OPEN: A mother told about her 7-year-old daughter, Jessica. Jessica always seemed to understand the deeper things of Scripture. One time they were reading the story of Adam and Eve and talked about how sin had come into the world. But then, later that week, Jessica became ill and had to stay home from school. She felt miserable… and said to her mother: “If only Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the fruit, I wouldn’t be sick.” But before the mother could answer, she quickly added, “But, of course, if they didn’t eat it, we’d be sitting here naked!” (Sarah Ames, Kobe, Japan)
The story of Adam and Eve has always had that unique aspect to it - they ate of the fruit and then realized (pause) they were naked. God came down into the garden and called out: “Adam where are you?” And Adam replied "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." And God said… "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat of the tree I told you not to eat of?”
WHO TOLD YOU YOU WERE NAKED?
But wait…. they were always naked! When God first created Adam and Eve we’re told: “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Genesis 2:25
ILLUS: I recently heard a preacher talk about the loss of innocence. He spoke of watching his 2 year old son playing in the pool with a 2 yr. old girl. They were both naked. And it didn’t seem to bother the kids, and it didn’t bother the parents. because there was no shame… there was only innocence. But that innocence was what was lost at garden.
ILLUS: A preacher was conducting a Bible study in his home, and he asked those present if they could give an example of those different types of love. His little daughter held up her hand and the preacher said, “OK Sarah, what example do you have of love?” The little girl smiled and said “Sometimes daddy takes a shower with mommy.” (Christian Standard 9/11/94)
That little girl wasn’t embarrassed, because in her mind that was innocent and natural. And that was how it was with Adam and Eve in the beginning. They were naked, and they weren’t ashamed because they were innocent. There was no lewd thoughts, no vulgar imagination. But all that changed when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Their sin robbed US (and them) of innocence.
So in Genesis 2 we’re told they were naked and NOT ashamed… but now - after they ate of the fruit - they’re naked and ashamed. What’s changed? THE SHAME. They were ashamed now after they’d eaten the fruit. Not just with regard to sexual behavior… but with everything. Innocence was gone!
(PAUSE) Now, this sermon series is focused on the idea that God REVERSED the CURSE. The sin of Adam and Eve brought a curse upon mankind, and this curse that robbed us of God’s blessings. The world around us has become perverted and corrupted all because of Adam and Eve’s decision. Their decision robbed us of innocence and replaced it with shame.
ILLUS: The TV network “Hulu” is airing a documentary called “Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby.” For those of you aren’t familiar with Brooke Shields, she was a “sex symbol” of the day. At age 11 she was filmed in the nude for a 1978 movie “Pretty Baby”. At age 14, she starred in a movie called “The Blue Lagoon” where she played the part of a young girl who was trapped on an island with a boy she gradually “fell in love with” with all the innuendo of sexual interplay. As a result, Shields was robbed of her innocence by unscrupulous and manipulative folks in Hollywood. And in the documentary, she explained that this atmosphere she grew up in made it so she was “paralyzed from shame." And that shame later damaged her real-life relationships. (https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/brooke-shields-apologized-dean-cain-not-easy-college-relationship)
It was like she was saying that she was hiding from intimacy because of what she’d lost. She’d lost the innocence of her youth, and that robbed her of many of the joys of life. You see, the reason folks struggle with shame is because they recognize what they’ve lost.
ILLUS: Years ago I read the story of a police station where there’d just been a major take down of a prostitution ring. And one of the girls who’d been arrested could be heard repeatedly crying: “This isn’t who I am!” What did she mean? She meant – I’m not really a prostitute. This isn’t WHO I am! Being a prostitute wasn’t how she saw herself. In the back of her mind was the image of what she believed she could have been. In the back of her mind was the belief that she was meant to be MORE than what she’d become. Because in the back of her mind was the belief that she had been created to be something special. That she was a child made in the image of God. She might not have said it that way… but that’s what she’d lost. She’d been robbed of her specialness, of her innocence and that was the curse of the garden.
Adam and Eve had been robbed in the Garden. And so were you and I. And so was that woman in the police station. Adam and Eve’s sin robbed us of something very special.
ILLUS: And God had been robbed too. There was a little girl, that whenever she got a “boo-boo” she would always ask her Daddy to “put a band-aid on it.” Most of the boo-boos did not warrant a band-aid. Most were not even worthy of the name boo-boo. But her dad loved to make a big deal over the boo-boo and kissed it and put a band-aid on it. It was usually a waste of a band-aids, but the band-aids were cheap, and it was a small price to pay for their special time. It made him feel ten feet tall because she thought he could fix anything. But one day she got a scratch and Daddy ran inside the house and got a band-aid. To his surprise, when he tried to put it on - she wouldn’t let him. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I don’t want to wear that band-aid.” She replied. “Why? You have a cut, you need a band-aid.” he said. “I’ll look silly.” She answered. Now there was no one else in the yard. None of her friends were over. There were NO cars were streaming past the house. The world was pretty empty at that moment. But for the first time that the dad could remember… his little girl felt shame. She had discovered shame. Somewhere, somehow, this little 5-year-old had learned to be afraid of looking silly. And her Dad fought back tears as he realized that their special time was over, and things would never be the same again. She was now more worried about what other people would think about her than she was about special time she’d had with her Dad who could fix anything. And the DAD… FELT… ROBBED. One of the sweetest and most precious things in his life had been stolen. And he quietly asked his daughter... “Who told you that you were silly?”
What he was really saying was this, “Who did this terrible thing? Who robbed you of your innocence, of your naïveness? WHO… ROBBED… ME? And that must have been how God felt that day in the garden when he called to Adam, and Adam did not want to come. Adam did not want to return to their special time together and did not could not respond in innocence and purity to his God! The whole place, the whole relationship had been spoiled. Perverted. It was gone!!! It was not just the sin. Yes, the sin had spoiled the whole thing. Yes, sin had messed it up. But the real problem was not just the sin... it was the nakedness. Adam’s feeling that he was not good enough that he was damaged goods and that he was not worthy of God’s love. The real problem is that it robbed Adam... and God... of the very special relationship they had. It drove a wedge between them... placed distance between them. And God asked... WHO DID THIS? Who told you, you were naked? WHO ROBBED ME!!!! (Rick Pendleton)
Now, here’s my point: The curse of the Garden was that it robbed US - and it robbed God - of a very special relationship God wanted to have with us.
ILLUS: There is this mindset that God hates us because of our sin, and so He wouldn’t want you around. It’s kind of like the churches that want you until you’ve really SINNED! And once you’ve really SINNED, the church says: “there’s the door … don’t let it hit you on the way out!” They say that because that’s how they think God works. They see God as being unforgiving, unmerciful, and unloving. He’ll love you UNTIL you step over THE LINE! And then He’ll hate you!
But God doesn’t hate you. He loves you. In fact, He so loved YOU (the world) that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. HE LOVES YOU!!! But he doesn’t love you IN your sin - He loves you IN SPITE of your sin. Your sin (and mine) has robbed us of the intimacy God has wanted to have with us. And the only way God could deal with our sins and reclaim us for His own was to cover our nakedness.
So… how do you do that? How do you cover your nakedness, so you can get close to God?
Well, one way is to do it yourself. Take a few fig leaves, sew them together and call it good! That’s what Adam and Eve did. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” Genesis 3:7
And Fig leaves can work… until you get a good stiff breeze. Then things could get embarrassing. Fig leaves don’t hold up real well in real life! Fig leaves symbolize the foolishness of you and I trying to cover OUR OWN sins. People put on their fig leaves by pointing to their “good works”, or by pointing to the fact that their friends and neighbors have fewer fig leaves than they do.
But God says – “It doesn’t matter. Your good deeds can’t cover enough to hide your nakedness. All have sinned a fall short of the glory of God.
So – if that’s true - how could we possibly cover our nakedness. I mean, if our good deeds can’t do it, what could cover us? And God says: “Let me do it for you.” Way back in the book of Genesis, way back in the Garden of Eden, God declared, your fig leaves won’t get the job done. So let me do it for you. And “the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21
Man’s attempt at covering his sin was a flimsy garment of leaves. But then God gave Adam and Eve garments of skins. These skins were far warmer, and far more covering, than those silly leaves ever could be. But there was something even more significant about those garments of skin: In order for there to be skins for those coverings of Adam and Eve’s sin something had to die. Something had to die to cover their shame and guilt. Something had to be sacrificed to deal with their nakedness and sin.
And the Bible teaches us that - in the same way, there had to a sacrifice to cover your sins and mine. Some(thing) or some(one) had to die to cover our nakedness. Isaiah 53:6 prophesied that that was why Jesus came to die on the cross: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — everyone — to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all.”
Our sin, our nakedness, our loss of innocence… was ALL laid on Jesus. Jesus died for your sins and His blood covers you and all our iniquity. And it all started in the Garden, where animals who had to die to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve nakedness. And it all was all fulfilled by Jesus on a lonely cross at Calvary.
CLOSE: So, how do I put on Christ? How do I accept His sacrifice to cover my sins? That answer is found in Galatians 3:27 “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have CLOTHED yourselves with Christ.” When we were buried in the waters of baptism we were literally wrapped in Jesus. His righteousness covered us like a garment. And that – of course – was the genius of God’s design. For when we go down into the waters of baptism we are literally wrapped in the waters, as in a garment.
But the garment we receive thru Jesus was far better than ones Adam & Eve were given: Their garments would eventually wear out; Their garments would eventually be torn and stained; And their garments would ultimately become shabby and not worth wearing. And worse than that - even the garments of skin God made for Adam and Eve would NEVER ALLOW THEM back into God’s presence. No matter how long they wore those garments of skin, they’d never be allowed to re-enter the Garden.
But when you and I put on Jesus that all changed. Hebrews 10:14-23 “… by one sacrifice (Jesus) has made perfect forever those who are being made holy… Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more… Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”
Unlike Adam and Eve, the garments of skins - the garment Jesus supplied us with - gives us the privilege of boldly coming into God’s presence and enjoying His love and compassion on a personal level.
INVITATION
