TEXT: Genes 3:1-9
TITLE: Where are you?
SERIES: Questions God Asks
TOPIC: Sin & farness from God
OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church, August 3, 2008
PROP.: The first question God asks is the question He cares about more than anything: Where are you?
INTRODUCTION: Have you seen those Southwest Airline commercials with the theme: “Wanna get away?” One of my favorites has two friends sitting in the one friend’s apartment. He is showing off his new flat screen TV and game system with wireless controllers. He tells his friend that with the controllers the game mimics their movements. They happen to be playing a baseball game and he tells his friend, ‘Pitch it to me just like you would outside.” So the friend winds up and throws the controller which hit’s the TV, cracks the screen and then causes the TV to crash down on the game system. The announcer then says, “Wanna get a way?”
When we do stupid or thoughtless things we tend to want to hide and avoid contact with other people, especially those we have harmed or embarrassed. We do the same thing God. When we sin we want to hide and avoid contact with God. So here is the question I have for you this morning: How are you avoiding God?
Questions are a part of life. We use questions everyday and they play a big part of our interactions with each other. Here are a few ways we ask questions.
1. To discover information. We ask questions because we are curious about a topic. We might ask: Why is the sky blue? Or How does a plane fly? Or: I wonder what I would look like with a mustache? We ask, so we can learn
2. To strike up a conversation. We ask questions so we can have something to talk about and learn about people. We might ask a new acquaintance - “How long have you lived here?” Do you have a family? So we can learn something about them while at the same time, conversing with them.
3. To assess whether students have learned. Teachers and parents ask these questions so they can determine what their students or children have learned. A history teacher may ask, “Who is the first President of the United States? They want to know if the students have grasped the lesson being taught.
This morning, we begin a series on: QUESTIONS. We will look at questions God asks of man!
Perhaps it seems odd that God would ask questions. Why would God EVER ask a question? The deity who KNOWS every answer doesn’t ever need a question mark at the end of ANY of His sentences! God is truly omniscient (all knowing), then there is no need for Him to ask a question. Yet, we discover that in scripture God indeed asks questions. So why does God ask questions?
Well, there is a fourth reason questions are asked. And I believe that when God asks a question, it is because of this fourth reason right here…
4. To have a person reflect on what is being said. Sometimes we will ask a question, not for our benefit, but to get the person to reflect upon their situation. A counselor might ask: “How did that make you feel?” Or a parent might ask their child, “What lesson did you learn from this?”
I believe that God primarily asks questions that are for our benefit and will get us to think about our lives and situations. God wants us to take the time to reflect about our lives and so He asks pointed questions that will cause us to stop and think and consider!
You don’t have to read very far in God’s word to come across the first question God asks. Turn to Genesis 3.
Some background information. God creates everything in 6 days. Everything was PERFECT! And it’s in this paradise called the Garden of Eden that we find Adam and Eve. God provided for everything they would need, even work to keep them occupied. They had all the food they could ever want. They had perfect companionship with one another and with their maker!
Let’s read.
Verses 1 - 9
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, ’You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ’You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
We start this morning with the first question God asks of man: WHERE ARE YOU?
We start with this question because it’s the most important question. It’s the question God cares about the most! WHERE ARE YOU? Are you NEAR God? Are you far from God?
You see, Adam and Eve had a rude awakening. Their perfect, happy world has now been marred by the ugly effects of sin. Perhaps you’re here this morning and your world has been stained with sin.
So Adam and Eve hide. And God calls out to them: WHERE ARE YOU? God knows what has happened to them. They couldn’t run from God. Yet God ask the question “where are you?” why? Because he wants them to know if THEY knew where they were? God knew where they were. But did they?
I. From walking with God; to hiding from God
Our text tells us that God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. How awesome this would be! To have that kind of fellowship! To have that kind of closeness!
1. When was the last time you walked with God?
How close are you to God right now at this very moment? The Christian life is filled with highs and lows. But maybe your spiritual life is in the dumps and has been for quite sometime. How does it get better? It starts by asking this next question:
2. Why aren’t you walking with God now?
A. Because you are ashamed?
Is it because you feel so dirty? You feel so ashamed? You wonder to yourself, How can a God who is perfect, holy and all powerful ever want to have anything to do with me? God is disappointed in me and my behavior. I’ve let God. I haven’t mastered my sin! I’ve got news for you, you’ll never master your sin. You must allow the master of masters deal with your sin…ONCE AND FOR ALL!
Illustration: Mike Hatten at High Teen 2, was our preacher this past week. He said something that TOTALLY BLEW ME AWAY! God can NEVER be disappointed in you or your behavior! Disappointment comes when our expectations aren’t met. If something hasn’t turned out the way you wanted it to, you were disappointed. God knows everything! So his expectations ALWAYS matches reality! His expectations are always met! God doesn’t get disappointed.
God loves you not because of what you do and don’t do, but despite what you do and don’t do!
But we have fooled ourselves into thinking that God only can love me when I’m doing good.. And so we don’t walk with God because we are too busy hiding!
--how do we hide?
We hide through religion. We go through the motions of religion (show up to church…smile…sing the words on the screen), but we never really connect with God. We never really apply God’s word to our life and try to practice what we’ve learned. Religion is where we hide.
We also hide through more and more sin.
People try to numb their conscience through alcohol, drugs. Sin becomes the fig leaf we hide behind. And it’s not a very good covering! It always causes more problems than it masks.
We even hide behind good works. We think that if we will just do nice things for people that God will see us as acceptable. It’s not wrong to do good works, but you need to do them with the proper motives.
We mostly hide from God through excuses.
Perhaps another reason you aren’t walking with God is…
B. Because you don’t care?
It is because you are more interested in living your life the way you want to live it? And you just don’t simply care about being close to God. You’re drinking as much as YOU want. You are talking the way YOU want to talk. Using the words YOU want to use. Having as much sex as YOU want with whomever YOU want to. You are living YOUR life the way that YOU want to live it and you are really ‘loving’ life! Or so you think. If this is your mentality, you need to listen to what I’m going to say next: There will come a day when you will wake up and realize that the way YOU’VE been living YOUR life no longer satisfies you. You will never be able to drink enough alcohol, have enough sex, do enough drugs, to really ENJOY life.
It’s only when we Jesus is involved in our life do we truly experience life how it was meant to be! “Abundant life!”
YOUR PHYSICAL CHOICES ALWAYS HAVE TO SPIRITUAL RESULTS.
If you choose to read your Bible…that’s a physical choice that will have spiritual effects!
If you choose to sin, it will have spiritual consequences!
Illustration: John Mark vs. Andrew Snell
Some are playing with sin and they don’t think there are any consequences. It’s not a big deal. You show up to the fight expecting to spar when your enemy is seeking to destroy you!
ILLUSTRATION: Breaking the stained glass window…hiding it…
Listen, God sees what happens in the night time AND in the daytime! Just because you think no one knows, doesn’t mean that God doesn’t know! THERE IS NO HIDING FROM GOD!
Stop hiding from God! Begin to walk WITH God! Come to God. Repent of your faults and find forgiveness!
Because here’s the amazing thing…
II. God never grows tired of loving (pursuing) His children
Adam and Eve chose to sin. God knew this! And yet, we are told that God came in the cool of the day to walk in the Garden.
A. Why was God walking in the garden?
To look for His children. To confront His children. But most importantly, so He could be with His children. Did Adam and Eve stop being God’s children because of sin? Absolutely not!
Illustration: I’m not sure about you, but in my house growing up, my dad had a lot of rules we had to follow. Curfew, language, chores, going to dances…these were the rules of Dan Nichols’ children. Did I become a child of Dan Nichols when I mastered all of these rules? No. It was because I was a child of God that I obeyed my father’s commands. Listen to this now: You are not God’s child because you follow rules of the Bible. You follow rules of the Bible because you are God’s child!
Adam and Eve were God’s children. Children disobey and need corrected. And God never tires of loving His children! God never shrugs his shoulders and says, “oh well.”
B. The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)
I love the story of the prodigal son! You remember the story right?
A father had two sons. The younger of his two sons wanted his share of the inheritance and the father gave it to him. Not too long after that, the younger son took his money and went and lived life HIS way. The Bible says that he spent it on wild living. If you can think of it, he spent his money on it. And of course his money ran out. So he came home to his father desiring to be one of his servants. So his father made him one of his servants to work off everything he had squandered.
No. You know how it ends. The father threw a party! Why? Because God NEVER GROWS TIRED OF LOVING HIS KIDS!
CONCLUSION: And so God, left the glory and splendor of heaven, to come and walk in the garden of Eden to search for His missing children. And He called out to them: WHERE ARE YOU? Because GOD NEVER GROWS TIRED OF LOVING HIS KIDS.
And in the gospel accounts, we read that God once again left the glory and splendor of heaven, and was born in a manger, and lived, breathed, ate, and slept on this earth. And while he was crucified on the cross of Calvary, His blood cried out: Where are you?
Why? BECAUSE GOD NEVER GROWS TIRED OF LOVING HIS KIDS!
Maybe you’re here today and you’ve been here every Sunday for as long as you can remember, but you feet distant from God. You feel so far from his love. From his approval. And so, you are hiding from God and until today, you weren’t willing to admit it. Won’t you come forward today and accept God’s love! Or maybe you’re here and you’ve never accepted God’s son Jesus. You’ve never made the public commitment of being baptized for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the holy spirit. This time of decision is for you! Come forward as we stand and sing together and call out to God!
Before you can go any further in your relationship with God, you first have to answer the question: WHERE ARE YOU? Won’t you answer that question today!
