your own answer to your problem. The diagnosis is that there is something wrong, and we do not always know what it is, but once we understand it is sin, we begin to understand that it has separated us from God.

**Number two: sin ends our understanding of God and who He is.** There are certain verses in scripture that, when you grab them, everything else suddenly makes sense. We are not going to turn there, but you might make a note of this: First Corinthians chapter two, verse 14. Paul writes that the natural man — that is us, as we come into the world, separated from God — cannot understand anything that is spiritual. When you pick up the Bible, did you hear Stephen's story again? It is a perfect example of this. For Catherine's sake — and Catherine becomes the vehicle that God is going to use, even still in the midst of Stephen's own sin, interestingly enough, still in the midst of a desire to have a girl and to impress a girl and some insecurity there — the natural man simply cannot receive the things of God.

The God-Shaped Void and False Gods

Something is missing. A person can be good-looking, tall, strong, and have everything going for them outwardly, and yet there is still an emptiness inside. Consider someone who, even in the midst of pursuing what he thinks will fill that void, reads the Gospel of John — reads it fast, reads every word — and still says, "I get it," without truly getting it at all. Why? Because he is not a follower of Christ. You can read the Bible again and again and never naturally understand it. That is the effect of sin.

Here is the third thing sin does: it keeps you from seeking God and makes you seek other gods. That god might be a guy, a girl, athletics, money, working out, or simply having a lot of friends. For most people, one of the most powerful false gods is acceptance — wanting people to like you. You do things you know are stupid, say things you do not even believe, all because you want a certain person or group to accept you. They become your gods, your little gods.

The John who wrote the Gospel also wrote a book called First John, and he ends it with this phrase: "Guard your heart against idols." What does he mean? Guard your heart against false gods.

Every False God Never Fails to Fail

That leads to the fourth thing sin does: whatever you turn to as a god will always disappoint you. It never fails to fail. You tell yourself that if you can get that girl to like you, if you can earn that scholarship, get into that school, win that game, score that basket, hit that home run, draw that picture, write that poem, give that speech — then, when you finally have that thing, you will be satisfied. And though you may only be thirteen or eighteen, you have already learned that it does not satisfy. Maybe for a minute, but not for long. Every false god will ultimately fail you.

Ultimately, sin causes you to lose your fear of God. You simply walk away from Him.

What Romans 1 Says About Us

Turn to the book of Romans, chapter one. What Paul is talking about in Romans chapter one is essentially who we are as human beings. He is painting a picture of how desperate we are — how helpless we truly are, though not hopeless. Here is the fundamental problem. Look at verse 18:

"The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

Here is what Paul is saying: all you have to do is look around and you understand that something immense made all of this. You can sit down at a computer and calculate exactly when Halley's Comet will return — 73 years from now, to the precise moment. You can predict exactly what time the sun will rise on September 12th, exactly where the planets will be, the rotation of the earth, the movement of the sun and the moon. Why? Because there is a God who created it all and a power that holds it together. All you have to do is look at the ocean, the stars, and creation itself, and you know something had to create it. You may not know exactly what that something is, but you know something did.

Where We Go Wrong

Here is where we go wrong. Verse 21 tells us that even though we know that, we do not honor God as God and we do not give Him thanks. We do not praise Him, we do not worship Him, we do not acknowledge Him as the one true God. Instead, we begin to pursue false gods. Verse 23 shows us the result: "they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man."

And here is what God does in response. Verse 24: He gave them over to their own desires. Verse 25 tells us what follows: "they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." That is what is wrong with man. That is what is wrong with your heart. That is why your heart needs to be transformed.

The Problem Must Be Understood Before the Solution

When we talk about needing a transformed heart, the goal right now is not to rush to the solution. The goal is to make sure you thoroughly understand yourself and what the problem is — to see clearly what is missing. At this point, the only question is whether you understand what is being said. You may agree or disagree, but do you see what the Bible says about you? Do you see it?

That is the effect of sin. That is what sin does. You are a mess — you know it. The world is a mess — you know it. The people around you are a mess — you know it. And here is how it got this way. As you look at all of this, the one thing that should overwhelm you is the realization that there is nothing you can do about it on your own. By nature, you are separated from God. By nature, you do not understand Him. By nature, you do not seek Him.

The Nature We Cannot Fix

Though we know something is wrong in our nature, we try to fix it, we try to fill it, we try to run from it and understand it. So we go around trying to find all these other gods, whatever they might be — they may be a religious god, they may be something as simple as sports. And those false gods never fail to fail you. They keep you away from the real God rather than drawing you to Him.

To Be Continued

We are out of time, and I cannot get to the solution just yet — if this were television, the screen would read "To Be Continued." We are going to pick up right there, because what comes next is really, really important. We are going to do a lot of work, bringing together much of what was covered this morning and carrying it into tonight.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You for this amazing, wonderful reality — and it sounds strange to say it, but thank You for the reality that we are all screwed up. Thank You for allowing us to see it, because that is the beginning.

Here is what we know: there is nothing we can do about that on our own. If we really let that sit in, if it truly begins to sink into who we are at this moment, we realize we are helpless. And if what was on that screen is true — and it is — then we do not have any hope in and of ourselves.

But the good news, the gospel, is what saves. You are mighty to save. We sang it. You are the One who delivers, You are the One who rescues, You are the One who saves us. Thank You, God, for that marvelous truth.

I pray that we have a wonderful time this afternoon, a time of fun and also of reflection. And somewhere this afternoon, God, will You let each one of us quiet our hearts for just a few minutes and prepare ourselves for tonight — for the answer, and for how our hearts are truly transformed. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.