The High Price Of Your Sin Series

When I was a freshman in High School, we had an outstanding 9th grade football team. We were the best in our District. Our coach put a strong emphasis on discipline and teamwork. As part of our practices, if one player on the team really messed up a play, the entire team would have to run laps around the field. All of us would be ticked off at the guy who made us run laps and personally none of us wanted to be the guy that caused the whole team to be penalized. I remember this guy named Herby. Herby was a great athlete, but he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He would forget or confuse the plays. He kept messing up, and we kept running laps. By the end of each practice, everyone hated Herby. But we all learned that no one was an island, we were a team. What one guy did or didn’t do, affected us all.

That’s the same lesson God’s Word teaches us in Genesis chapter 3. We’ve been on a series in the book of Genesis. Last week we looked at mankind’s decision to disobey God, declaring himself independent of God, and choosing to yield to the temptation of Satan. This week we are going to look at the consequences of that sin and God’s remedy for sin.

Proposition: Today from Genesis 3 you’re going to learn not only how your sin can affect both you and the people around you but also the wonderful way in which God deals with our sin.

Let’s turn to our text and take up where we left off last time in verse 7. Remember, Adam and Eve have just disobeyed God by yielding to the temptation. What we see next are the consequences of their sin.

First Compliment: In Genesis 3 you will find six consequences to sin.

First, your sin will bring guilt and shame. The first part of verse 7 says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” They thought they wanted their eyes opened but when they got what they thought they wanted, they didn’t like what they saw. They had rejected God and apart from God they weren’t much. They had lost their integration point. God had been the center of man’s existence. He was the one who tied life all together, who made life make sense, and who met man’s deepest needs. You see, we all need an integration point. Anything other than God, whether it be another person, our work, sex, drugs, or anything else. If we try to make it our integration point, it will inevitably let us down and then it will eventually destroy us. Even good things, if they become our integration point, become sin and addiction. God was the integration point that kept their lives intact. Now they have rejected their integration point and begun falling apart. They have rejected God and become less than what they were created to be. In fact, they had become what theologian’s call depraved. Depravity is the condition of man apart from God that seeks the best for himself no matter who it hurts. It’s a propensity to do our thing and to go our way for our own self-interest regardless of how it affects others and regardless of what God thinks about it. Man was created to love God and love others, but now he is less than what he was created to be. Inevitably he feels ashamed. The first thing your sin will cause is guilt and shame.

Second, your sin will drive you to cover it up. Verse 7 continues on to say, “And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” The most natural thing to do when you are ashamed is to find a way to cover it. Through their own efforts, they tried to hide their sin. People still do that today. We are ashamed of things in our lives and we try to camouflage them. We’re ashamed of what we have become and we don’t want others to see. It wouldn’t surprise me if there is someone among us who always wears long sleeve shirts, so that no one can see the track marks in your arms. Maybe you’re sitting in this auditorium wearing large quantities of cologne and popping breath mints like there is no tomorrow, so that others won’t know that you are a chain smoker. Could it be that your so concerned people won’t like you that you try to be something your not. Maybe you even tell stories about yourself that aren’t true, to impress others. There is no question in my mind that there is someone here with a dark besetting sin in His life that he thinks no one knows about because he has done such a good job of covering it up. Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” You may think you have it covered up, but its amazing how your sin is will usually catch up with you.