Paradise Lost: The Confrontation

Well, good morning.

It's good for us to be together.

It's where we ought to be on Sunday morning, with other believers, worshiping the Lord.

Our goal is we gather, and certainly as we direct our attention to God's word, is to listen, not to my words, but to listen, to hear what God has to say to us, in this case through the book of Genesis.

And not only to listen, but also to understand.

There's a big difference between just hearing and understanding.

But not just understanding, we also deeply desire to do something with that which we hear.

I hope that's why you have come this morning, among other things.

To hear what God says, to try to understand, and then to try to do something with that.

If that happens this morning, that will be the work of God in our midst.

Wouldn't it?

Would you pray with me to that end?

Heavenly Father, unless you build a house, the laborers labor in vain.

Unless you go before, then we wander and get lost.

Unless you speak, we don't know.

And unless you, through your Holy Spirit, give understanding to our hearts, then what we know doesn't really mean much.

And unless we are able in some way, big or small, to do something with what you say, then it's all for naught.

So, Father, would you, by your grace, through the foolishness of the preaching, despite the dullness of all of our hearts, would you accomplish your purpose in our midst this morning?

Whatever that may be, we ask you, and we depend upon you, and you are trustworthy.

So we ask with confidence in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, as you know, we are continuing to talk about some things that had to do with the beginning.

First two or three or four chapters of the book of Genesis.

With all the creativity that I could muster, I came up with a title for this series, very original, in the beginning.

There's really a little more than that that you need to say, because if we didn't have this, we wouldn't know much at all about the beginnings.

We wouldn't be able to explain where we came from.

We wouldn't be able to explain what our purpose on earth is.

We wouldn't be able to make sense out of the world around us.

We would look around and we would be wandering and we would be curious, but we wouldn't have significant answers.

We would be left to our own understanding and we don't do well.

Left to our own understanding.

And so we are asking God to get us oriented, to help us understand the world around us by looking at what he said in the beginning, to be able to understand something about the world out there as we look at other people, and to be able to understand, and especially this section, causes us not so much to look at the others, but to look at ourselves.

Because as it was with Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3, so it is with us.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Now, one of the interesting things about this particular section, we encounter in chapter 3 a number of firsts.

Now, the whole section has to do with beginnings, the genesis, the origins, but there's a number of firsts that we encounter when we turn from chapters 1 and 2 to chapter 3.

I was thinking about that and I made a list, and particularly as it relates to this portion of chapter 3, verses 7 through 14, there's a number of firsts.

Think about it.

This is the first time that man ever blushed or needed to.

Ever felt shame.

It never happened before.

It's the first.

We know what that is.

This was the first.

It was the first time for Adam and Eve, and the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, and that's who we are.

It was the first time there was a need to cover up and protect ourselves.

Protect ourselves from one another.

And to protect ourselves, it feels like, from God.

So they sowed fig leaves and they ran away.

First time, first time.

The first time that it was necessary for them to camouflage themselves.

Or maybe the better picture is what we find here hiding behind the trees.

It had never occurred to Adam or Eve to hide from God.

There's nothing of that in the first couple of chapters.

Suddenly, there's this sense that it's not right between us and God.

It's a first.

It's the first time that in this chapter we read for the very first time that Adam and Eve began to question God.

Now, there was a tempter, we saw that last week, who started whispering questions.

Did God really say that?

Don't you know he's trying to withhold something good from you?

And all kinds of questions about God's goodness and God's purposes.

It was the first time that man squirmed in the presence of God.

First time.

First time that when God interacted with man, when God interacts with us, it was the first time that instead of answers, we got excuses.

First time that instead of owning up to whatever needed to be owning up to, there was a finger pointing.

This woman, though, gave us me Lord, she did it.

The serpent.

Because we've so so spent so much time in it.

In other words, uh, welcome to our world.

When you look at Genesis chapter 3, you recognize it because this is the world we live in.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Broken, running away from God, alienated, trying to present ourselves as different than we are, threatened by one another, threatening one another, making excuses.

This is our world.

Welcome to there ought to be, I suppose, above chapter three.

I guess if I ever had the privilege of editing a Bible, I would put above chapter three, welcome to our world.

Or maybe, welcome to you and me.

Welcome to us.

This is what we see, not just out there, not just in the media, not just in politics, not just with international relations.

This is the reality of the world around us, but it's also the reality of our own hearts and our own being and our own self.

Welcome.

Welcome.

I recognize me there in chapter 3.

Don't you recognize you there as well?

So last time in the last couple of weeks, as we've as we're looking at Genesis 3, last time we began with verses 1 through 7.

And you'll remember this is this dialogue that there was between Adam and Eve and the serpent.

And that led to a descent, to the fall.

To the fall.

Now, this is really all one part of the story.

I'm just breaking it up because I can talk longer than you can sit.

So we've seen the dialogue and the descent.

Now we have a confrontation.

We have a confrontation between God and Adam and Eve.

And God approaches them.

And he doesn't approach with condemnation.

He doesn't approach with a sledgehammer.

He approaches with questions that are meant to draw us to think and realize what's going on and how did this happen and ultimately to run to him.

This is not God coming in with a bulldozer, coming in with a whip, coming in with condemnation.

It's God helping us understand what's in the mirror, what's in our own hearts, and how we got this way.

So it's this confrontation.

And then the next two times we turn to Genesis, we'll look at the consequences.

So we want to listen, we want to understand, we want to apply.

And as we turn to verses 7 and 8, for example, we find that it is no longer very good in the garden.

The eyes of both were opened, verse 7, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

It is not well in the garden of God anymore.

Started out, God created this beautiful garden, especially, intentionally, explicitly for mankind.

All that they needed, gave them great freedom within the garden.

You can eat of all of the trees in the fruit of the garden save one.

I've got a special thing about this one.

You can have all the rest of these.

Man was at the pinnacle of the created realm, and it was very good.

The very good is gone.

It is no longer good in God's garden.

It is no longer good in this world.

It is no longer good in our own experience and in our own hearts.

So the question really is what happened?

What happened?

And what we find when we compare Genesis chapter 2 with chapter 3 is there is nothing that has gone before chapter 3 that prepares us for this not goodness of the garden.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Something has changed.

The garden had not changed, God had not changed.

Dot, dot, dot.

Who do you think?

What do you think had changed?

We.

Adam and Eve, humanity.

So some significant things have changed.

As I said, we were created, Adam and Eve, and the Bible has this interplay between us and Adam and Eve.

They were the first human beings, and from them every human being since has been derived.

Literal, physical, historical people, we've talked about that in the past.

And in a sense, we were there, at least in seed form.

We are the progeny.

We are that which flowed out of Adam and Eve and the events here.

So in a very real sense, Adam and Eve are just like us, or we're just like Adam and Eve in significant measure.

So the high point of creation designed by God to be co-regents over this portion of the universe, the created realm that we know, to be stewards of the world around us, to be involved in what in its original seed forms were scientific activity, investigation of the animals, to be able to give them names, stewarding the earth's resources around us, ruling and reigning and exercising a measure of dominion, having been created in the image of God, to whom all and in whom all dominion finds its source.

And he gave the right to rule.

Not the way we experience ruling now, abusing and despots and so forth.

That's all because of what we find here.

But man was created for so much more.

And the fact that God had created us for community, it's not good to be alone.

We've seen that as well.

Adam and Eve.

Until Eve was created, it was not good.

And now it's not good that Eve and Adam are there.

And the intimacy and the community and the sense of being with one another in the fullest sense of the word, the goodness of not being alone, not only but clearly referring to marriage, but not limited to that.

A sense of community, a sense of belonging, a sense of esteeming the worth and value of one another, a sense of realizing I'm not the only one here, and if I'm on my own, it's not good.

I need other people, we need each other.

That's true in marriage, that's true in the community, that's true in the nation, it's true in the world, it's true in the church.

We are not meant to be alone.

And suddenly, suddenly, we're driven apart.

So what we saw is that they had, Adam and Eve, us, had implicit or explicit, implicit inexplicably.

Still didn't get it right.

The hour, I lost an hour of sleep last night, folks.

Inexplicably and arrogantly, we find Adam and Eve questioning God.

And well, again, we touched on this before, but but the the enemy whispered questions like, is God, why did he withhold this from you?

Wasn't he, oh, you know, he knew that if you ate of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then you would have the knowledge of good and evil.

And implicitly he doesn't want you to have that.

He's withholding something good from you.

And involved in that is uh an arrogant, atrocious sense that I can determine what is good in life and what I really need.

And ultimately, Adam and Eve concluded who God is and what he provides for me, for us, is not enough.

I need something other than what God has provided.

And there's this, this.

Does God know what he's doing in our lives or not?

Does God know what he's doing in your life or not?

Is God involved or not?

And you see this questioning, and I do it, you do it, it's inherent in the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve.

We begin to have questions about whether God really knows what he's doing.

Why does he allow me to have cancer?

Couldn't God have taken that away?

Of course he could have taken it away.

Sometimes he does, but he hasn't yet, in my case, for example, or somebody else's.

That's not the area I wrestle with right now.

I may, next year, tomorrow, who knows?

But whatever my circumstances, am I able to see that it's not the devil that's in the details, but it's God?

Yahweh Elohim, the God who created all, and the God who enters into relationship with us, who reached out and took the clay and formed Adam and then drew near and gave him the kiss, the breath of life.

Does God know?

Is God sufficient?

Is he in control?

Why do you think I spend a certain amount of time, virtually every Sunday morning, saying something like the following?

Today is, I better get it right, the 12th of March 2017, and God is in control.

He always has been.

He was in control in the garden.

He's in control now, and he will be in control in the new heaven and the new earth.

He rules, he reigns, he's trustworthy.

I don't understand all that he is doing.

The longer I live, the less I understand.

I knew a whole lot more when I got out of seminary 45 or however many years ago than I know now, not because I believe less, but because God is bigger.

So can we trust him with the things that are going on in our lives?

Or do we stand in judgment?

The serpent had said, take, eat, it will make you wise.

You will have knowledge of good and evil, and that's true.

They God gave Adam and Eve the ability to choose.

However, choice does not mean we can escape the consequences of our choices.

And what we have before us are the insidious, awful, painful, tragic consequences of sin in their root form.

You remember that we said in connection with the verses one through seven, the first part, and now seven through thirteen, that what happened is that Eve listened to the serpent, Adam listened to Eve, and no one listened to God.

And the consequences of that are now spelled out in painful and practical ways.

The taste of the fruit of their choice was bitter indeed.

The taste of the fruit of the choices in our lives when we wander and ignore and run away and don't submit to a loving God who works for our good and his glory and who can be trusted.

The results of that, my friends, you know it as well as I do, and I know it as well.

There's uh three of them that are pretty clear in this passage.

Um, and I'm thinking particularly of verses seven and eight.

The eyes of both were open.

They knew they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together, they made themselves loinclaws.

When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.

Now, there is there have been probably a thousand doctoral dissertations written on just expanding on the reality there.

Thousands of philosophical treatises.

But in its essence, I'll you don't have to get your doctorate, I'll just tell you all the things that are here.

No, just scratching the surface.

Three pretty clear consequences.

First, alienation from one another, and alienation from God.

So the fig leaves.

What a what a what a what a picture.

Adam and Eve were with each other naked and unashamed.

That's what it says at the end of chapter two.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

They had nothing to be ashamed about.

They were comfortable.

Oh, not your elder.

With one another.

But not just the physical, they were comfortable in their relationship.

There was safety.

In fact, there was great blessing and benefit.

They complemented one another.

They needed each other.

They couldn't be fully human without each other.

We can't be fully human without other people.

And yet, suddenly it's necessary to sew fig leaves together.

That something would come between, would cover their nakedness, and supposedly that would take care of this estrangement that they felt from one another.

What a futile, foolish, almost comical thing.

What a tragic thing.

And yet we do that all of the time.

We protect ourselves from other people.

And it's not safe to be to be.

It's not safe to be you in a fallen, broken world.

So these fig leaves is it's often, almost always been seen as they were, just as there was a literal Adam and Eve in a literal garden, there were literal fig leaves, and so they made themselves, the ESV translates it loinclaws.

That's uh taking terminology from centuries later and putting in, but that's probably a fairly accurate statement.

And that has been understood as being what we do to protect ourselves from one another, where it's no longer it's no longer good, a threat and a danger to one another.

So in verse 7, they were alienated from one another.

They sewed the fig leaves together.

And in uh in verse eight, it's very clear that they weren't, they didn't feel safe with God.

They were alienated from God.

They heard the Lord of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid.

Sorry, didn't mean to wake up then.

And they hid.

They couldn't bear or they were afraid to be in the presence of God.

That was new, and that was a result.

There was this alienation between God and His creature, his creation, man.

Along with this, and part of it, is shame and guilt.

For the first time they had guilt feelings, or first time they had any reason to have guilt feelings.

And so their eyes were opened and they were filled with shame and guilt.

Now, this matter of guilt, we need to just say a couple of things about it, because this is a tricky subject.

We understand guilt now after this.

We find ourselves involved in it, and there's a couple of strange things that happen.

In this case, the guilt they felt, their guilt feelings, were not wrong.

They were right.

They were justified.

Why?

Because they went along with objective culpability, or they were guilty.

They were in a state of having been transgressors.

When we are guilty, we are supposed to feel guilty.

The guilt feelings are not the problem.

They simply reveal the problem from within.

Now, in our culture, in our day, we are inclined to assume that all guilt feelings are wrong.

We just got to get rid of guilt feelings.

That's baloney.

That's our culture.

That's pop psychology, that's superficial thinking, that's human thinking.

It has nothing to do with what scriptures say, that all guilt is wrong.

Good guilt and bad guilt.

There's such a thing as good guilt?

Absolutely.

It's what Adam and Eve had.

Good guilt is the feelings of guilt that we have when we're guilty and they have not yet been dealt with.

It's kind of like we just got rid of a car, thank God.

We'd had it for 12 years and it was not functioning properly.

But on the car, actually the new one as well, uh, there's a dashboard with lights.

And those lights, when they flash, the light is not the problem.

The light draws my attention to the fact that there's a so the check engine light was on.

Um and I could drive around for a while and ignore it, but it was on.

Now, in my foolishness, I was really tempted to take a ball peen hammer and smash that light so it wouldn't bother me.

Wouldn't really be very helpful.

Now, is the flashing light wrong?

No, it's a help.

It's a I don't know that Ford thought they were being gracious by putting a check engine light in my car, but really, if if we're saying the guilt feelings that Adam and Eve had, they were right.

And it was good for them to feel guilty.

And the intent of this was not for them to be beaten up and to be driven away, but God approaches them and he says, Come come, and we'll see some of that.

It was that we are aware of the state that we're in, will do something about it.

And ultimately, God did something about it on the cross.

We'll come back to that in a minute.

We always need to come back to that, you know?

Always need to come back to the cross.

But what happens sometimes, uh, and this happened with the car we got rid of, or no, the other car that's sitting in the garage in Indianapolis, um, the there's a lamp that burns constantly saying that the tire pressure in one of the car tires is low.

Now, when I first saw it, I took the car into the garage and and put air in all four tires and the the light stayed on, and I slept on it for a while, and I said, Oh, well, there's a fifth tire, it's uh it's the spare.

So I went in and I put it there and it stayed on.

So I took it into the Toyota dealer, and the guy said, Well, you obviously have a faulty sensor.

You see, it can be that the light doesn't really work properly and it flashes when there is no real cause for it.

And those that's bad guilt.

Sometimes we are we have guilt feelings for things that has no true culpability with.

And those guilt feelings, that's bad guilt.

But please do not for a moment suggest that good guilt is bad.

There is such a thing as good guilt.

Now, what we're supposed to do is to be drawn towards God.

Because God on the cross, we're back to this.

All of the punishment and guilt that we deserve was placed on Christ on the cross.

There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of spirit of death has the law of life has set us free from the law of sin and death.

Because of what Christ did, and all we have is Christ.

We sang that.

All we have is Christ.

And if God had not worked in our lives, we would be rebels still.

Thank you, Webb, for that selection of songs.

But the fact of the matter is that our guilt, our objective guilt, has been dealt with in Christ.

And if we know him, if we've experienced the reality of new life and forgiveness based not on our being good, but based on the good that Christ was and the good that he did, the sinless one dying for the sinful, that we who are sinful might have the righteousness of God, it's all dealt with.

Now, when we feel guilty and there's good reason for it, then we flee to Christ.

And we begin to appropriate, even though it may be a battle, and it may be a lifelong battle with certain aspects of who we are.

But the fact of the matter is the guilt is not wrong.

What's wrong is within.

Another consequence is death.

God had clearly said, on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die, and this is the day they ate of it, and we already see death taking place.

Oh, their physical death, Adam's physical death would be some 930 years later.

But the process of dying began.

And not just physical.

What they're doing, separated from God, out of fellowship with God, disconnected from the way they should be, that's spiritual death.

Death is separation.

We, I don't know how many weeks we talked about death a few months ago.

Death is separation.

Physical death, separation of our physical nature from our non-physical nature.

Spiritual death is separation of our heart and soul and spirit from God.

We're now born dead.

They died having been created in sin.

So, but the point being is that they were free as we are free to choose whatever we want.

We are not free, my friends, to escape the consequences of our choices.

That's just not an option.

And part of the lie of the enemy is that they could be autonomous, they could do what they want to do, go where they want to go, be what they want to be.

I'll avoid singing the mamas and papas from 1965.

Go where you want to go, do what you want to do, be what you want to be with, whoever you want to do it with.

That's a lie.

That call to autonomy, as though there are no consequences, we can just do our thing.

My friends, I can't do my thing.

You can't do your thing, but we need to do God's thing.

That's not a great way of putting it.

But we're not free to escape the consequences of our choices.

So we read then a second problem that man hides and God seeks.

This is a maybe it's flippant to call it a hide-and-seek game.

The ultimate, you know, ultimate frisbee, ultimate golf, ultimate, ultimate uh uh sports.

Well, this is the ultimate game, but it is not a game.

And what we find is that man hides and God seeks.

God comes after us, not to smash us, but to love us and to forgive us.

He comes, he pursues.

So we we see that in verses uh nine to thirteen that the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

And Adam totally avoided answering the question.

The question is, where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden uh and I was afraid, um, and I was naked and I hid myself.

That's not what he would do.

That's not the right answer to the question.

When God is asking these questions, God isn't looking for information.

It's not that he doesn't know the answers already.

Good principle.

Whenever God is asking us questions, it's not for his benefit, it's really for ours.

And he's he was seeking to draw he was approaching Adam and Eve, and he was drawing them in.

Um and they were uh they were hiding.

Um but so I'm sorry, I got sidetracked here.

Never good to get sidetracked from the word.

Uh the Lord God called to them and asked a question, and and and he said, Where are you?

It wasn't, where are you?

Sorry, I woke somebody else up here.

It wasn't harsh.

It wasn't just do you realize where you are?

Do you realize what's happened?

That's that's the spirit behind it.

Um Adam doesn't get the question, but verse 11.

Who told you you were naked?

Where where did this idea come from?

Is that from me?

What's happened?

That and do you understand what's going on, folks?

I'm not saying you, I'm saying Adam and Eve.

There's these questions are designed to bring insight and understanding and ultimately confession and forgiveness.

Who told you that you're naked?

Have you eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

Do you suppose, Adam and Eve, that there's any correlation between me having said you can eat anything but that and the fact that you ate that?

Do you see what's happening to you, Adam and Eve?

Have you gone your own way?

Have you ignored me?

Have you done exactly what I told you not to do?

Not, have you done exactly what I told you not to do?

No, that's not how God approaches us.

All of that is poured out on Christ.

All of that anger, all of that wrath.

God is not angry with the believer.

When God pursues us, it's because he loves us.

And he pursues us in a beautiful, beautiful way.

And there's one more.

Um who gave um have you have you eaten of the tree?

And then the Lord said to the woman, what is this that you've done?

I mean, it starts out with kind of general questions that gets down because she's not getting it.

And I often don't get it when God comes and wants to point out areas in my life.

And of course, her answer is, they did it.

That's another aspect.

So what we see is there there is this futile attempt, foolish attempt, to hide from God.

And God doesn't leave him alone.

God doesn't leave us alone, folks.

It doesn't work to hide from God.

Jonah tried to run away from God.

He went to the far reaches of the then known world.

God was right there.

The psalmist, David, Psalm 139, says, Where should I go from your spirit?

Or where should I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you're there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, you're there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright in day, for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

Now, this knowledge that God has of us, and the fact that we cannot escape this God is not designed to bring terror in our hearts, it is designed to draw us to Him.

If we are resisting, and if we are stubbornly, sinfully choosing to go our own way, then that becomes a voice that's fearsome.

The intent is to draw us towards Himself.

So God graciously and tenderly and lovingly goes after them.

There's this phrase that comes out of history of the hound of heaven.

That makes me feel like a wolf is chasing me.

That's not what we're talking about.

No, he's seeking them out.

He's seeking to draw them to himself.

And John 3.16 and 17.

You know John 3.16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever should believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The love of God.

Always read verse 17 with verse 16.

Verse 17 says, For God so loved the world, 16.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that it might be saved through him.

God is seeking and saving.

That's what is lost.

And when God is asking Adam and Eve these questions, I would challenge you to make sure that you hear that in the right tone.

It's kind of like Jesus.

Big surprise there, huh?

And so, woman taking in adultery.

And he is gentle and truthful.

He says, Neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more.

It bring it brings both together.

But it's not.

And yet, and yet, if we're not careful, that's the view of God that we have.

But were it not for Christ, that would be correct.

All we really have, and all we really need is Christ.

So the tone of his voice should be seen to be compassion.

To me, it's just so significant.

The very first words that God speaks to lost Adam and Eve are words of compassion and gracious invitation.

That's the tone.

Because all they would need to do is say, I sinned.

I sinned.

And you see, God has solutions for our sin.

And that's he's reaching out to us, not to smash us, friends.

But that's why he smashed Jesus.

But he doesn't have to smash us.

But what we find is a defensive response on their part, blame shifting.

Verse 9 is really interesting in this connection.

Where what we find is him asking the question, where are you?

And why have you done this in verse 13?

What is it you have done?

Who gave you to know this?

And the responses, for example, in verse 12, the woman said, Adam said, the man said, guys, this is for us.

The woman you gave me, she gave me the fruit, and I ate.

Wow.

God, my problem is my wife.

Or my problem is my boss.

Or my problem is the guy who sits next to me.

This person you've placed me next, Lord, that's why I'm an angry, crotchety person.

Actually, this woman God gave me is given for my blessing and to help me because I'm not good on my own.

And yet, what we do is we quickly shift the blame away from ourselves to other people.

And Adam is even a little bit worse than that.

He says, This woman that you gave me, Lord, so who's the real cause of his problems?

God, you did this to me.

And uh so what we find is that parallel to what we saw before, Eve blames the serpent.

The serpent tempted me and I ate.

Well, yes, I know that.

The question is, where did that come from?

It's not the serpent's fault.

Adam blames Eve, and then he blames God.

And nobody blames themselves.

So we point the Finger, and invariably, when you point the finger, there's one, two, three, four fingers pointing back at yourself.

Now, I'm not saying that if someone does something to you that that's good, I'm not saying that whatsoever.

I'm just saying that just because you have a situation in your life that you don't like, does that give you an excuse to be angry or bitter or fearful or whatever it may be?

As though I'm not responsible.

What I want to do is ask myself, ask us today, we're the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, two simple questions.

I would rather not ask these of myself.

I would rather ask them of you.

Am I hiding from God and avoiding God?

Is am I looking for some trees to get behind?

I think I mentioned in the in the first service, we have a good friend years ago, a very creative artist, who took pictures like this.

And I can just picture a picture, a painting of these trees, which are God's provision for Adam and Eve.

You can eat freely of these trees.

Eat freely.

There's one that I've got a special purpose for, but these are my gracious provision for you, and now they have become prison bars that Adam and Eve are hiding behind.

So they're kind of peeking out between the tree trunks.

What a horrible reality.

They're hiding, they're hiding.

That's not what it's all about.

But God doesn't leave them alone.

God never seems to leave us alone.

Thank God He doesn't leave us alone.

So my question is, what are we wanting to have God not deal with in our lives?

Not put his finger on, not shine the light on?

What is there?

Or is there something in your life that you know very well?

Or actually I should say, what is it that you know very well God is seeking to speak to you about?

I know pretty well what God is seeking to speak to me about.

Um so it's a fair question.

What are you trying to hide from God?

It never works.

It never works.

You might say, no, Walt, would you cut me some slack, please?

I'm here, aren't I?

I lost a night or an hour of sleep last night.

I'm here.

I could be somewhere else.

I'm I've got my Bible, I've got it open, I'm singing songs, I'm here, I maybe even put something in the offering plate.

Cut me some slack.

Well, great, you can have all the slack you can hang on, hang with.

Nothing wrong with doing any of those things, but is that really the issue?

You can be singing psalms of praise and your heart being far from God.

You can be giving generously, and there's major issues.

It's just not that simple.

I show up, I'm trying to be a good Christian, therefore get off my back, God.

Or at least Walt.

It's just not that simple.

We've got to open ourselves to the questions that God was asking Adam and Eve.

And are we hiding?

Is there a part and something in your life that you just don't want to have God touch?

Maybe it's too painful, maybe it's too shameful, maybe it's uh whatever.

Maybe you assume that if he saw that, then he would smash you?

God loves us too much to leave us alone.

So he comes and he invites us to bring it out in the open.

With him.

With him.

Do you hear his gentle, tender, compassionate, welcoming things saying?

It's like a it's like a parents of, let's say, a six-year-old, and you've said to the six-year-old, now be careful, don't ride your bike in the street.

It's dangerous out there, so stay off the street.

And of course, every six-year-old that we ever had um successfully ignored the well-intended um prohibitions from don't go out in the street.

So, six-year-old runs out in the street, splat.

What parent goes over there and says, Huh, didn't I tell you to not play in the street?

Is that what a parent does?

No.

You're gonna pick up that broken child and you're gonna bring him close to you, and you're gonna say, Oh, I'm you know, you might be really scared, and first word that comes out of your mouth was, How could you do that?

Which really means, how could you scare me this way?

But a loving parent, that's who God is.

He's saying, Here, let me come, let me help, let me, let me bear this.

Um second of all, uh, blame shifting.

What's your own?

What's my own pattern of blame shifting, rationalizing, and finger pointing?

Um, that's just the way I am.

I'm I'm Italian, so I've got a explosive temper.

Nick was in the first service, and he felt like I was calling him out.

Or St.

Patty's Day, so I'm Irish.

That's just who the Irish people are.

That's just the way I am.

That's the way I was raised.

That's the family I keep.

You think you think I'm a harsh person, you should have seen my dad.

In comparison, I'm really pretty good.

Wonderful.

That's great.

What about your heart and your attitude?

And we're so quick to give excuses and shift the blame.

Um I get it, you're really depressed because you lost your job.

Or really, really confused.

I get it.

It's not wrong.

But that confusion, that depression, that sense of it's not right is just a help to get us to deal with the things that are inside.

Um so your marriage hasn't worked out the way you wanted it to?

I know.

I get it.

I get it.

Did God do that to you?

Does God not know about it?

Could he not have solved that?

Yeah, well, why didn't he solve it?

I don't know why God does what he does.

I know God is good and I know he's trustworthy, and I know that what he does is right and good.

So can we, whether it be any of those or a thousand other examples of things that are in our life that we don't like, can we not find God in the midst of it and God being sufficient for that?

It doesn't make it all go away.

That's not what I'm saying.

That's not the way life works.

But can we not bring the goodness and the sovereignty and the love and the wisdom of God into those very circumstances in our lives that we'd like to either blame on other people or blame on God?

God, why did you do this to me?

Oh, my friends.

I get it.

There's something within me at times that asks the same question.

Job got it.

He asked that same question after 40-some chapters.

And God, after a while, said, Job, stop.

Just stop.

And he said lovingly, Were you there when I put the stars in the sky?

Were you there when I made Leviathan?

So why are you questioning me?

You are not big enough.

You are not wise enough to understand what a good and gracious God does.

And so we need to allow God to be God and not hold it against him, not blame other people, and not beat ourselves up about it.

But God is our sufficiency, and all I need is Christ.

All I need is Christ.

I think I need a whole bunch of other things.

It doesn't mean those things in our lives are good.

It just means that God today, the 13th, 12th, March really is on the throne.

He's involved, he cares, he knows what he's doing, and he can be trusted.

Web, come, and then I'll give the benediction and you guys can go get lunch.

I know of no better way for myself to welcome God into those places where I'm hiding or where I'm hurt.

And to sing about the good stuff he's done.

And to sing about the good things he is and the good things he's promised to give.

So would you all please stand and we'll sing together one more song?