Finding Your Way Again! Series

Title: Finding Your Way Again!

Series: Fresh Start #1 - Pastor Tony Rivers - January 15, 2012- Genesis 3:9-10

Genesis 3:9-10 diagrammed:

God called to the Man:

"Where are you?"

He said,

"I heard you

in the garden

and I was afraid

because I was naked

and I hid."

INTRO:

When Bob got home last night, his wife demanded that he take her someplace expensive…

so, he took her to a gas station.

And thats how the fight started…

--------

Curtis and Leroy and their wives were visiting a big city shopping mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again.

Curtis asked Leroy, "What is this?".

Leroy responded, "I have never seen anything like this in my life. I don`t know what it is!".

While they were watching wide-eyed, an old lady in a

wheelchair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and they watched small circles of lights with numbers above the walls light up.

They continued to watch the circles light up in the reverse direction. The walls opened up again and a voluptuous 24 year old woman stepped out.

Curtis said to his wife, "You try it."

And thats how the fight started…

----------

Another modern take could be:

Adam told Eve as he was headed out to the fields to work for the first time ever

Honey, I’ll be late for dinner!

And thats how the fight started…

--------

Humor is often a way of dealing with uncomfortable yet serious situations. Today, we are looking at something very serious.

Where are you?

January is historically a time for fresh starts, New Year resolutions and personal inventory.

I find myself taking a personal inventory every year at this time. Typical questions are along the lines of

"What did I do last year?"

"What do I want to accomplish this year?" and

"What is holding me back?"

Most New Year resolutions are a response to something we don’t like about ourselves or our environments.

It is only natural to address shortcomings, failures and setbacks. This is the case in one of the most famous Christian stories of Scripture, the account of Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve make the worse decision of their lives. There’s only 2 trees that God told them to stay away from and in direct disobedience to God, they eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

As you picture the scenario in your mind, notice Eve, all alone in the garden. She is standing there stroking the mane of one of her pet lions, gazing at one of the trees which Adam told her was off limits because God told him not to eat from it, and not to even touch the fruit from this tree. She is surely wondering why? Why this tree? Why this fruit? What is so special about the fruit from this tree that we can’t even touch it? As she contemplates this question along with “Wonder what Adam wants for supper?”, in walks the serpent. The short story is that Eve messes up by eating the fruit and Adam, who is apparently along for the shopping trip at the farmer’s market, also messes up when Eve passes him an apple.

That’s when the drama started!

What happens next - They cover up, they try to fix it themselves, they deny the seriousness of it.

Their is this period when they are in denial. "Maybe it’s not so bad." "Maybe I can just run away from God and hide." "Maybe I can explain it."

But then Adam hears the sound of God.

Soon after, in a hair-raising moment, God says, "Adam, Where are you?" (Gen 3:9)

Adam and Eve sinned against God. Their response to the big mistake was first to try to cover it up, then to hide from it. I often wonder how God felt when He called out to them? What did His cry sound like? Was it the "ADAM!" with an inflection like that of a mother that sees her child hiding after he wrote on the wall with his new crayola crayon? Or was it more of a call of desperation like that of a parent that just discovered their child missing?

I can only conclude that God is surely a just God.

In the beginning we see Him setting up a recovery program.

The first intervention of sorts!

And at extreme personal cost to Himself.

Please turn your Bible to Genesis 3. We will be reading verse 9-10.

Follow with me in your Bibles as we read Genesis 3:9-10.

NEED:

Some of you are worried that you have messed up so bad that God won’t use you anymore? You are riddled with some type of guilt?