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Encounter God – Sermon #1 Encounter God in the Midst of Sin
Encounter God… in the Midst of Sin?
Genesis 3:1-21
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ enable you to know He ill always provide for you.
Where are you?
In the series we are starting today, we are going to look at a number of people who encountered God in scripture. Each one is different, each has a story to tell, a story that many of us will relate to, stories we can learn from, which will cause us to grow in our faith, that will help us to depend on God longer.
Just as these people did, many of them the hard way.
Just like us!
So we start with Adam and Eve.
Where it all started! Or perhaps one may say ended.
The encounter we are looking at is probably the scariest encounter with God that could exist.
And it is one of the best that you can have, prior to judgment day.
The Encounter
I’m not going to rehash Adam and Even’s sin, most of us know the story, and they acted like most people. You tell them not to doo something, and they do it.
Well, most people except Tom and Chuck. They always do what they are told to do…
That is assuming they hear it.
So let’s start with the question God asks,
WHERE ARE YOU!!!
Adam, Eve? Where are you?
Are you over here??? No. What about here??? No… Hmmm, I wonder where they are!
Some people I know think that God is outraged, furious, storming all over the place.
I think this worked out more like a very concerned parent, but one that wants to care for His children.
He knows exactly where they are. He knows what they’ve done, and that they are scared, that they feel guilty, they are buried in shame, and they even know what it means to be ashamed.
And He cries out with the care and compassion that is appropriate for God who is love,
Adam, Eve, where are you!?!?!
God’s Action
Every sermon I have written or heard on this passage focuses on what Adam and Even have done, and sometimes takes a theological side trip talking about who is to blame. But I think we need to look closer to God’s action.
First, He goes after them
Then, He gets to the basic issue, patiently brushing aside the blame game.
You ate… yes?
uh..uh.. yeah, but…
And what did you do,…
Uhh.. yeah I did, but I was deceived…
Despite their “explanations”, despite their trying to minimize what they did, despite all of their fears and anxieties, They knew the punishment now, and the idea of death was no longer a stranger. I would like to say I don’t know what they are going through, but been there, hiding from God.
Waiting for Him to tell me I was completely lost… completely beyond His forgiveness, beyond His love.
And as God shares the complications they invited into their own lives, the curses they chose, Includes something else.
What Luther called the first gospel ever preached, and it was preached at the Devil, “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel”
By the way, that is why you see a snake in many of the old pictures of the crucifixion, for that is where Jesus crushes that snake, Satan.
And then, there is the second prophecy,
21 And the LORD God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.
The LORD God kills something, to cover the sins, that should have resulted in His killing Adam and Eve. He provides what is needed, and though there are consequences, the result is that they are still His children, they are still the ones He loves, that He will always care form that He always has…
So where are you?
So now I have a question, well, I don’t,
God does.
Here Him asking you “Where are you?”
Where are you?
What have YOU done?
Don’t worry about excuses, don’t worry about the name game,
Just respond, and hear this,
14 Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 13:14 (NLT2)
Does that sound familiar? God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins. Animals had to die in order for the guilt and shame to be taken away.
He’s done the same thing with Jesus. He died for one purpose, to ensure that the Father doesn’t have to cry out, “where are you?
And can instead cry out, “I love you!”
No longer do we have to hide, for we are beginning to know His love and compassion will find us, and the promise of forgiveness applied, even more surely than the promise was made and forgiveness applied to Adam and Eve.
This is what it means when we say in a couple of weeks, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”
O wait, we aren’t supposed to say that… yet.
Too bad!
We need to hear it.
For sometimes still think we need to hide, sometimes we still think that guilt and shame are the norms.
No more my friends, for we have, in the midst of our sin, encountered a God who wouldn’t let us hide anymore!
He’s been calling, and the best thing you can do is listen, and hear Him say, I love you!
Then, as He carefully deals with your sin, you will realize this is one of the best encounters you will ever have in this life…
and His peace, a peace beyond comparison, a peace beyond all logic, will replace the guilt and shame… and you will realize you always have dwelt in His presence. AMEN!
Who Told You? A Sermon on Genesis 3:8-15
Who Told You?
Genesis 3:8-15
† In Jesus Name †
May the Grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ convince you that instead of seeking a hiding place from God, you should seek the refuge you find in Him!
Who Told You?
In today’s first reading, the one from Genesis 3, there is a question that God asks Adam, one that is relevant to ask today.
Who told you?
Specifically, who told you that you were naked, literally that you were exposed, who told you that your sin was visible for all to see? ( who was all anyway?)
How did you find out you had sinned, how did you come across that information?
Where did this guilt come from that drives you to do things that are as unnatural as the sin you are trying to hide?
As I thought about this question, it came to me that you and I need to ask that question today as we have to deal with our own brokenness, with our own sin, and the damage it does to us.
For I think we’ve been taught about sin in such a way that we react to it as Adam did, hiding, getting defensive, shifting blame, all in response to the guilt that convicts us far more cruelly than God would.
So who told you that you were exposed, that your sin was something so horrible that you had to hide?
Who told you to pass the blame?
As Adam was anxiously dealing with the idea that God found him. As God asks Adam who told you that you were naked, did you eat of the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?” While all that is scrambling his mind, he comes up with an answer.
Not my fault God! It’s her fault, you know, the one YOU gave me. She gave me the fruit, and because she is a blessing from you, I listened to her.
And since then, some men have avoided that problem, simply by not listening to their wives!
Of course, that causes other problems, and is just as sinful!
But who told Adam that the best way to deal with sin was to pass the blame? To hide behind Eve, rather than hiding behind a tree? Who told him that he wasn’t responsible for stopping Eve from falling into sin?
In trying to defend himself, to justify his own sin, Adam finds himself guilty of more than one sin, he finds himself shattering more relationships and allowing sin to get a better and better hold on his soul.
We do this all the time, and so does most of the world. When we fear getting caught when we know the guilt and shame and embarrassment that comes from doing something we know we shouldn’t do or refusing to do something we should.
Who told us to do that? Who told us that we needed to be defensive, that a defense even needed to be given? For that is as much of a lie as the temptation to sin was in the first place.
Yet Adam does it, as will Eve, who will follow the pattern and play the blame game, blaming the snake for deceiving her, for leading her into temptation.
Who told us to hide, to try and escape from God’s notice. Who told us to hide behind others, trying to get them to pay for our sin?
Who told you about Eve’s offspring?
I am not sure where we get this idea to hide from God, but we do it all the time, don’t we?
What we need to hear, is the last verse of the passage, for it tells us how sin is to be dealt with. It is the very first prophecy about Jesus in the Bible, what Luther called the “proto-gospel”.
You see it on the painting on the cover of the bulletin, as the offspring of Eve crushes Satan and all his minions on the cross. Even as the serpent sees Christ die, Satan’s efforts to dominate, to lead people away from God are crushed.
This is what we need to know! That sin, Satan, and death are crushed at the cross of Christ. We have been made free!
Seeking Refuge, not Hiding
There is something that drives us to hide from God, and from others, like our parents, our spouses, our children, even our pastor, when we sin.
It is ironic when we run from God when we hide behind someone else, I think what we are trying to do is to find a place of rest, a place where the effects of our sin are negated, and we think hiding will provide it. We don’t understand there is an option, there always has been.
We can seek refuge in God, instead of seeking a hiding place from Him.
Instead of laying the blame off on others, Christ will willingly, even joyfully remove it.
Seek refuge, not a hiding place.
Which means seek a refuge in God, we allow Him to remove all the guilt and shame, all the anxiety over punishment, all the anxiety of having our sinfulness exposed to the world.
For that was why He was looking for Adam and Eve, and until the cross, why He put them out of the garden. Not as a punishment, but to sustain them until Christ’s death and resurrection would cleanse them from sin, and they and all who trust and depend on God were given refuge, in the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.
For there we find life, and peace that is beyond compare or comprehension. For in Christ we are kept secure, our hearts and minds are in His possession. AMEN!!!
